Canada

I like the few pictures we had of her. In one, she stood beside her husband, both dressed up fancy and staring at the camera stone faced, in another she was with her kids, standing to the back a little bit, still unsmiling. She was alone in my favourite picture, wearing a plain dress with her hair piled ontop of her head. I have her lips and her eyes, I think we hold ourselves in the same way.

She's a great-grandmother, or an aunt of some sort, I'm not sure. I found the pictures in a pile of documents; letters, postcards, obituaries, wedding acouncements. They're all written in French, I can pick out a few words.

This is what I can piece together:

1. She lived in New Brunskwick, somewhere.

2. She had several children, a husband.

3. My mother mentioned, in the vaugest terms, that she was Aboriginal. Either Mi'kmaq or Maliseet, if you go with geography.

4. My mother mentioned, in the most descete way, that we don't talk about her.

5. I don't know her name, I will never know her name.

She is barely a relative, my family has made sure of that. She is my eyes and my lips, but she will never be the subject of our family anecdotes, our fond rememberings. I did not go to her funeral, did not stand around with adults I hardly knew, eating sandwhiches and trying to look sad. I did not dread visits to her house, I did not hold her hand or play with her hair, or hold my breath while she hugged me.

My understanding of this will always be vauge, white, and bourgeois but here's the thing - The role of First Nations in Canada's history has always been pushed to the side, something lying below everything else, reduced to photographs and lips and eyes. We cannot forget that our country was built on the bones of those who have a rightful claim to the land - I cannot forget the ways that my family may have built itself up by cutting away this woman, cutting away anything that did not make us white and bourgeois, a family who's understanding of this is allowed to be vauge because we no longer have to live with the consequences.

I know I should be thankful for my country, for the opourtunity of the new world, but forgive me if I find it impossible to put our history of genocide aside. I am thankful for life, I am thankful for the food I eat, I can never be thankful for Canada.