On September 30, 2006, I married my favourite person. Standing before my dad, my hero, who married us, and next to my brother, my best man (still true), we said our vows, exchanged our rings, and started the, so far, eighteen year odyssey of being family.
On September 30, 2011, on the morning of our fifth wedding anniversary, my dad passed away. Sudden and unexpected, I like to think that he realized how inconvenient this timing was, probably because I’d rather imagine him dying laughing than dying with a singular focus on the massive coronary event he was experiencing.
On September 30, 2013, Orange Shirt Day was established to increase awareness around the Canadian residential school system, honour those families who were torn apart by it, recognize those children who lost their lives, and support survivors. September 30 was chosen as the day to signify the time of year when Indigenous children were historically taken from their homes to residential schools.
On September 30, 2021, we commemorated the first national statutory holiday, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, after the May 27 discovery of the remains of 215 bodies in an unmarked cemetery on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
I don’t remember exactly when I came to understand that my brother, who is full blood Cree and adopted as a baby in our dad’s first marriage, was stolen from his family by the Government of Saskatchewan and not, in fact, surrendered by his young mother, who gave him up by choice due to her inability to provide care for him (as our whole family was led to believe). What I do know is that I forever face the paradox of hating that he was scooped while knowing that without that, I don’t have my brother.
While it meant that he was able to avoid the residential school system, September 30 still managed to take away his dad. And mine. But having these two play such a critical role in the magical marriage I have the privilege to live in every day puts a kind of special joy bound to the other heavinesses of this day.
Although not a thief, I love my stolen family and live in stolen lands. And although not one to be hung up on extremes, I started my forever with my wife, but lost my dad.
And so, on September 30, 2024, I walked with my family, each of us in our orange shirts, and reflected.
