When I was nine, my mom past away from cancer. She had Hodgkins Disease, a type of cancer that was treatable and was considered one of the types that was more “curable”. However, for the first three years (out of the six she was sick) she was misdiagnosed and treated for Leukemia. This, obviously, had devastating consequences because this did not aid her recovery, it actually hindered it and she ended up passing away.

I think that death is really interesting, it doesn’t scare me, really, it doesn’t. Maybe that’s because I was exposed to it so early on in my life that it’s always been something I’ve had to face in some way or another. I think that the only thing I am scared of, in terms of death, is leaving behind the people I love. I am sure that that is how my mom felt as well.

My dad is really awesome. He raised three kids on his own. At the time of her passing my sister was 13, I was 9, and my brother was 5. That’s a hell of a lot to handle. He is the most supportive, dependable, and comforting man that I know and was so patient with all of his kids through the years of our growth.

I remember that when my mom left, my grandma (my dad’s mother who I call Nana), was around a lot. Nana helped out around the house a lot. She was a teacher at the time, taught grade 6, and everyday after class she would come over after school (at least a 40 minute drive) to help cook, clean, and put us to bed. For a long time it really bugged me. You know, I was a preteen kid who just wanted some time to hang out with friends and not be bothered by Nana coming over and bossing us around. I was so naive! It was years later that I realized how supportive, kind, caring and giving she was. That was an extremely difficult time for all of us, but most of all my dad, and she was there to help pick up the pieces day after day. She is such a strong woman!

When I initially read the assignment for tonight my mind brought me to this experience. After contemplating for a while about whether or not I wanted to share this extremely personal and emotional occurrence I decided that I could not truthfully share my beliefs and values about home without including this event. This event shaped my whole life, who I am as a person today. This blog post is also about release. I never usually talk about my mom and her death is a topic I avoid all together. However, when I read the assignment for tonight I knew that I didn’t want to hide from it (because that’s what I am used to doing). I really wanted to share what influenced the values that I associate with home.

Some of the most important values I hold today came from my mother’s passing. They emerged from all the love, support, reliability, comfort, and strength that I got from my family and friends. I also believe that closeness (not physically but emotionally and mentally) is a really important value when thinking of home. Although I don’t live in the same city as my family anymore, I still feel close to them when I’m away as well as when I’m back in Ottawa. These are the most important values I need to associate a place with home. And I am lucky enough to have found it in Vancouver, 5000 km away from my family.

Thanks for reading! I swear I didn’t want to make you sad, I just wanted to be more honest about my life and experiences and how I have come to value certain characteristics. I wanted you to understand where it came from because I really think it’s important to know about another person’s past.

The picture is of my mom, my dad took it in the early 90’s (date unknown). I like this one because she looks really happy in this moment. 

Bibliography:

“Hodgkins Lymphoma.” Wikipedia. n.p. 3 February 2015.

“Leukemia.” Wikipedia. n.p. 3 February 2015.

I told this story on two different occasions with two different groups of people. The responses I got were completely different (however, in terms of the types of people I told the story to, the reactions and responses are fitting to their personalities and their belief systems). I will tell the story first and then I will talk about the responses I got from my audiences.

How evil came into the world:

A very long long time ago, when the earth was a couple years old, the most mystical of creatures roamed the earth. There were fairies, dragons, unicorns, mermaids, witches and many other creatures. People did not exist yet.

It was not often that the creatures would interact with each other, they lived in such different places, far away from each other, that during the year they would hardly cross each others paths. The fairies lived in the forests in beautiful flower patches, the mermaids lived in the ocean, the unicorns loved living in meadows with long grass to feed on. The witches, they lived in caves. They liked the darkness. However, once a year, the witches would host a celebration. They would invite all of the mystical creatures of the earth to one of their large caves beside the ocean (so that all of the water creatures could attend) and celebrate a new year. This celebratory evening would be filled with dancing, gift-giving, singing and storytelling.

One year, the witches thought it would be fun to have a competition of stories about darkness. They invited all of the creatures to tell the scariest of stories they could conjure. The fairies and the unicorns did not like scary stories, they were easily scared and only believed telling stories about happiness. They decided to leave the party early. The mermaids also did not like telling stories but thought that the dark stories would be entertaining, they decided to stay to listen. The elves, dragons, werewolves and vampires all joined in the competition with the witches.

Because there were so many creatures taking part in the storytelling competition, the witches suggested that everyone leave for the night and come back the next night to share what they had come up with. The next night, they all gathered around the fire. All of the creatures had a chance to tell their versions, some spoke of the darkness of the night, some of the unknown, and some even brought props to express the fearfulness of their tales. However, nothing seemed scary enough until the last witch told her story. She spoke of disease, abuse, loneliness, and helplessness. All of the creatures were terrified. They had pleaded with the witch, “Please take it back! That story was too scary! Too real!” Despite their pleas, the witch knew, and told them, “I cannot take it back, for whenever you tell a story, you release it into the world and it is impossible to take it back.”

When I told this story to my partner, Patrick, he sat and listened intently. He never interrupted and never asked any questions. He allowed me to tell the story and take as long as I wanted. Once it was finished, he seemed lost. He stared at me with confusion on his face. We sat and talked about the story and he asked me why I needed to tell that story and why it was about how evil came into the world. Patrick, to me, is a realist. He is not interested in fictional stories but instead, is more concerned with real life events that are told as stories.

Then I called my sister, Katelyn, and my brother, Joseph. Both of whom live in Ottawa. We grew up in a household where my grandmother loved to read us stories about mythical creatures and watch movies with animals who could speak. I knew that my sister would enjoy the story. She loves mythical creatures but more specifically, she loves witches. She expressed that it was a really interesting concept that the witches brought evil into the world and wanted to know more about how the creatures had all gotten there (and if they were there before, where are they now?) My brother had little to say, although he did mention that he was entertained by the story and chuckled at my assignment.

It was a really fun assignment. I enjoy telling stories so this fit well with my personality. I found that it was almost more fun to tell the story to my sister and brother because I knew that they would like it. I imitated voices for them and went into great detail describing the celebration. I did not do this with Patrick, I think that is because I knew that he is not interested in fictional stories as much as I am. This story really reflected what I like most about storytelling (I am a fiction junkie) and I was wondering for my fellow students, did you find that your stories reflected your interests? Also, if you told the story more than once, did you find that your mood or your experiences during the day influenced your story in any way?

Bibliography:

“Evil.” Dictionary.com. n.p. 3 February 2015. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evil

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.

“Unicorn Wallpapers.” AlphaCoders. n.p. 3 February 2015. http://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=136423

“Winifred Sanderson.” Disney Wikia.  n.p. 3 February 2015. http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Winifred_Sanderson

Much of Chamberlin’s book spoke of colonization in Canada. As I have written on two different blog comments, storytelling has been a large part of First Nations traditions and cultures and now, in the face of settler colonialism, it is a form of resistance and resurgence. Here is a great article that discusses this process of decolonization with storytelling:

file:///Users/test/Downloads/19626-46035-1-PB.pdf

Also, a friend of mine’s blog. She’s Metis. This blog post she wrote is about redefining home:

https://halfbreedsreasoning.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/redefining-home-connection-place-and-belonging/

4. For Chamberlin, figuring out this place called home is a problem because, as he notes, he “doesn’t come from anywhere, except the Americas. And somebody else calls this home, somebody who isn’t happy having [him] around” (87). This is a difficult realization for anyone to grapple with when defining what ‘home’ is to them. This is especially true when Chamberlin speaks of the creation and telling of stories, whether to believe or not to believe them. For settlers in Canada, the conception of ‘home’ was built out of a false pretense about settling land. People used this pretense to believe that they were entitled to live on this land. In relation to settling Canada, Chamberlin notes, “We make homes for ourselves and drive others out, saying that we have been here forever or sent because of a vision of goodness or gold, or instructions from our gods” (2). This story of settling land for these reasons have been passed down from generation to generation, enticing their settler descendants to believe these stories as well, confirming their relationship and idea to what they identify as ‘home’.

However, stories that are told are not always automatically believed by the listener. It is said that “stories… have to do with belief; and belief involves a conflict between the true and the untrue” (Chamberlin 91). There are always contradictions in stories, such as the ones told by the settlers in Canada to justify their claiming of land. The listener is the one who must choose whether or not to believe the stories, ultimately making that story true to oneself. In terms of finding a place we call home, one must find a place that encourages stories and feelings of belonging, comfort, and reciprocity. As Chamberlin notes, “home is caught up in contradictions between reality and the imagination, here and elsewhere, history and hope. Many of us, from time to time, have probably felt lost and unhappy at home” (74).

It is also problematic to find home based on Chamberlin’s concepts of imagination and reality because, as he notes, both are “remarkably similar” (Chamberlin 125). He explains, “We learn how to live comfortably with both of them. We learn that neither is the true one, and that sometimes it isn’t easy to tell them apart. We learn that we often don’t want to, or need to, because the business of living in the real world depends on our living in our imaginations” (Chamberlin 125). In other words, finding home based on our imaginations and realities can not be accurate because our realities and imaginations may be convoluted, misleading us to believe false ideas of what “home” is. That is the place in which one does not find home.

Chamberlin points out, “The sad fact is that the history of settlement around the world is a history of displacing other people from their lands, of discounting their livelihoods and destroying their languages,” he also addresses another way of viewing this. He notes, “The history of many of the world’s conflicts is a history of dismissing a different belief or different behaviour as unbelief or misbehaviour, and of discrediting those who believe or behave differently as infidels or savages” (Chamberlin 78). These two visions of colonization are similar in that they have the same outcome, however, the storytelling of colonization is different. The first viewpoint is concerned with telling a story of domination, dispossession and erasure without really explaining how or why. The second, is a closer look into the justification of claiming lands for settlement. In regards to the settlement of Canada, I believe that the first story has the most consequence attached, with telling this version of history it focuses on the colonization process of acquiring lands and destroying languages and livelihoods without engaging with the most important reasons for how the colonizers justified those actions. It reduces the First Nations peoples to objects rather than the subjects.

Bibliography:

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Reimagining Home and Sacred Space. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim, 2004. Print.

Nock, Samantha. A Halfbreed’s Reasoning. WordPress, 5 November 2014. Web. 16 January 2015.

Sium, Aman and Eric Ritskes. “Speaking Truth to Power: Indigenous Storytelling as an Act of Living Resistance,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 2.1 (2013): 1-10. Web. 16 January 2015.

Willard, Wendy. “Home Is.” Image. WendyWillardBlog. Web. 16 January 2015.