Canada Day has always been a family day for me. For years it was spent with my Dad and then my brother with friends and family on the water watching the fireworks most often in Ganges Harbour off Salt Spring Island. Moving to Bella Bella made the day more stressful as colonialism split the ranks. I understand and when the anthem says Our Home AND Native Land it should say ON but I am still distinctly proud to answer the question, where are you from? No nation on this planet has a perfect record for the way it has treated others at some point in history. I would not want to hide the horrble (recent) history we have with residential schools and cultural abolishment or the Japanese Internment just to name two. I would like to think we are still growing and awakening to our horror, owning our past and making restitution, choosing to be better. Our country is young comparatively and we must see the need for change and the power in growth and unity.
I suspect in my lifetime there will be many many changes, some good, some a few steps backward as people often find change difficult. Imagine though if change was not difficult but near to impossible, if your life was literally shaped by the ugliness inflicted on your immediate ancestors and generations before them. You would be bitter, you would want a revolution, you would want what was rightfully yours.
To have what was yours returned, many need to give up their entitlement. This is the unsettling part for many… what will it cost me to do what is right?
But I ask you this… what will it cost us all if we don’t. The answer lies in the future, we are making toddler steps towards it. We need help, we need to ask the hard questions and be ready to hear the answers. I don’t have them but I am listening….
I have faith in the next generation. They are smart and aware and connected and could move mountains. I want to live long enough to see everyone in this country proud to say: I AM CANADIAN
Note: I was going to write about Danika & Emmy coming for coffee this morning, about adventures with Layla (the dog I am sitting), mowing again before the storm, the crazy wind that rattled the house, going for dinner with Rae-Anne to catch up on month’s of not doing that, watching Mudbound which is not for the faint of heart.. but what came out was what I ended up writing. It was quite the first day of my new life, not without stress, but when I flipped the calendar this morning, I liked what it said. And then D & E blessed me with fresh picked strawberries!
triumphgal 