On June 21, a Saddle Lake family held a memorial celebration of healing for survivors of Indian residential schools. The day was a blend of Christian and Indigenous ways of worship.
Hosted by the Large family, the memorial was meant to promote the healing needed to bring peace for residential school survivors, as well as the friends and families of individuals who went to residential schools.
It was also a day to acknowledge the hardships endured by residential school survivors, said Florence Large, who hosted the memorial along with her husband, Frank Large.
Frank, a residential school survivor himself, said his older siblings, Victoria and Gordon, also went to the Blue Quills Residential School over a decade prior and died while they were wards - something he said the family only found out last year.
Records provided by the Diocese of St. Paul to the Acimowin Opaspiw Society, a Saddle Lake-based group researching and documenting missing children in unmarked burials, indicate Victoria died from bovine tuberculosis, according to Frank.
He said he felt a lot of hurt when he heard the news about his older siblings. He could only recall some memories with them, because they left when he was still very young.
He has an aunt in her 90s who could remember his siblings, and even she was not sure what happened to them at the time. Only that, “All of a sudden, they were gone,” said Frank.
The day was also a gathering of relatives and friends to honour Victoria and Gordon.
“Today was a day of letting them go,” said Frank, but to also show to others that despite the hurt, reconciliation is possible. “We’re in a stage of reconciliation where we need to say... ‘It happened... I’ll take the necessary steps to find the healing I need and carry on’.”
He hopes the memorial will serve as an example for others on their path to healing.
Florence agreed.
“Today’s gathering is to show how reconciliation can happen,” she said. And for her and Frank, they did that by having the memorial be a blend of Christian and Indigenous traditions. She said they are strong Catholics.
There is still a lot of hurt, said Florence, but she places her faith in God, that reconciliation can be found.
This does not mean that she condones what happened in residential schools, “however, we need to... bring awareness,” she said.
While there many wrongs that happened to the Indigenous people in Canada’s history, she said for the people of today, “This is not your guilt to carry.”
Florence believes an understanding of history is necessary to achieve reconciliation. And reconciliation, for her, means everyone getting along.
“It’s choosing to be kind to everyone and accepting that life goes on regardless of all the hurts that will not get resolved here on this earth.”
Bishop Gary Franken of the Diocese of St. Paul was also present during the memorial. “Reconciliation is the only way we can have healthy, good relationships,” said the bishop.
“There are some relationships in the world that are more strained or more filled with more hurt than others. And the need for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is very real, given our history.”
Franken said the day was also an opportunity for him to simply be present, and to be with people as they find healing and closure.
