Choumont joined many others that have been affected by the residential school system by speaking up during the second of a three-day Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada sharing panel at the Prince Albert Indian Métis Friendship Centre.
The commission’s purpose is to uncover individuals’ stories about the residential school system.
“Our role is about getting information so it can help in your healing, as well as education,” commissioner Marie Wilson explained. “What you say will never be forgotten or buried again.”
“I have seen a lot of alcohol (use) that went on,” Choumont said of growing up. “I remember the fights… the hiding in the house with my baby brother. I was saving him — protecting him. I remember waking up in the morning to bottles of alcohol.”
Pushed through the foster care system, Choumont remembers growing up without love.
“When you’re a little girl in a foster home, you need love. It’s so important. You need attention – anybody for anything,” she said. “What makes a person strong? I think it’s when your heart gets broken 100 times and there are no more tears.” “I know I’m on the healing path of my journey, I know that. I can’t remember my parents’ voice. I can’t remember them saying that they loved me.”
The residential school system’s multigenerational effect hit not only Choumont but her brother, Lynch Robert Choumont, as well. With pain in her voice, Choumont told the commission about the night in 2009 when Lynch, 32, committed suicide by shooting himself in front of her.
“This story must be told, because there are a lot of our young people that are committing suicide. Something has to be done,” she said. “I’m begging our young ones, no matter what age, that there’s always hope. No matter how hard it gets, and the things we’ve seen and have been through. You can’t be running out leaving loved ones behind. The aftermath is unreal.”
Lyle Willier of northern Alberta also spoke of a hard upbringing as a result of the residential school system’s scourge.
“Even though I wasn’t (in the residential school system), I lived that life,” he said. “To this day, I’m still working on the past.”
His parents had a combined 16 years of the residential school system under their belts — an experience Willier said has had a lasting effect on not only their lives, but his own life as well. His father, he said, “never drank, but he had the traits of a survivor of residential schools.”
One such trait was his inability to dole out praise or love — “Because he never got that,” Willier explained. “We were never given parenting skills in residential schools, they just did what they were taught.”
Even when his father was on his deathbed, Willier said that he was unable to get anything fatherly out of him.
“All he talked about was his truck,” he said, visibly upset. “I kissed him on the forehead and I said ‘I love you, dad. I forgive you.’” “All of this because of hate — because of where they came from… There was never an ‘I love you’ or a hug growing up.”
“So many of my friends have been incarcerated or passed on because they couldn’t deal with the shame and embarrassment that they felt… I can see the generations of damage it has caused... This is not history. This is real. People actually lived it.” - Dale Nippi, residential school survivor
Willier’s mother left his father when he was a child, partnering up with a man who he said mentally, emotionally, sexually, and spiritually abused him. Finding the coping mechanism of alcohol in his early teens, Willier since managed to sober up in 1994.
“I want to be a part of the solution,” he said of his decision to remain sober. “Before we heal as an adult we must heal the inner child — the inner child that is that little boy that was abused… Now he’s allowed to play through me.”
Dale Nippi from the Kinistin Salteaux Nation shared a similar story around a stolen childhood — his as a result of abuse within the residential school system.
“I’m one of the children that was taken, and I’m looking for that lost boy,” he said. “I’ve lost so much, but I’m still gaining it back. I’ve lived a life I do not wish upon an enemy.”
A self-professed loner, Lippy has remained without a wife or children.
“I am without a love because I don’t know what love is,” he said. “I believe that what happened to me in that school made me not have kids.” “So many of my friends have been incarcerated or passed on because they couldn’t deal with the shame and embarrassment that they felt… I can see the generations of damage it has caused... This is not history. This is real. People actually lived it.”
Sharing panel comments thus far have portrayed a residential school system that served to dehumanize First Nations people, placing them into a situation where any cultural expression — even the simple act of speaking a word of Cree — led to a beating.
“My name was 72,” Terri McIntyre-Roberts said of her residential school branding. “Everything was marked with 72… It’s amazing they didn’t tattoo us.”
Roberts described a horrific life of abuse within the residential school system — an experience she’s carried with her over the years. Like many others who have spoken at the sharing panel thus far, she tried coping with her experiences through the use of alcohol — an addiction she kicked in 2005.
“I had no respect for nothing,” she said. “I didn’t have respect for myself, either. Residential school left a big scar, and I’m still healing.” With her eyes welling up with tears and her face breaking with emotion, it took some effort for Roberts to say the following sentence — one that represents the feelings of self-acceptance the residential school system fought hard to break.
“My name’s Terry McIntyre Roberts. I’m not ’72’ anymore!”
The Herald recognizes that the stories presented in this article merely scrape the surface of those told during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s sharing panel at the Prince Albert Indian Métis Friendship Centre this week.
More residential school stories will be shared in tomorrow’s paper, with the Herald attending the third and final day of sharing panels.
tclarke@paherald.sk.ca
Correction: Dale's surname is Nippi, not Lippy.