When the Truth about What Happened to People is Told

@trc_en: I will hug my kids, tell them I love them and be thankful that they are safe in my arms and not in Residential School.

When I read the following tweets last night, I started to formulate a post about the residential school experience, its legacy and affect on First Nations people and the challenges that grow as a result.  But, I am silenced by the power of the tweets themselves and so I will just reshare them here for you.  I may, or may not comment on them later.  These are people who are living with ghosts and pain that I cannot even imagine.  The children and grandchildren of these survivors also deserve to be called survivors.  They have suffered at the hands of the policy that created the residential schools and they are allowed, finally, to start the healing journey now that the survivors have been allowed their voice.

@trc_en: We'd write letters to our parents that nuns wrote on the chalkboard so they wouldn't find out what was happening. -Ben Sillyboy #atlHearings

@trc_en: One girl was blind. She was told to read, but she couldn't because she was blind. They strapped her. -Survivor #atlHearings #aboriginal

@trc_en: One boy stuttered; was told to read. He couldn't. They stuck wedge of wood in his mouth; left it there all day. -survivor #atlHearings #fnmi

@trc_en: Some children were so afraid of peeing the bed, they slept on the toilet all night wrapped in a blanket. -survivor #atlHearings #fnmi

@trc_en: Parents wld send packages for xmas; we'd open them, allowed to look then the nuns'd take toys away to send to orphanage. -atlHearings #fnmi

@trc_en: I remember some children vomiting and being forced to eat their vomit. -Survivor #atlHearings #aboriginal #cruelty

@trc_en:  When I left res. school I was ashamed of being an Indian. When you watched TV, you rooted for the cowboys. #atlHearings #aboriginal

@trc_en:  I was ashamed of being an Indian until Rita Joe started writing her poems. -survivor #atlHearings #aboriginal

@trc_en:  Reconciliation is much more difficult when the truth about what happened to people is told. -Fr MacNeil #atlHearings #aboriginal

Thank you @trc_en for sharing these voices.