Confirmation

 Confirmation

by

Jules F. Delorme

How do you begin to talk about it?

Friends, who mean well, offer platitudes and sorrow and shock. But no Indian is shocked. We knew the bodies were there. We always knew the bodies were there, not just in Kamloops but everywhere.

Anywhere else in the world finding the unmarked graves of two hundred and fifteen children would be met with so much greater outrage but here in Canada, here in North America, here in America, those graves were known about even if only in the unconscious minds of all who live here, and for those of us in the Indigenous community, we have always known, we have always felt the impact through generation after generation and generation and this is not news but confirmation.

I’m 60 years old.

I left the Reservation when I was 12 years old.

But in those 12 years I saw so much death, so much pain, so many suicides and so much violence and abuse that were all a direct result of the rage and the pain from the Residential Schools. We couldn’t even keep track of all the names of the dead around us and those dead were victims of the Schools though none of us were in them. I had to hide in the woods to avoid the Sixties Scoop and I went to a school in the city where my mother lived because I could not be listed as living with my blood father on the Reservation. I could see the deep soul scarring pain in my Tóta’s eyes and I could feel the pain from my blood father’s fists which were the way he expressed the pain of what my grandfather, who met my Tóta in the Residential School, did to him and all his brothers and sisters.

People, friends, health care professionals, people who mean well, say to me that it’s in the past and I have to leave it in the past.

And my generation of Indians did not talk about such things. We hurt each other and we hurt ourselves instead.

But 215 bodies have been Un-Earthed and there will be many more, so many more than will ever be counted, so many more than will ever be found, and I know that we, all Indigenous People’s souls and spirits hurt in ways that we will never be able to put into words, that we will never be able to say out loud, and how do we even begin to speak about that pain that is so large, that has lingered with us, lingered over us and will always linger over us, how do we put into words a pain that is that large and that old and that permeates every breath, every single breath that we take?

How do I, how do we, how does anyone put that into mere words, these feeble little words when even our own language, even the words of our ancestors have been taken away from us. how do we speak, how do we write, how do we say in words that don’t even belong to us, that would not even make sense to the blood that flows through us and even if we had the words of our blood even if we learn those words again how will they ever be large enough to contain the horror and the pain and the rage and all the bodies, most of which will never be Un-Earthed, all those children, all those children, ALL THOSE TOO MANY CHILDREN, how do we even begin to express how do we begin to even understand what it is that makes our hearts hurt make our spirits hurt and then to tell, not just those who have not lived it but even those who have lived it, how do we find the words, these mere sounds and marks that cannot contain cannot even begin to grasp the smallest amount of it, how can any of us contain all this pain all this suffering all this loss that lingers, that has always lingered and will always linger how can we make that fit into words even if we had the words even if we had our own words, how can we possibly make it fit make it something that we can live with that we can understand let alone express, how do we speak about it, how can you speak about it, how can I speak about it, how can I stop hurting how can I stop crying how can any us share the hurt when we cannot even contain it when even the words have been taken away from us and the bodies been hidden and still the Children, and still the Women disappearing every day, every single day the numbers beyond any counting the pain and the suffering beyond even the knowing passed on and passed on and passed on and passed on without even knowing why or what it is that is smothering that is drowning that is burying us even today every single day how do we how do we Un-Earth all it is that has been buried and is still being buried how do we confirm what has happened when we cannot even begin to say what has happened all this pain all this pain lingering darkening burying us?

How do we find the words?

How do we begin to say?

How do we begin to talk about what we know is there what we have always known is there but is too large to contain too large to confirm too large for mere confirmation too large for even all the words that we know and all the words that we don’t know and all the names we don’t know how do you speak about such a thing how can you possibly speak about such a things that is by its very nature Un-Speakable?

How do you speak about all that has been Un-Earthed?

How do you even begin to speak about it?

No amount of confirmation will make it speakable.

No amount of Confirmation will make it speakable.

So how do we begin?

Where do we begin?

To find the words?

To find mere words?

To confirm?

For confirmation?

Tell me how.

Please.

Someone.

Someone tell me how.

Someone tell me where.

To even begin.

To even begin to speak about this.

How do we speak about this?

How do you speak about this?

How do you begin?

How do you begin?

How can you?

How can we?

Confirm?

Any of it?

How?

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