One Pound Warrior

"She'll never make it", they told my grandparents when they said, "we'll take her home." Just over a pound at birth, born far too early.

My grandparents did the same things they did for the other children, fed her, loved her, a few changes, like sleeping in a drawer instead of a bassinet. Little things. I remember she always told me she could fit into a tea cup when they brought her home. That's the story my Nan passed on to her.

But make it she did! She grew up in small house with ten brothers and sisters. Half of those siblings were forced to go to residential schools. When I asked her what it was like for her she just said, weird. One day there were older siblings, then there were not. No one really talked about it. Then, they came back years later. Life just kept going as a matter of fact.

She met the man who would become my father and relocated to Toronto from the small reserve where she grew up. As most people do, they went in search of a better life. A better life was not to be found in Toronto. She worked until it was time for my arrival at the young age of 20, and we stayed one more year. She lost her mom sometime during her pregnancy with me, I never got to meet my Nan. But my mom continued to work and I had the blessing of having a nanny for that first year.

We relocated first to North Bay, then back to the area where my dad was from, Napanee, then Deseronto, then Napanee again then back to Deseronto. We moved about eight times in the three years we were in the area before they were able to buy a home that became the place I grew up.

I will say, I cannot tell you why my father married my mom. Maybe he loved her in some strange way, but when he became intoxicated he called her names, slurs towards Indigenous peoples that I knew even at a young age were not ok, and he became verbally and physically abusive toward her. Yet she stayed with him until I was sixteen!

She took care of him in his drunken stupors like I would my grandmother if I had one. She made sure he was safe, she layed him on the couch, took his socks and shoes off, and covered him up. I always wondered why, but I see now that's how she showed her love.

When I was eight, my grandfather passed away. It really took a toll on my mom. He lived with us for some time, and off and on through the years. After having lost her mom, and also a brother already, this was just compounded the grief she never knew how to deal with.

My parents separated when I was sixteen. My mom had discovered that my dad had sexually abused my sister. It was ugly. I know it was so hard for my mom to leave him. He's all she'd ever known, since her teen years.

Again she fought for her life. And for ours. This time as a single mom. We were 16, 13, and 12 at the time. She returned to high school to get her diploma, which she completed. She took some accounting courses and was able to get a good job in our community.

She sold the house I grew up in and we returned to the Reserve. She made her life there again. Through the years her brothers and sisters dwindled away, one after another, year after year. There was so much grief built up in my mom! She kept fighting.

By 2019, she was one of three children left in her family. Her health had deteriorated through the years. Diagnosed at 28 with diabetes and never really having had it under control, the rest of her slowly deteriorated as well: heart disease, stroke, eye sight becoming worse with each visit, and then her kidneys failed. Nine years she was on dialysis three days a week.

Never did she let those things slow her down. During the spring, summer and fall, she and her partner would go fishing. When her grandkids, and she has 11, had sporting events, or music and dance recitals, she was there faithfully. She went to the demolition derbies at the local fairs, and she sewed traditional clothes until the weeks before it was her time to go.

She fought every battle that life forced her into. And she overcame every one...except the last one. Her warrior spirit had done what it could do in this life and it was time for her to rest. And so on October 2, 2019 she finally put herself first, before everyone else, and took her journey home to be with her parents and eight siblings who had gone on before her.

She has left a legacy, which is all any of us can hope for. Three children who have learned to speak the language she was never allowed to, Mohawk, two of whom are doing great work as social workers and currently completing their Masters of Social Work, and one who is teaching at the college and university levels and currently completing a Master of Arts in Sustainability Studies.

She was able to know all of her grandchildren to an age where they will remember her, and one great grandson, which she never thought she would live to see. This picture is her holding him. He too was born premature.

This is the woman who has made me who I am today. This is the spirit I aspire to have when I am faced with challenges I think I cannot overcome. Her voice is the voice I hear in those times, and I am so grateful to have been born to this one pound warrior!