Strengthening the ties that bind us

I thought today would feel different.  I expected the day I finally snet in my application for metis citizenship would be a big moment, but the moments all came before in doing the research to support the application, in learning more about each generation of my family and in finding my place in that chain of people and ideas.

This year my grandfather would have been 100 years old.  Maybe this time is our family awakening from the 100 years of sleep and our circle coming back again?  This morning I think of my great-great grandfather and grandmother teaching their grandchildren to be proud metis and to live in the metis ways. I think of my great grandparents who tried to make a good life despite the church and the government, who tried to help those in their community but who lost to the government, the church, to influenza and to alcoholism.  I think of their other son, James Brady Jr who carried the torch well.  I think of my grandfather who raised his girls to be white so life would be easier for them, who lived thought the residential schools experiences and carried his own demons but was a good grandfather. I think of my mother, whose own application was accepted and still is ashamed to claim her metisness.  I think of myself and all I have learnt and still have to learn.  I think of my children and I hope that I can support them to live fully with their legacy of all these proud men and women that came before us.