Uneasy Me, #FTSF

“It’s not easy to be me.”

Superman’s Dead (It’s Not Easy) – Five For Fighting

Superman was always one of the last of the superhero stories I would choose. I was always more of a Batman girl. I don’t know how many Superman films I watched there for a while, but none of them stuck with me as being particularly interesting. I didn’t understand the whole backstory or even the definition or importance of kryptonite.

That’s why, when I read this week’s FTSF prompt, I froze in my tracks, unsure if I would write anything at all, have anything to link up with.

I looked up the meaning, refreshed my memory, but still drew a blank. Kryptonite meaning, basically, weakness and still I was coming up with nothing.

Come on, I nudged myself over the last few days. You’ve got to have a weakness. What is it? What would be the main one?

I am working on writing my memoir. It seemed like a perfect moment in time to start again, as I think back on the twenty years, exactly, that I was diagnosed with kidney disease as a frightened twelve-year-old.

Since that point I have been called brave and inspirational many many times. How did I do it? How was it that I managed to survive feeling so sick, dialysis, and surgery to have a transplanted kidney from my father?

I am not as strong as all those well-meaning family, friends, medical professionals, and acquaintances assumed. I don’t want what happened twenty years ago, what was only really a few years out of my whole life, to define me forever. I try to get past it, really, but I keep going back to it and writing my story down is a big part of that.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s even a good idea. Maybe I should just move on and look ahead. That’s what I am doing, but then I turn my head round and admit to myself that what happened during those rough months, all those years ago now, that stuff left its mark on me and I can’t honestly say I don’t look back in reflection.

My kryptonite is the past. It’s the affect a physical illness had on my body, my mind, the girl I was trying to grow into.

It influences my body image even now, as a grown woman.

When I was treated I was clearly under-weight and malnourished. I was lacking proper vitamins and minerals, things the kidneys are supposed to take care of.

I stayed stable on dialysis and I had the transplant. This got me back to a healthy state, but I went from being barely eighty pounds, maybe less, at age twelve. My puberty was hugely disrupted. I was not growing.

Once I had a working kidney, one being all you technically require, I began to gain weight. I gained weight as a side effect of more than one of the medications I had to go on.

I remember standing on our bathroom scale, realizing I was ninety-two pounds, and starting to panic. I wasn’t relieved I was gaining. I was horrified.

I was weighed every time I went on and off the dialysis machines. This was necessary, to monitor my fluid loss and gain, but it played havoc with my head. I was shown to focus on weight, at a time I shouldn’t have had to, when only months before I was pushed to put on the pounds.

Now, the weight was coming on abnormally quickly and I was visited by dieticians who went over the list of foods to stay away from if I didn’t want to gain even more weight.

So now I like my chocolate but I also like my fruit.

At Easter I love chocolate eggs, but come summer I go nuts eating strawberries, peas straight from the pod, peaches, and apples for weeks and weeks on end. They are really all I want to eat.

All in moderation. Diets don’t work. Or avoid some foods entirely?

I can list all the excuses in the book as to why exercise and weight loss hasn’t been easy for me, but I know I am not alone. I must keep plugging away at it, remaining mindful of it. I don’t want to make excuses, to use chronic pain or my blindness as reasons why I am now gradually gaining weight over time. I only get my kidney checked twice a year, but they still take my weight at the start of these appointments, and I am forced to look back and try to recall what the scale read six months before, to keep track, somewhat, of where I’m at. So although I don’t keep checking my weight on my bathroom scale every morning, I’m made to be accountable, every time November/April rolls around.

Yes, the meds have decreased, things are more moderate now, but the damage is done – floodgates have been wide open for twenty years. I deal with something so many people deal with, I know. Emotions also play a part and my psychological state becomes a factor.

Can I keep things under control? Can I not let the events of my past rule my present or influence the future?

My kryptonite are the stretch marks I’ve had (not from a pregnancy, like most women my age), but since I was on high doses of prednisone, when I was fourteen years old. I can feel the clear visible evidence of how it all began and I feel weak because I can’t keep things in balance as much of the time as I’d like, but that’s why I write about it all. I hope that part doesn’t make me weak. I don’t feel all that brave or inspirational and I don’t want the weaknesses I live with to bring me down. They do serve as reminders of the scars of my past and the toughness, as they’ve driven these bits of my past in deep.

Now I’m off to go eat a mango and some chocolate.

🙂

The brains behind this week’s FTSF is

Lisa Crisp Witherspoon

of The Golden Spoons.

Kryptonite – 3 Doors Down

And, as always, Kristi of

Finding Ninee.

In The News and On My Mind: Sticks and Stones

“Watching the news in the evening is a bit like being on an emotional Tilt-aWhirl. “Isis now sets people on fire.” “Harper Lee has a new book out!” “Some oddballs are bringing measles back because they’re scared of autism, which is a bit like saying I’m worried about birthday candles, so let’s start a forest fire.” “It’s going to be gorgeous this weekend!” “Look, a politician being deliberately rude.” “And also, look at these adorable puppies!” My limbic system does not work that fast!”
–JEG

Here we are again, going in circles.

Again, President Obama, Stephen Colbert, and John Oliver are compelled to speak about gun violence.

And, I guess, so am i…

President Obama Speaks At Press Conference For Oregon Mass Shooting

There are more causes with days or weeks or month recognition in October than I could shake a stick at.

😉

This week I focus on mental illness, because it is the week to recognize that people are suffering and, once more, we are forced to talk about it because havoc has been caused in its name.

In my Facebook newsfeed, I can’t keep track of the causes and their turns to be highlighted, but most of it hits me hard, has touched my own life in some way.

I’ve been rereading some Harry Potter lately and I began to think about weapons in that magical world. They have their wands, which are like our guns, and then there’s Hagrid’s trusty bow and arrow.

Okay, so just this week, in Toronto, a man was found dead after being shot with an arrow. It happens, in all sorts of ways. We kill each other and we can’t seem to stop.

I think about the way it was, hundreds of years ago, when there were arrows and swords.

Now we have guns.

People are going to die, be it from an arrow, a bullet, a blade, or a drug.

Those who feel alone or have no support will lose the battle sometimes. It’s up to those who have had the support, to give that support right back to others.

Stephen Colbert said, “Insanity is changing nothing and pretending something will change”.

I hope we never lose the humour, his type of humour and honesty, in the face of these hard and harsh realities.

The LAte Show, Stephen Colbert – Some Thoughts On Pretending

Rowling’s wizards could and did horrible damage and caused horrific cruelty with their wands, but this was mostly due to evil groups such as Lord Voldemort’s Death Eaters.

Law abiding wizards used their wands, more than we use guns, specifically speaking in Canada, but still I say you could compare it to the world a lot of people want to live in, most often in the US. They want a gun accessible, for a feeling of security and a way to protect themselves and their loved ones, in the case of a dangerous intruder threatening them.

Whether it’s a bow and arrow or a shot gun, hunting was and is a way of life for people, for need or for sport, in Canada and elsewhere.

I don’t know a lot about guns and I don’t know the laws and the loopholes. I do know that the battle is between us and them, one side against another and I don’t like it. It’s about one side saying “they” want to take “our” guns away from us.

Then the other side says they want less mass shootings.

I can’t help but think of a time when settlers came to this continent, us against them, and guns were introduced.

Us and them. Us and them. Us and them. It never ends.

It never ends and I’m sick of it.

I know which side I am on, but then I realize just how futile being on any side is. Where has it gotten us? Why can’t any sort of compromise be reached? Why are humans so stubborn, immovable, and unwilling to bend at all?

And then the two sides fight over mental illness.

Mental illness or guns?

Where does that put the people with those illnesses, the vulnerable? How do they feel?

This week is Mental Illness Awareness Week and my next post will be one I’ve wanted to write for over a year, but I couldn’t resist including John’s clip here because it is part of this conversation.

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver – Worst Time To Talk About Mental Health

His idea is a radical one, a drastic one, and one the one side would totally discount, but again his honesty in the humour he dishes out is worth listening to.

I’ve enjoyed John Oliver since I first saw him with a role in the show Community, but take a look at John’s segment because I want to do more for mental health, as my next post will continue to demonstrate.

I think we need to not focus on one over the other. We need to focus on both. Why oh why are we always so quick to pick one side, divide, separate? Why do we go to extremes?

Don’t we use the term “extremist” for violent and evil terrorists?

Someone who would storm into a classroom, movie theatre, shopping mall with a gun or guns able to take down many people is committing an act of terrorism, aren’t they? They are terrorizing people.

Are they mentally unstable, ill, sick, disturbed? Call it anything you like. It’s an extreme and it is terrorizing.

Oh, but those people are going to the extreme of an extreme, right? We all like our extremes, our sides, but we aren’t like them, oh no.

Most people with mental illness aren’t ever going to shoot up a place. Some could commit an act of violence, but mostly it ends up being on themselves, as with conditions like self harm, cutting, or suicidal ideation.

When a mother drowns her three children and then herself, that makes the news. When the mother kills her children and not herself, we see her face as she stands before the judge and jury to accept the verdict.

We condemn her for hurting the innocent, but how do we prevent that from ever taking shape to begin with?

As with the latest mass shooting, we hear about it for a long time and the ripples can be felt spreading out, in every direction. People do use these occasions to back up whatever facts or points they want to get across, for their own reasons. It becomes political instead of social or humanitarian. Then we do move on, or most of us do.

We don’t hear about the every day struggles of mental illness in someone’s life. We don’t want to, we choose not to, would prefer to avoid hearing about that part of the story, the ugly, that part that comes before the possible tragedy. I read a lot of these stories on the blogs I come across. The ones I read about are the stories that will hopefully have a happy ending.

Like this one, for instance.

When suicide can be and is avoided, it’s a wonderful thing, but it is an ongoing struggle for most people. We need to be aware of it, be honest about it, find humour in the good parts of life to help combat it.

I don’t know why we listen to the news or a press conference really. Can what’s being said really mean anything lasting or practical? I must, like everyone else, try not to let the negative futility take over my thoughts.

Like John says, we owe people more than just words. We owe them a plan.

For me, here, words are the plan, but I don’t know the answer for a plan to prevent tragedy like we see again and again and again.

I am not afraid. I don’t live in a dangerous part of town. I have support and love in my life. I don’t live in poverty.

I do not fear for my life. I do not carry a gun. I think you would probably agree that not being able to see and guns don’t mix and I would agree too.

🙂

I wish they weren’t in the hands of anyone who couldn’t be sure of being proper and safe, but are any of us truly guaranteed safety with a gun in the picture?

Some would say yes. They would feel powerful and in control. Us against them. Me against them.

😦

Then another shooting makes my television’s news program and the insanity continues.

An eleven-year-old boy shoots an eight-year-old girl.

And I curse guns all the more. They didn’t keep that little girl safe. They didn’t keep her alive. They won’t permit her to grow up and have a future.

I can’t find a smidge of humour in that, honestly.

Dear Congress – Sincerely, A Mass Shooting Survivor

Not only has this particular, firsthand account received a huge amount of attention, but even my comment I left, from my perspective as a Canadian has received several likes, more than I would normally get.

We need different perspectives and we need to pay a little more attention and learn a little something from all of them.

I see a climate of fear and one that perpetuates violence. I see that being so deeply ingrained in US culture specifically.

I may be blind, but I am not blind to what things might be like here in Canada. I know it’s not my experience, but my somewhat sheltered life has put me at a greater position of hopefully having a better understanding, somehow and somewhere among all the chaos.

Nothing will change, as fatalistic as that might sound, as long as this deeply ingrained fear persists, if the “them against us” view of the world continues, no matter what country is in the headlines.

As the well-known rhyme says, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”.

Sticks. Stones. Words. Lies.

Then there was the story that just broke about a comedian/actor who told an awful lie. He’s been busted and a lot of Americans would like to see him hung out to dry for it.

Words. A few little words and a story of exaggeration, told in a small group of people, and nothing more might have come of that, if it weren’t concerning the sensitive subject of September 11th.

Steve Rannazzisi Comes Clean About 9/11 Lie

He speaks about this to Howard Stern and Howard listens, gives the guy the chance to explain and to begin to apologize, but does not take calls. Probably a good idea. There’s always Twitter and the rest of the Internet for that.

I wasn’t involved in 9/11 and so I’m not quite so raw over the matter I guess.

That September 11th, it seemed bigger than I could possibly comprehend on that day, but these things happen in the world.

I am a fan of The League, ever since I was introduced to it by someone a few years ago. Who would have thought that a show about fantasy football would be my kind of show, but when I actually sat down and gave it a chance, I liked the humour and the guys and the characters they played.

Steve didn’t directly hurt me. I can give the guy a break. Others can’t. Outrage and anger for some. Forgiveness for others. Compassion from me because I am able.

Listening to the interview was interesting. With my interest in psychology, it is fascinating to hear someone explain, justify, rationalize something so irrational as pretending they were involved in something so horrible. What kind of a person would or could do that? A lonely one. An insecure one. A misguided, attention seeking, weak guy in a weak moment.

I just recently saw a program about a woman who insinuated herself into online grief chat rooms with 9/11 survivors and the families of those who lost their lives.

She did it for money or for a hole inside. How is Steve all that different?

People’s intentions matter. Their actions, for some, matter more.

Compassion is the way we should be leaning. Anger is the tempting route to take. Violence and weapons go hand in hand. Hatred and anger feed off of each other.

Guns kill. The line, guns don’t kill people, people kill people has been bandied about so much. It’s becoming a cliche. People kill other people with guns. I am not for banning things altogether because I know, like with drugs, that doesn’t solve the problem. I am for compromises, understanding, and care..

Terrorism kills.

I firmly believe we can not bend under the pressure, snap, and let the hate win. Words can be used for good, for positivity, for kindness. I use my words for that.

Next week, for In The News and On My Mind I will talk more about immigration, refugees, and the federal election here in Canada.

Do I vote? Will I vote? Will it make any difference whatsoever if I do or don’t?

Ordinary Miracles: Part One

It’s not what’s often seen in the movies or on television, the woman screaming bloody murder and, “I WANT DRUGS!!!”, as doctors and nurses all around her yell: “PUSH!” – at least, not in my sister’s case. It wasn’t exactly what I’d pictured. It happened so fast. It felt like a blur, but a vivid and memorable one. It was special and it all seemed to happen as it should.

She was quick about it – my sister, true to form, had the baby out before any of us could blink. So quick in fact, it was like we were all almost late to the delivery, including her. I knew it would be a boy, just as I knew it would be a girl for my brother and his wife before. Everyone always says they just had a feeling and I did, I just knew it. One moment he wasn’t there, just this concept of what he might be in our minds, and the next he was out and a part of our family.

I think, as close as we are, she mainly agreed to have me in the room because she could be assured I wouldn’t see anything. One perk of having a sister, blind since birth, was that having me there wouldn’t make her feel any more embarrassed or exposed. We were expecting a labor lasting hours. I was prepared for a marathon. Instead, it was a sprint for my older sister. It was a relatively easy labor, as labours go.

That August day, my sister and her husband awoke in the early morning, to the alarm clock: him to get ready for work and her to labor pains. She assured him he could and should go to work because maybe it was only false contractions. The first stage of labor could take hours that she preferred be spent at home. However, within the hour the pains were so intense, she called and ordered him back immediately. I was awakened at 6:00 a.m. by the startling sound of the phone. She was a few weeks early, ahead of her due date, but I wasn’t totally surprised.

I was honoured to be asked to be a witness, one of few, to the birth of this child who’d been so desperately wanted, yet at such a high price and with so many intense struggles and plenty of tears. The miracle of birth is unmatched in its beauty and magic, yet it can seem like the most natural and ordinary of life events for people, all around the world, every single day. This isn’t the case for everyone. It hadn’t been so easy for my sister and her husband.

I was there before the mother-to-be. As I sat and waited for them to arrive, flashes of my sister unable to make it to the hospital and giving birth in their car, at the side of the road flitted through my anxious mind. Leave it to my chronically late sister to be late for this. As I heard her being wheeled passed out in the hallway, my fears were put to rest. I hadn’t really been waiting long, but it sure felt like it.

As I entered the Labor and Delivery Room, the nervous father-to-be had only just spilled his bottle of Diet Coke all over the floor. In his excited frenzy, the cola he’d brought in preparation for any presumed hours of labor and a possible diabetic low blood sugar had exploded, at a most inopportune moment. He was scrambling to clean up the sticky mess while I held tight to my sister’s hand in his place, none of us realizing how soon it would be all over. She squeezed as she fought through the contractions, vowing to refrain from any pain control or epidural. I wondered how her pain threshold would hold up against hours of continuous, growing, and building agony, but within a very short half hour or so, he was out.

All the chaos and the things that could and did go wrong: doctors showing up late (not to mention the parents) and with Coke spills and alike, I barely got to take it all in. I could only imagine how the experience felt for the two of them. She’d pushed through her contractions, squeezed my hand, and made very little sound, nothing like I’d learned for years in the media. Suddenly, after only three hours from when it all began, there he was.

As easy as this all sounds, it was really only fair to them, due to how difficult it was to actually arrive at this point. The struggle and the fortitude of the two of them, in dealing with everything they had to bring him into the world and into our lives is something truly remarkable. I witnessed it all from my position as sister and housemate for a good chunk of the time. They had been trying for a baby since becoming man and wife, and it had been the longest three years of their lives.

Infertility is becoming more and more of an open subject in our society today, with friends and family, in the community, and through media coverage. It is talked about, not just behind closed doors, unlike years ago. This allows for much more discussion and the reluctance to speak about the many struggles couples go through becomes a thing of the past.

Having a baby – it all seemed so normal when teachers spoke about it in sex ed. It was what was supposed to happen, right? Well, when it doesn’t happen like that, women are faced with the fears and the questions that medical science must try to address and alleviate, such as:

What’s wrong with me?

Why can’t I have a baby like other women?

It feels like a crippling burden of failure, that I am not a real woman if I can’t do what a woman is supposed to do, was made to be able to do. To be a parent is a deeply entrenched and unbelievably strong instinct, from what I’ve seen and felt up close. I felt it too, but can’t yet see how it fits into my own life. Being blind presents a whole new set of concerns and fears. Sometimes the answers aren’t as simple as whether or not to have a child. I struggle with this in my own mind, yet still I am left able to relate to my sister and her husband, and their own situation, in my own way.

I wanted, what my sister desperately wanted, for them and their need to start and grow a family for themselves. The pressure of that can be a very great weight. I saw it and felt it in the words they spoke and how they spoke them. I felt it in the air after their wedding and over time, as I shared a house with them for the first few years of their marriage. I saw it all up close and I yearned for the success of this most important of ventures, the most important they would ever face together. Young newly weds aren’t usually tested so early on as to the ultimate strength of their relationship.

Soon came the pressures of doctors visits and monitoring cycles of ovulation, or lack thereof. It was a lot of information, trying to learn all about infertility and its causes; how sometimes there is an explanation and other times it is simply known as unexplained infertility. It really can’t be seen as one person’s problem or fault. I see so easily how these fears and guilty feelings can cause a rift between an otherwise happy couple, so eager to experience parenthood and to make a child, a part of both of them. It’s sad and, like financial problems in a marriage, the intrinsic need to have a child can be the one thing to drive a wedge in a loving relationship. this wasn’t going to happen to my sister. We as a family weren’t going to let them be disappointed and left empty-handed. I wanted this as much or more than I’d ever wanted anything for myself.

It is cruel how much it costs to get what comes so naturally, free and clear to some people. It feels like paying for oxygen – getting pregnant shouldn’t need a category in the budget, where a couple who works hard and only wants a family has to scramble to come up with the money to pay for medications and the cost of infertility treatments. Not everyone has the resources and the giving nature and spirit as we have in our family, as they had in our parents. Our parents are indescribably generous and kind. They’ve worked hard for many years to give their children the things we’ve wanted, the things they’ve wanted for us since we were born. They made it all possible.

However, along with these gifts there comes the inevitable landslide of guilt and worry. As the cost began adding up, thousands and thousands of dollars, so did the feeling of:

“What if it doesn’t work and all that money was wasted, with nothing to show for it?”

As the weeks and months of medications and treatments passed, the pressure built. On one such occasion, I recall hearing my sister shaking uncontrollably with sobs of despair. Such a thing rocks one to the core and I hurt beyond explanation for her that night. She feared failed rounds of IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) – a procedure where sperm is injected directly into the uterus. Had that all been for nothing?

They were lucky to find a very supportive and capable fertility clinic. When they were there, they felt heard, understood, and taken care of. All the trips for blood tests and ultrasounds and the disappointing phone calls, with no baby – it was all starting to add up. Adoption, child fostering, or a life with no children flashed before their eyes I’m sure. Was all of this worth it?

When the IUI attempts didn’t work, the next logical step was to try IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) – where the sperm is injected directly into the egg, which is then inserted back into the uterus. She went through all the necessary steps, the needles she gave herself, often helped along by her husband, and the hormones. All this lead up to a summer of hope and disappointment and pain. We all learned of the existence of “Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome” – a condition where the body produces, with help from all those medications, many eggs for possible fertilization. In my sister’s case, more than thirty were produced to another woman’s one or two – with this, the ovaries become over-stimulated, resulting in extreme illness. She appeared six months pregnant, almost at once, when not even confirmed to be so; all that fluid, released by the ovaries, began leaking into her abdomen. This is, however, a positive sign of a successful pregnancy.

That same summer, I was told by a friend of her first pregnancy and I was left with so much joy in my heart for her, yet so much anger that so many women were seemingly able to become pregnant so easily. Why then was it so hard for others, just as deserving of a baby? Life seemed horribly unfair at that juncture.

Then, a glimmer of hope; a call from the clinic with the blood results showed good numbers, indicating optimal chances for a positive pregnancy test. My sister appeared to have what she wanted and what we all wanted for her. It was finally happening – it was necessary, at such an early stage, to monitor the numbers and make sure they continued to rise. Every few days she anxiously call and things looked good; yet, things aren’t always meant to be.

When a pregnancy isn’t meant to be, it’s probably for the best, but which makes it a tragic loss nonetheless. I sat there, while our inherently positive and optimistic mother comforted my sister through her tears. I was off to see a part of the world I had always longed to see, a trip of a lifetime with an old friend, while my sister and her husband were left behind to deal with the reality of their situation. They’d had a baby for a week and lost it, before most would even know they were pregnant. I left the country wishing them all the love in the world to recover, move forward, and to begin to look ahead to brighter days.

Reconciling The Truth About Canada

On the Eve of my country’s birthday I listened to the words of a young man who spoke the truth of the experience he has had, growing up in Canada – an experience totally different from my own.

He had a turbulent childhood and youth, to put it mildly; whereas, I had stability, support, and safety.

He faced violence and gangs; whereas, I faced a disability and illness.

We are both around the same age and are Canadian, but is that all we have in common?

I don’t know very much at all about this particular guy’s culture or customs, but this video moved me and made me want to bridge that gap.

He spoke of breaking cycles and chains of abuse and neglect in his family and community, but he spoke of all these things with humour and humility.

Twenty-four hours later I stood with my own family, on my own front lawn, for a spectacular fireworks show. The lights and the bangs were all around us. I thought about the celebration we put on, to celebrate Canada, and what that really means.

I believe it’s fair to say that when the rest of the world thinks of Canada, they think polite, friendly, warm.

We live in a cold climate. We are passive. We are where the Underground Railroad ended up and where deserters fled to in protest of the Vietnam War.

We are the safe place and the non-judgmental refuge from danger and persecution, right?

Well, not always.

Are these truth or myth or a bit of both?

History books might tell a different story. If they don’t, they should and they haven’t, not nearly enough, but we shall see what history says about the time we’re now living in over the generations to come.

Canada turns 148 this year and our flag is celebrating its 50th birthday.

Last year I spoke of the ten things I love about my country, in a post I titled:

Oh Canada

This year I thought I would change directions because I can’t only highlight the things that make Canada great, without speaking up on others that are just as important, even if they aren’t quite so pleasant to think or to talk about.

None of what I have to say today means I love this country any less. It is beautiful and splendid. I love my home, but that is precisely why I believe it is necessary to bring attention to what’s been in the news and on the minds of many Canadians, including myself.

My heart has been heavy recently, as I’ve listened to the media speak about something known as The Truth and Reconciliation Commission or TRC.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

At times such as Canada Day and the recent anniversary of our first prime minister’s birth, we celebrate the man and his accomplishments. It’s known as a sign of respect for the history and the leader that he was.

Steven Harper Celebrates 200th Anniversary of Sir John A. McDonald’s Birth

Then I hear something he said:

“Take the Indian out of the child.”

These were McDonald’s words. I don’t feel quite as up to celebrating him when I let it sink in that this was his plan for a population of the country he considered a problem, an issue to be dealt with, a plan being decided on.

Possibly more than 150,000 Aboriginal children (First Nations, Inuit, and Metis) were torn away from their families and placed in residential schools. This was a way to remove most traces of their culture and make them conform to what the churches believed a child in Canada should be.

It’s being termed “Cultural Genocide”.

Of course, on automatically hearing the word genocide, the first thing that springs to mind is the Holocaust or Rwanda, 1994.

You put the word “Cultural” in front of it, of course, to slightly shift the meaning and lighten it just a bit..

An entire minority in society, considered undesirable, was not murdered, but here in Canada, for more than 100 years, a culture was destroyed, or at least a pretty damn good effort was made.

These schools were harsh and cold places. In any place like this, there are those who take advantage of their positions of authority and much sexual, physical, and psychological and emotional abuse was perpetrated on a highly vulnerable population of innocent children.

I find the common thread, which I believe every person should do, when relating to the troubles of others.

In this case, I admit I feel very strongly about the effect segregation can have. I don’t know how closely it can be compared, but for hundreds of years, children with disabilities such as blindness and deafness have been sent away, removed from their families and most of the rest of society and placed in residential schools.

Of course, there are boarding schools all over the world, and sometimes this can be a part of a successful education, but I don’t believe it is a healthy thing to send a child away from their home. In the case of a child with a disability, it seemed like the answer. If you get a bunch of children with disabilities of the same sort in one educational facility, you can then teach them all and help the students get the special support they all require.

This, however, hides them away from the rest of the world. For so long, the rest of society did not want to see these children and it made sense to keep them separate. This touches a particular nerve. I was never sent to one of these schools and I have always been grateful for that. I don’t believe segregation is the answer to anything.

I am continuously baffled by the history of the white man coming in and taking over land, territory, and whole continents from Native people.

Aboriginal, original people who inhabited the North American continent, and all the nasty things that would take place back and forth.

History class was interesting enough to me in school, but I don’t know much about treaties and rulings. I tried to educate myself on the past. Now we have arrived in 2015 and the commission is being discussed everywhere.

I hesitated because, as I say, I wasn’t sure today was the day to talk about this. Then, I worried I knew very little and do not wish to offend, but this is such a divisive subject anyway.

I’ve heard from those who suffered and from educators and scholars.

Should there be more separation and division?

Reserves. Cycles of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. A chain of poverty, drugs and alcohol.

This has existed. Something unhealthy has been allowed to continue and of which was allowed to persist because of the silences surrounding such horrifying things.

I would like to see less segregation. With the closing of the schools, I would like to think we could all share the beautiful place that is this country.

Is this reasonable, practical, or even possible?

Is it enough to say you’re sorry? Should there be forgiveness? Is that enough?

I recently came across a blog post, written by Canadian writer and blogger Carrie Snyder:

Truth and Reconciliation in Canada

What she wrote moved me into wanting to write my thoughts down, to try to speak up. That is because the silence needs to end.

Whatever any of us think, wherever we come down on our country’s role, at least we’re talking now. I don’t have to be so afraid to speak about this because I care and want to understand.

I want others, who may not be aware of what happened in my country, to hear about these things from one whom a more inclusive future in her country is hoped for.

I know what it must feel like to be a part of a population society has historically preferred be hidden away from everyone else. It’s a feeling of being unwanted and ashamed of.

The last residential school for Aboriginals was closed, more recently than most people might think. The year 1996 is not all that long ago still.

We can shy away from hearing about such troublesome things, or remain unaware as I was until recently, or we can all become aware and work toward something better.

Canada is not this safe, timid, perfect little country we’ve been portrayed as in the media. We are not the goodie-two-shoes little neighbour to the north of the United States.

We made our share of mistakes or more than that word can ever say.

I want us all to be fully Canadian, while still holding onto those parts of our unique cultures and histories that make us who we are and always have been.

I would like to think that young man I first spoke of and I can and are both doing our parts to make a future country of Canada as great a country as we claim to be and have always been.

I know, from listening to him speak, that is what we both can and will do. That is what we have in common. I love my country and he loves his. I want it to go forward, having every reason in the world for every one of its citizens to be proud of the Canada we are, the best Canada we can possibly be.

SoCS: Let Them Eat Cake

***

The initial idea would have been to write about world peace. Honestly, who doesn’t want that?

If I could say anything really stirring on that goal I would have said it a long time ago, not waiting for a blogging prompt to say my piece.

Then there’s my love of cake. I love a big, delicious piece of cake, but then something else popped into my mind.

In fact, it’s always in there somewhere, so it just pushed a lot of other stuff in there out of the way and made itself at home, front and center.

When I was in the eighth grade I started writing a diary. Well truthfully, I called it a log, not wanting to call it a diary because I felt the word was becoming a cliche of sorts for young girls.

I wanted somewhere to write down my thoughts, somewhere with a name as different as I felt.

Silly of me. It was a diary.

🙂

From there, the idea sprung up in my mind, that I would write my autobiography.

What did a fourteen-year-old have to put into an autobiography anyway?

Well, I had just been through a year or more of illness, medications, missed school, and surgeries. I wanted to call it The Year and a Half From Hell.

This was back in 1998 and just barely was I using a computer at all.

I started writing it and I did this in braille, using the old, heavy-duty Perkins Brailler.

I soon had pages and pages of braille, a towering pile of pages filled with row after row of raised dots, telling my story, but only I could read it, with maybe the exception of my brother or maybe my mother.

Then, just as suddenly as the idea came to me, it faded. I ran out of steam, but the dream never left my mind entirely.

I didn’t know where to go from there.

Now that I have this blog, I wonder if my long harboured dream of writing, what I now call my memoir, if that is less necessary.

I now have a place where I can write, in a broken up manner, when I feel inspired.

The problem is that I didn’t know how to downsize something so integral to my life, into a book.

I didn’t know what to say and what to leave out.

Also, I have decided to scrap Year and a Half From Hell, in favour of a title that takes me back to that cliche question.

Piece of Cake:
It’s a phrase meaning a task that’s thought to be simple or easy to accomplish. No problem at all.

Of course that year I spent in hospital and attached to dialysis machines was anything but simple or easy, but I would have no idea as that fourteen-year-old girl, just how much harder the following years would be after the idea for a memoir first occurred to me.

I think it sums up the sort of sense of humour I possess. I am not overly funny in any real ha ha sense of the word.

🙂

I am more dry, ironic, witty sense of humour girl.

Both titles felt authentic to me, even if one is a highly repeated, widely overused cliche from way back.

I like it and, besides, it makes me think of that sweet sweet piece of cake I so often deny myself.

I would have used it as reward for all that hell I’d been through, and have done at times, but all in moderation.

Besides, those two things don’t go together for someone who was put on steroid medication from age twelve onward.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, I am just as sweet as any cake.

🙂

Plus, I don’t like pie, so Easy As Pie was never a possible title for any autobiography or memoir of mine.

***

That was my offering for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday:

http://lindaghill.com/2015/04/17/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-1815/

I was sorry to hear that this weekly blogging prompt almost came to a halt, so soon after I came across it.

Would have been a real shame, but I would have understood if the blogger herself, in charge of SoCS, if she needed the break.

Thanks for keeping it going. It has come to mean something to my blogging schedule and to myself.

I may even take a stab at the Wednesday prompt next.

Note:
If you read the title of this post and expected me to write about Marie-Antoinette, sorry to disappoint. Perhaps I will work it into a future post on this subject, but for now…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake

As for that pesky world peace question, I’m open to a discussion, if anybody has any ideas or suggestions.