Family: Hope and Love

I've just returned from a family reunion in Saskatchewan on my husband's side.  It was one of those reunions where the family is so large that much time is spent meeting new people or getting to know people beyond names and faces for the first time.  Still, there was rich reward in making those connections.

As I was reflecting on the importance of family--people to belong to and people who are behind you--I began to think of all those in my community that lack a strong foundation when it comes to family.  I thought of how much more difficult the past year would have been for me without a secure relationship with my husband and kids and with our parents and siblings.  I have a long heritage of stable relationships (not perfect, but stable) that I often take for granted.

 In my community, many are not as fortunate.  Many, particularly our First Nations peoples find themselves deeply entrenched in a life of relationship-destroying behaviours and self-destructive coping mechanisms largely due to generations of pain and scarring that were inevitable after having children taken away or growing up without the love and nurturing of parents in a supportive community.

I agree with my friend who spends much of his time caring for these very people and listening to their stories, that poverty is not so much a lack of finances as it is the lack of hope in one's ability to change one’s circumstances.  Without the strength of a family that takes care of a child's basic needs early on in life and helps a young adult launch out on his own, any human being will be much more vulnerable to despair and powerlessness, false sources of power and belonging, and methods of escaping rather than moving through pain and sadness.  It happens among rich and poor alike.

We can't imagine the full effects that weakening family structure has on society as a whole.  It may seem easier to point fingers at the resulting problems of violence, drug trafficking/addiction, prostitution, gang activity, and crime and just try to rid our communities of all such things.  While I hope our justice system will improve so that stronger deterrents will be in place and our streets will be safer, I also hope we'll remember there are hurting people involved.  All of us have the same needs for love and hope.  Some of us have been blessed with families who fostered that in us and some are still looking.

I hope one day that the First Nations people all over Canada will actually teach us what it means to be family, for long before immigrants settled and changed their way of life, the First Nations had a culture of family togetherness that we could all learn from.  Until then, I will be grateful for the strong family foundation I have inherited and continue building on it into the future, so that my children will carry love and hope with them wherever they go.