I can’t stop thinking about the horrific discovery of the bodies of 215 children in an unmarked grave on the grounds of a former residential school in B.C. These children were not allowed to grow up or given the dignity of a proper burial.

CNN called the unearthing “unthinkable” which is to say “not capable of being grasped by the mind.” So how do we grasp it? How do we put language around something unthinkable?

We throw around words like “reconciliation” when we need more precise language. Reconciliation is from the Latin root words re, meaning “again,” and concilare, meaning “to bring together.” 

To bring together again.

How can we bring together again something that was never joined to begin with? In elementary school we were given the metaphor of our country as a “beautiful mosaic” in which our differences are “celebrated.” 

But our history tells us otherwise. Our country was built upon a foundation of genocide, colonialism, oppression and non-consent.

Generations of Indigenous children were stolen from their parents and placed in government-sponsored institutions where they were abused, malnourished and cut off from their families and culture in the name of assimilation.

These 215 bodies are probably not the only ones hidden beneath dirt and grass. 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children attended residential schools until the last one closed in 1996. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimates that upwards of 6000 children died while attending one of these institutions.

Some of the bodies uncovered were children as young as three. Three. I nursed my son to sleep every night of his third year, burying my face in his hair. He smelled like breastmilk and Burt’s Bees shampoo: the lingering scents of his babyhood. I felt the small weight of him on my chest. He was safe and protected. I never once feared that he could be taken. I can’t begin to imagine what it would have been like to have my baby ripped from my arms.

Babies. All of them. 

This cannot be undone. We cannot “reconcile” these “unthinkable” horrors. Maybe the word reckoning comes closer to encompassing the rage and atrocity of what never can be reconciled. But we don’t dare speak words like reckoning because as Canadians we pride ourselves on being polite, peaceful, and non-combative. We are afraid of the force of a word like reckoning so we turn it over in our mouths and spit out something more palatable. But the time for politeness and palatability has passed. There is nothing polite or palatable about a mass, unmarked grave filled with the bodies of children. There is nothing polite or palatable about the grief of a mother whose child was stolen: the grief still carried by the survivors of residential schools and 1.67 million Indigenous people who call Canada home.

We must collectively grieve. We must collectively remember. We must collectively demand reparations for the Indigenous communities who have been wronged. We must collectively speak the truth.

Every child matters.

Every child matters.

Every child matters.