MMIW

 

 

 

“The missing and murdered Indigenous women epidemic affects Indigenous peoples in Canada and the United States, including the First Nations, Inuit, Métis, and Native American communities. It has been described as a Canadian national crisis and a Canadian genocide.” Wikipedia

Because I have had a daughter, an adult daughter, more or less on the streets, I have spent many a night waiting for THAT phone call.  She is Indigenous, she is a drug-user, she walks the deep dark valleys of the night.  She has been shot in the lungs.  She has been drug behind a car.  She is involved with drug gangs.  She is beautiful.  She is wounded in ways no one can know.  She is needy.  She would be an easy victim.  We just had a wonderful weekend with her and she was clan and beautiful and funny, and was more like my daughter than we have seen for years.  We phoned those that were gathered with us and she got great heapings of love and surprise as I phoned those that were not with us and were up to 3000 miles away and let her say hello.  What surprise and joy they had when they realized it was their sister.  What love they expressed to her!  It was a few tearful moments as she soaked it in.  Later, my youngest daughter, Lainee and I spent hours in deep talk, like we had all their growing up years.  We laughed, we cried, we loved.  After years of no contact ( I had Tough Loved her and had told her that I did not want her to call me when she was high or drunk and she respected that.), my heart was so full of love for her and she got loved times the years of no contact.  I felt a sense of such great love of the deepest mothering kind.  For a weekend, she was my little girl again.  She managed to stay clean the whole weekend and for four days afterwards, then, again, she slipped and fell into her brokenness, again.  But, I know where she is.  I can call her anytime, right now, while she has a phone and I can text her.  I spoke to her last night, again, and she sounds good.  She is not down.  She is up and strong and has found a new place to live.  She is grateful.  I have not seen her, or heard her grateful and this positive for years.  She needs to give herself credit for the times she is clean and sober ( I did not see her drink at all, nor felt she had been drinking.  Her nemesis is crack).  My heart swells to her in thought and when we speak.  For now, she is safe and strong.  I can believe in only this day for her and pray she finds a way to beat this monster.  She has goals, is meeting them and making new plans for the future.  Perhaps this is all we might have for now and this, and however she can turn her strength for the negative to turn into positives.  My heart is full.

 

 

 

How many are estranged?  How many spend their nights waiting for THAT phone call?  How many want so much to believe this is healing and can hope for no more than a few minutes on the phone that are positive and there is hope?   How many mothers know that each positive moment is a miracle?  How many mothers are grieving for the last loss?  I cannot imagine the heartbreak of missing or murdered child(ren).  I know my daughter is one bad choice away from being such.  All our longing goes towards hope.

Prayer seems not to supersede her will.  I can only be a mother waiting for whatever outcome her choices bring and be grateful for those few moments on the phone as long as she has one.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women is a topic that chills me to the bones.  We have to care.  We care about those who are MMIW.  We care about the mothers whose worst fears come true.  We care about those families who wait to hear the worst expected news.  We care.  We have to.  The law enforcement arenas have to do a better job.  These are our grandmothers, ours mothers, our daughters our relatives.  We have to raise awareness and seek justice. 

©Carol Desjarlais 8.18.20