- by Prin Johnston

My mom was 7 years old when the priest came and tried to steal her away from her grandmother. Her grandmother begged that she stay home and help her on the farm. The priest left that day childless but came back a few days later with the RCMP and stole my mother away from her home, her family and her life.

My mom grew up in the Spanish Indian Residential School. The 2nd generation to do so. Her mother also attended the same school and when she returned home - she was frightened and traumatized by her experience, suffering depression and addiction to prescription drugs and later serious health issues. 

I've often looked for childhood photos of my mom in these old pictures. I've never found any or maybe I just don't recognize her.

They had a boys school and a girls school at Spanish. Her brothers attended the school across the road. Once a month they were allowed to stand at the fences and call out across the road to their siblings.

My mom was released from Spanish when she turned 16 years old. They gave her a bus ticket to Toronto and sent her there. A grade 8 education if even that! She never got to say goodbye to her brothers when she left. She saw them when they were released years later.

My mom talked about the cries of terror from little children arriving at school through the night. She took it upon herself to try and comfort the babies and would gather them at the Line that had been drawn on the floorboards....separating the older children from the younger babies arriving. She would gather them to her, whispering and trying to comfort them in anishnabemowin, our original language - "be strong" "don't cry" "youll be ok, just do as you're told".

She said she could still hear their cries all the years later. My mom was haunted by those cries for her entire life. She was horribly traumatized by that experience. My mom told me that she felt that she was a bad girl because the police arrested her and she was imprisoned as a child. She grieved and cried often but it wasn't until later in her life that she actually gave her experiences a voice.

There's so much more to a life than what is seen on the outside. In all of her trauma, my mom remained kind, generous and definitely possessed a wisdom that came from her experiences.

Thinking of mom today and the trauma that binds us.