We’re all only a part of the big problem. We’re not the only community that’s going through these kinds of issues, the losses and the struggles. It’s huge. How do you deal with all that? How does each community deal? Where do you begin? I guess in time it’ll all come together. It’ll all come together. There’s people that’s of the mind that, “Why don’t people get over this whole issue of residential school? When will people learn how to let go?” It’s not that simple. I feel for people that are going through what they’re going through. It’s like that big elephant in the living room: it’s going to be there as long as you don’t deal with it. It’s like that obstacle in the middle of the trail.

You walk through that trail every day, and if you don’t move that – whether it be a root system sticking out of the ground – you’re going to trip on it every day you walk through that trail. And if you don’t do anything about removin’ it, you’re gonna trip on it every day. You’ve got to deal with it. Then you’ll be able to walk there and not be tripping, falling down. Yeah, it’s something you just don’t turn a blind eye to. You need to deal with it. You need to talk about it. I think some people are just ashamed to talk about it, or a lot of our people still don’t want to talk about the abuse they suffered. They’d sooner just put it away in the back of their mind and, “I’ve lived through it. I’m not the only one.”

But your behaviour, the way you live is going to tell the story – that you’re not totally over it. You’re still living with the abuse. And you could become that abusive person, because that’s how you were treated. Maybe they don’t think about it consciously, but it’s there.

And it just worries me, you know, for the future generation. Because they don’t know the history. They didn’t experience that history of being removed from the parents. But yet they’re carrying on the behaviours of maybe their parents or their grandparents that got taken away to residential school. It sure changes the pattern of life and how you live your life, how you treat other people.

Respect is really important, and that has been stripped away. There’s no respect for other people’s property, other people’s belongings, another person’s space. There’s no consideration. There’s just so much going on right now within all communities with the alcohol and drug issues.

It’s really made things so difficult to deal with – the problems that are handed down from history. So there’s a long ways to go.