Discovery of Kamloops gravesite a time for soul-searching

To contribute to a dialogue of healing and understanding following the Kamloops Indian Residential School announcement, The B.C. Catholic is sharing stories of individuals who have been working toward truth and reconciliation. We are publishing first-person accounts as well as interviews over a few weeks.

Like so many, I was in shock to hear the news of 215 unmarked graves on the site of the former Kamloops Residential School.

Initially, when it was reported as a mass grave, I was thinking “pandemic,” but the question kept surfacing: “Why were the families not notified?” It’s a question that keeps surfacing for me. A question for which I can find no answer, and which awakens in me a deep sorrow for the families concerned. I cannot imagine their child not coming home from school and not knowing what happened ...

It brought me back to August of 1964 when my youngest brother was missing and presumed drowned. However, our time of not knowing was less than 24 hours. It was thanks to a couple of firefighters who were also divers that his body was recovered and that we could have a funeral and say goodbye. I remember my mother saying, “I shouldn’t have let him go fishing.”

“If I hadn’t let him go fishing, he would still be alive.”

I cannot imagine the anguish of those families, of those parents, of those grandparents, who for years did not know what happened to their children. My prayers go out to all of them – the children who never came home, their parents, their grandparents, their families.

These past few days and weeks have also been a time of soul searching for me. How accepting am I of the other – the one whose skin colour is different from mine? The one whose first language is not English? The one who dresses differently from me? The one who goes to a synagogue or mosque or to no church at all? The one who belongs to the LGBTQ community? The drug addict? The homeless?

And if I am truthful, I often come up short, for while I may not voice or show my non-acceptance, it is often there, under the surface, and I am once again challenged by Jesus in the Gospels, by his love and acceptance of the other: the Samaritan woman, the woman caught in adultery, the centurion, Zacchaeus, the children ...

I know the question “Why were the families not notified?” may not ever be answered, but my hope and prayer is that we in Canada will never have to ask that question again.

As I write these thoughts, I am now challenged by the question: What am I going to do concretely to be part of the solution; to restore right relationships with all those who are different from me?

This is what reconciliation is about: restoring right relations. It is what Jesus came to do and what I am called to do. And it is what I want to do – restore right relations with not only my Indigenous brothers and sisters, but indeed with all creation.

Sister Denece Billesberger is a Sister of the Child Jesus based in Coquitlam. A retired teacher, she serves as as treasurer and directress of novices for the Sisters of the Child Jesus in Canada. She is also a member of the St. Kateri Tekakwitha Council of the Archdiocese of Vancouver and a long-time board member of Talitha Koum Society.

Related: