12/22/2023 0 Comments Head empty no thoughtsSeveral years ago, Littechild carried a small wooden coffin holding the bones of an unnamed six-year-old boy from Maskwacis. And not only to prop me up, to give me strength, but to honour and then send them back to the place of forever happiness after that hearing.” “But it wasn’t empty because I had called in the child’s spirit to sit beside me. “I would have a little chair beside me … empty.” He stops as tears pool in his brown eyes. “I used to have an empty chair beside me (during the TRC hearings) and I did it for a purpose,” he says. He listened to nearly 7,000 survivor testimonies. Littlechild was one of the three TRC commissioners. Last summer, the unmarked graves of thousands of Indigenous children were found on the grounds of former residential schools across the country. More than 60 percent of them were run by the Catholic Church.ĭuring Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which ran from 2008 to 2015, survivors testified about the physical, sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse they endured at the schools. “I choked up because it was such a long time … in a way you bring it back to 150 years ago when it all started.”Ĭanada’s residential school system began in the late 1800s. “It was a moment of mixed emotion,” he says. ‘An empty chair’Ī few weeks later, as he sits in his office in his home community of Maskwacis, Alberta, wearing an orange ribbon shirt in a traditional Cree design and an elaborate feathered chief’s headdress – parts of his Native culture that were banned in the residential schools, Littlechild reflects on the apology. He had been “praying and dreaming” of such a moment, he says, “but I never thought I would live to see the day that it would happen right in front of me”. Littlechild was in Rome with a delegation of Indigenous elders and representatives on April 1 to hear the apology firsthand. Instead, he was given a number by the staff and Catholic clergy who ran the school – one of 139 across Canada where more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forcibly separated from their families, communities and cultures.īut this year, on his 78th birthday, Littlechild received the gift he had long hoped for: an apology from Pope Francis for the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the abuse and neglect of First Nations, Inuit and Metis children at the schools. That is because Littlechild grew up in a residential school in central Alberta, Canada, and celebrating birthdays was forbidden there.įor the 14 years that he attended the school, Littlechild wasn’t even called by his name. In fact, there was no acknowledgement of the day at all. Willie Littlechild doesn’t remember blowing out candles or receiving any gifts on his birthday when he was a child. Canada’s Indian Residential School Survivors and Family Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day at 1-86. That’s all.Warning: The story below contains details of residential schools that may be upsetting. They’re probably the reason why I am the way I am. Thorin Oakenshield and Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit. One of my oldest ships, I watched the show back in middle school and it’s been one of my favorites ever since.Īnd finally… the one that started it all. Murder Husbands… Praying you’ll return to me one day. Then there’s Hannibal and Will from Hannibal. Season 4 I’m patiently waiting, still didn’t forgive you for how season 3 ended tho Then Nandor and Guillermo from What We Do In The Shadows. I just love them, how can you not love them? Season 2 pls come faster! Then we have Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens. They’ll probably be with me for a very long time… Current obsession, in case you haven’t noticed. Well then the other even more obvious one is Stede and Ed from Our Flag Means Death. Still love them very much even tho the show sucked. Most of you will probably remember that phase from last year haha. Then the obvious one is Loki and Mobius from Loki. I just love them so much, their story is so tragic and beautiful I could talk about them for ages. They’re the only ship I still actively read fics about. My number one ship is Lee Dongsik and Han Joowon from the kdrama Beyond Evil! My favorite show of all time!
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