In June 2008, the Prime Minister of Canada apologized to Native Canadians, on behalf of the government, for the residential school system. Ever since then, I have wanted to offer my own apology to an Aboriginal girl I went to grade school with. Her name is Iris, and I have absolutely no idea where she is, but maybe she will find this or someone like her will find this letter and accept my apology on her behalf.

Dear Iris,

When Stephen Harper stood in the House of Commons accompanied by a small gathering of Aboriginal leaders and former students he offered these words,

"The treatment of children in Indian residential schools is a sad chapter in our history. Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country."

He went on to elaborate, and even though this was an historic moment that many in the Aboriginal community welcomed, it fell well short of the mark. While the privileged white boys in Ottawa were busy congratulating themselves, I thought of the handful of other First Nation’s kids who passed through my life in the 60s and early 70s, but especially I thought of you Iris.

By offering a mea culpa for just one of the many atrocities committed against the Aboriginal community, much was left unsaid and overlooked. That is such a gross understatement Iris that I laugh as I write it.  

picture from: http://www.pbase.com/richards1052/image/44107568

Over the years I thought about you from time to time, but never more so than I have since this apology was made. You weren’t forced into a residential school. You went to my school.

I don’t know anything about what brought you to live in our small, bedroom community. Your parents were white and older, and you were the only non-white kid in the entire school, except for the Japanese kid who cried all through kindergarten. No one made the Japanese kid cry, he just did that at the drop of hat, and no one ever made you cry – at least not in public. You were a year ahead of me until grade five, so you aren’t in any of my early school pictures, and I didn’t witness how you navigated the years up until we started sharing classes, but I’m pretty sure I know how it went.

Iris, it wouldn’t be hard for me to pick your tormentors out of a school picture lineup. I don’t have to imagine what they said to you on a daily basis. These bullies were mean to everyone, but the rest of us enjoyed common ground. The rest of us had parents who understood and siblings to stand up for us. The rest of us were white.

I know what taunts they would have used to denigrate you. I can hear them imitating the sounds they picked up from the cowboy movies of the day. Hollywood is such a great teacher of tolerance isn’t it? They were little boys, and they acted like little boys do. Kids are mean because they usually don’t know better. Adults are meaner, but they disguise it as “doing the right thing.”

We didn’t have much interaction until grade seven when you started to beat me up on a semi-regular basis. But that’s not my strongest memory of you; my strongest memory was your unwavering silence. You never spoke, you never smiled, you never had a birthday party, and you were never invited to one. You always held your face in a taught, pinched, distrustful scowl. You were one of the tallest kids in class, so this made you appear pretty intimidating. You put up a wall that none of us tried to breach. You didn’t want to fit in; you wanted desperately to just disappear.

Your white mother dressed you in the white cotton blouses and jumpers that were the style of the day, but there wasn't enough yards of cotton broadcloth on the planet to turn you into a petite, white girl – like me. When they moved our whole grade to a new school, you and I started taking the same route to school. I usually walked with Christine. She was the tallest kid in the class. I was the smallest kid in the class, so we made quite a pair. If you’ll recall, she was also an outsider. Her Polish parents, recent immigrants, sent her out the door with a multi-coloured babushka scarf while the rest of us wore woolen toques. But she was a Polish girl from a Polish household that was full of love, and she had big Polish brothers who protected her.

You were completely alone Iris, even when you were at home.

I know I wasn’t one of the kids who teased you. I wasn’t made that way. But I was guilty by association and I’m okay if you blamed me too. I remember the day in grade seven when you first attacked me. We were walking home from our new school following the trail by the creek. Well I was walking home with Christine. And you were walking home with Christine. But we weren’t walking home together.

We were about half way home when we stopped at the opening where the trail intersected that dead end street. You were your usual stoic, silent self…until the moment I turned to see you charging at me with arms flailing in a full seething rage. I don’t know what made you snap that day, but all the rage and the anger and the hurt you had held in for all those years just came flooding out. It would have been funny if it weren’t – the two of us hitting the ground in our white knee socks and summer dresses with our books scattered around us.

Christine pulled you off me before you could do any harm. She pushed you back and held you like an enraged animal. I looked up to see nostrils flaring and eyes blind with rage. I don’t think you saw me at all. I don’t remember the rest of the walk home, and I generally gave you a wide berth after that. But every once in awhile, when I least expected it, we repeated that crazy scene on the trail. Thankfully, Christine kept you from killing me each time, and for some reason, I never told my parents.  

I moved away in grade eight, and I have never seen you since, so I don’t know what has happened to you. I hope you are well, but I don’t hold out much hope. If you went to the high school I was lucky enough to avoid, then I can only imagine how horrible the ensuing years were. If you did go to that snobby, elitist school, I’m sure you quickly found a way to disappear again. But in high school, the route to disappearance takes some dangerous turns. Maybe your white parents sent you to a better school. I hope for your sake that they did.

When I moved to the West coast, I had the opportunity to meet up with a few more Aboriginal kids. Terry was like you. He lived with a white older couple, but they seemed to take good care of him—as best they could. Pat lived on the local reservation. Pat didn’t have it so good, but he was with family, as damaged and screwed up as they were. Glennis lived with her real family in town. She usually had the same closed look and demeanor that you did. When I looked at her she reminded me of you, and I knew enough to give her a wide berth.

I was friends with Terry and Pat, and we hung out for a couple of years. But like you, they disappeared from view at some point. A couple of times, after we’d all had a few beers, I was witness to their rage. Sober they were sweet and kind, but drunk they let leash a torrent of deep seated rage that reached well beyond their current experience. It was the rage of generations, and it was frightening.

Iris, I don’t know why I am telling you all this. Perhaps it is a way to let you know that I remember you. I didn’t see you as just that Indian kid. You were a person who inhabited my life. You still inhabit my life. I think of you more often than I do my first crush or my best friend of the day.

You haunt me.

I wish I could turn back time and become one of those wonder kids who stood up to the grade school establishment on your behalf. But I was shy, and tiny, and busy being a kid. I was safe and loved and I had more important things to do, like play Barbies with Janet.

I’m sorry Iris. I am so sorry. I’m welling up with tears as I write these words because it hurts to think about you. I fear that you are damaged beyond repair. I fear that you never found the love or sense of self that would equip you to survive in this world. I fear you are dead.