To My One Who Sits on the Rainbow
Author, Dr. Paulina Johnson and her nimosôm, Christopher. The artist behind the work can be found on Instagram @lakeeyshahmarie.
Kîsikahîhitin,
You are Loved by Me
In 2021, the settler state of Canada enacted the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The September 30th date is used to honor the children who never returned home and the survivors of residential schools. The intent is to commemorate “the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools” (Government of Canada). The aim is believed to assist in reconciling the past as a means of healing for Indigenous peoples.
One year after the initial federal statutory holiday, I sit here and reflect on what I feel. I believe in healing and beginning anew for the spirit and power of my people. I am the first-generation of my family to have not attended residential schools. But it does not mean, I have not seen the trauma, pain, disconnect, and fear of what those institutions did and continue today.
While it is easy for me to call out these cowardice acts that were used on defenseless children and be unapologetic, I will not. Residential Schools were state sanctioned institutions that enacted genocide and violated our most sacred bundles. My people, the Nêhiyawak, known to us as the Four-Spirit, and Plains Cree to settlers, have long held knowledge about our children. Awâsis, or children, are the foundations of our people. Awasis is derived from the word awihkosowin that refers to “he/she that loans something to him/her or them.” But it also comes from the term kisikosis meaning “Little Sky Being.” Our Creation Story tells us that children are our little star beings, who are to be protected and cared for. They are the continuation of our knowledge, the prayers and dreams we have for this world, but importantly, they are gifts from Manitou, Creator, themselves.
I look into the eyes of my grandparents, nimosôm, my grandfather, Christopher and nohkôm, my grandmother, Ginger, who are still here with me today, and I imagine a world, where they were given everything, they deserved. I have never asked them what they went through. Instead, I stand in front of university classes as a professor sharing the stories of others that have come from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 2008 report, but one story is given from my lived experience.
I share how nimosôm Christopher struggled to state his love to his grandchildren. This does not mean he does not love us, but he refrained from sharing his emotions for a long part of his life because he was denied that reassurance in his early years. And what is significant about this story is how he allowed himself to show his love through ceremony.
Ceremony is our connection to the universe and a continuation of our livelihood. The Canadian Government attempted to restrict our ceremonies alongside every manifestation of our being. This was legislation until 1951, but our ceremonies went underground or were hidden. My peoples most powerful ceremony is our Sundance.
In 2017, at the age of 78, I waited on nimosôm as he participated in his first Sundance ceremony. He showed me his whistle and rattle, his new ribbon shirt, and his new moccasins that were to mark this momentous occasion. He called me bright and early to make sure I was up, and I was there. I think about how his inner child must have danced and sang the songs of our people that day, and I share this with you to reflect that the Elders who still are with us have been denied that opportunity. I felt so proud of him and how free he looked to be Nehiyawak. To show me his new moccasins was as if I were the parent and our roles had been reversed, he was so glad to just have someone there.
I think about all the children who were denied this opportunity and were denied the affections of their parents and grandparents. Sweet innocent star beings, my heart gives you all the love that I can carry to let you know that you were always loved. I do not need a federal holiday to do this.
What I need is the prayers of my people to connect to the spirits of those still not found. To bring you home to us and I pray:
Kîwêwak, return home.
Kika-miskâtinân, we will find you.
Kîsikahîhitin, you are loved by me.
We look to our Elders to protect us, but I need those who are still with us to know, that we will protect you in every manner possible.
For when nimosôm says to me after a round of golf, “Thanks for playing with me,” he knows, he was always my first choice not because I pity him, but because I would choose him every single time in the spirit world to be my grandfather.
So, when I reflect on this second National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, I do not write a response to the federal government and the harms done to my people and the ones I love most, I write a letter speaking to the spirit of nimosôm to counter the sadness and fill it with admiration, care, and gratitude. I along with many are grateful that he did return and they are much more than survivors. I give this love back to nimosôm and end this work for him for healing and to place my love into ceremony.
My One Who Sits on the Rainbow,
I have loved you longer than time itself,
I was manifested in the creases of your laugh lines,
Made in the honey and amber tones of your eyes,
And formed in the kindness of your voice.
You have been everything I have wanted to be as I grew,
Powerful, strong, brave.
I have longed to hear you call my name so many times when I felt lonely,
To only want to hear, “my girl.”
Those two words have forever been yours to speak out into this world, followed closely to, “okay dear?”
Oh, my love, there isn’t a day that goes by when I do not think of you,
You are embedded in my thought process of how to live the good life,
I think of your care as I talk to myself because I know I can be too tough.
But you, who has been through the worst of our peoples’ pain and loss,
Never has given me that disconnect, that coldness, that inhumanity,
You have been the fire in my passion.
Oh, nimosôm, I have longed to give you the love you were rightfully denied,
To ensure you never saw what you seen and feel the loss you have felt.
I wish your early years were not transgressed by ignorance,
Of cowards.
I have hoped that my prayers for your protection has gone through time and space,
To challenge the notions of capability for the probability to have shielded you,
To have rightfully loved you.
And when I ask for us to change places, you stop me.
You stop me, because your love as a grandfather will always be greater than mine,
Because you who was denied love, never denied me love even when silent.
Nimosôm, you are every bit of me, and I am in constant awe of you,
I carry you in my being,
Because you sit on the rainbow and keep me company long after the storms have passed.
You tell me jokes, the stories of our people, lighting your flame to mine,
Nimosôm, I will always be yours,
And you have always been mine.
With never a doubt,
Kîsikahîhitin,
Your Blue Sky.
About the Author:
Dr. Paulina Johnson, Sîpihkokîsikowiskwew, Blue Sky Woman, is Nêhiyaw, Four-Spirit, and a citizen of Samson Cree Nation in Maskwacis, Alberta. She is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta. Her research examines the marginalization of Indigenous womxn’s voices within the historical record but also within contemporary aspects of academia. She also examines the institutional and structural racism of settler colonial states and how oppression and harm occurs to vulnerable communities.
