A family broken

I am not an extraordinary person; at least I do not think I am.  My life like everyone else’s life is defined by my past and my present.  Our futures are often made up of our goals and dreams as we aim for a hazy present that is yet to happen. 

It is because of my past I find myself compelled to tell this story. Perhaps by telling my story it will help others that have had a similar experience use their own voices to tell their own stories. Perhaps even inspire some to take up the challenge of living their lives once more despite all odds.

This is a true story told from the fragmented memories and as well the use of some artistic license of a person who was also a part of Canadian history.  It is a story centered on one of the assimilation processes attempted by the government of Canada. This process is referred to as the “Sixties Scoop”.  It was yet another process that was developed by the Canadian government to make the Indians in the new country they settled become useful citizens. It was another attempt to make the Indians become more like the Europeans that settled here in their new country.  It was the next step taken by the government after the Residential Schools were starting to shut down.

 The unfortunate thing about all of this is that many families were torn apart and parents and children were separated but also the children were separated from each other, many families suffered.  This affected everyone and many of us were scarred emotionally because of it. Many of us are still seeking our families and looking for our roots.

 I am a survivor.  I am hoping that by writing this story it will help people think about the history of the country they live in and of the people who live here. I am also hoping it will help others understand the sacrifices of the many people that have lived through the growing pains of a new nation.    

Chapter 1

A Family Broken

According to the government of Canada I was born April 1963, in a large town called Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. I was the first born child of Marie St Cyr and her husband Albert (Abner) Kilfoyle.  My Christian name, the one I was baptized with in the Roman Catholic Church was Karen Lee Kilfoyle but I only knew myself as Angel.  I found out what my baptized name was in the early 1970’s, when my permanent foster family cared enough to research my family history for me and then told me what they could.  

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I discovered why I thought my name was Angel. When I went to see my birth mother for the first time after many years I asked her why I thought my name was Angel.  She told me that it was a nickname that she had given me when I was born.  She said I was her little angel sent from God because I was born on a Good Friday. It was a name given to me from her heart, and a name that others who knew me and loved me used.   I had asked her many questions then but she could not answer a lot of them. Her memories were compromised by the excessive use of alcohol and of age. Life had been hard for my mother. 

The earliest memories of my childhood are vague. I have a few clear memories though and a lot of memories that are almost dreamlike. I was told trauma does this to you.  I was also told that I may never get those memories back, but according to the therapist, in my case that may be for the best.

We lived in a very small house one block off the main road that ran through the town.  I had a little bedroom off the big room. The big room held a couch a couple of overstuffed chairs and a table. The floor was covered by a mustard yellow rug.  There were dirty green curtains on the window that overlooked the street, facing the old tire lot of the store that was built there.  My little room was big enough for the mattress that was my bed that was placed on the bare floor.  I slept on it with a few blankets to cover me at night.  I also had a small dresser and a doll’s highchair that held the only doll I ever owned.    There was one other bedroom where my parents slept.  We had a small bathroom that was located just off the small kitchen. The bathroom was a funny blue color with dirty white floors and a large old white bathtub with a toilet squeezed in beside it.  The kitchen had a stove and a fridge; there was a grey table with metal legs and some green and blue metal chairs. There were a lot of cupboards, mostly empty though; there was never much food in the kitchen.  

When I became an adult I returned to look at the house I grew up in I wanted to look at it one more time and try to remember what it was like to live there.  I drove there with my foster family.  I was surprised that I knew exactly where to go to get back to it. I had shivers up my spine as we rounded the corner and there it stood, it was not as I remembered.  I saw that it was just a boarded up shack, slowly moldering away in a little yard full of garbage and debris. Manitoba Maples were growing close to the walls and scratching along the boards where a window might have been.  There were burrs and dandelions growing in thick patches with long spindly grasses trying to survive on the parched soil.  All around the front yard was the left over bones of a fence that may have been made of white painted pickets at one time. The roof covered in mossy green tiles was patchy and collapsing in upon itself. The eaves troughs the ones that remained anyway had little trees growing in them.  The rest hung in sad disrepair victims to the wayward breezes and the rust that slowly ate away at them. This was my home for a little while and looking at it as an adult it just appeared to be a sad, small dilapidated building, but when I was a child, it was big enough for me and my family. 

My memories as a child of that little house were that it always seemed to be a hubbub of social activity.  There were many faces that would come and go, very few of those faces I can still remember. There was always the sound of loud music playing, and the sound of beer bottles clinking and fizzing when they were opened.   There would be voices that started out the day full of happiness and laughter and those same voices would eventually be raised in anger by the end of the day. Sometimes late at night the sound of people shouting at each other and the noise of a fleshy squish from someone’s fist hitting someone else’s skin would wake me up from my troubled dreams. There often would be sounds of fighting, of doors slamming, and beer bottles being thrown at the walls.  Once there was the rushing sound of broken glass, a cold brittle noise as the window shattered because someone threw a chair across the room and through the front window. Lingering over it all in the air and permeating the furniture was the stench of stale beer and old cigarettes that would never go away. To this day I hate that smell.  

Often I was unable to sleep; I would sit on the floor close to my mattress by the heavy grey wool blanket that covered the door of my room.  I would peek out at the party every now and then, not always understanding what I saw but somehow recognizing for me it was not a safe place to be.  Eventually I learned to hide a little better but not before I understood why I felt afraid.  

I believe the person who taught me this lesson was a man that I remember only as Uncle.  One night during one of the parties he saw me sitting by the door of my bedroom.  He came into my room, the blanket falling into place behind him. He smelled like beer and cigarettes and had a peculiar smile on his face.  He started touching me. He stroked my hair, he rubbed my legs and eventually he had unbuttoned my pajama top My memories as a child of that little house were that it always seemed to be a hubbub of social activity.  There were many faces that would come and go, very few of those faces I can still remember. There was always the sound of loud music playing, and the sound of beer bottles clinking and fizzing when they were opened.   There would be voices that started out the day full of happiness and laughter and those same voices would eventually be raised in anger by the end of the day. Sometimes late at night the sound of people shouting at each other and the noise of a fleshy squish from someone’s fist hitting someone else’s skin would wake me up from my troubled dreams. There often would be sounds of fighting, of doors slamming, and beer bottles being thrown at the walls.  Once there was the rushing sound of broken glass, a cold brittle noise as the window shattered because someone threw a chair across the room and through the front window. Lingering over it all in the air and permeating the furniture was the stench of stale beer and old cigarettes that would never go away. To this day I hate that smell.  My memories as a child of that little house were that it always seemed to be a hubbub of social activity.  There were many faces that would come and go, very few of those faces I can still remember. There was always the sound of loud music playing, and the sound of beer bottles clinking and fizzing when they were opened.   There would be voices that started out the day full of happiness and laughter and those same voices would eventually be raised in anger by the end of the day. Sometimes late at night the sound of people shouting at each other and the noise of a fleshy squish from someone’s fist hitting someone else’s skin would wake me up from my troubled dreams. There often would be sounds of fighting, of doors slamming, and beer bottles being thrown at the walls.  Once there was the rushing sound of broken glass, a cold brittle noise as the window shattered because someone threw a chair across the room and through the front window. Lingering over it all in the air and permeating the furniture was the stench of stale beer and old cigarettes that would never go away. To this day I hate that smell.  

Often I was unable to sleep; I would sit on the floor close to my mattress by the heavy grey wool blanket that covered the door of my room.  I would peek out at the party every now and then, not always understanding what I saw but somehow recognizing for me it was not a safe place to be.  Eventually I learned to hide a little better but not before I understood why I felt afraid.  

I believe the person who taught me this lesson was a man that I remember only as Uncle.  One night during one of the parties he saw me sitting by the door of my bedroom.  He came into my room, the blanket falling into place behind him. He smelled like beer and cigarettes and had a peculiar smile on his face.  He started touching me. He stroked my hair, he rubbed my legs and eventually he had unbuttoned my pajama top.  He started to touch me in other parts of my body. His voice soothing enough that I wasn’t scared. I guess because I didn’t cry or yell he continued getting braver with each touch.  Then, he showed me how some men like to play with little girls. I know it happened more than once but to me but that was part of my life.  I never told my mother, I guess, I knew deep down there was something wrong with him, and I was ashamed because I let him touch me.  Perhaps I also thought there was something wrong with me too and I didn’t want anyone to know.  

Often I was unable to sleep; I would sit on the floor close to my mattress by the heavy grey wool blanket that covered the door of my room.  I would peek out at the party every now and then, not always understanding what I saw but somehow recognizing for me it was not a safe place to be.  Eventually I learned to hide a little better but not before I understood why I felt afraid.