Throughout my post secondary years of school I made several trips to my reserve.  I never went straight to the band office but rather took many tours around to see the different houses and businesses.  I always had a blank canvas to imagine who my family was, houses they lived in and what my family name was.

I don’t remember how I discovered my birth mother’s name was Diane Simpson.  How strange to be a Simpson when I spoke with my mother’s cousin and her last name was Crow.  How cool would it be to have such an Indigenous name.  Now that I am writing this, I will have to research how Simpson became a name on my reserve.

Every time I was passing by the reserve, I would drive through. One time I was there, after I had graduated, I was visiting with my husband at the time- Sandy.  We stopped at one of the gift shops where he had decided to buy a hand-crafted leather vest.  He mentioned to the clerk that I had an Indian Status card and didn’t pay tax.  I searched my wallet and found I didn’t have my card with me.  She asked what reserve I was from, and I said this one.  She had a searching look in her eyes and asked me who I was.  I said, “I am Diane Simpson’s daughter”. Her jaw dropped and she said my mother had just left!  My heart was racing and I asked where she lived.  She brought me outside the door and pointed up the street and showed me which house was hers.

Immediately I drove up the street and stared at the house.  This is impossible!  I willed her to come outside but there was nothing.  Beside her house was the cemetery which you had to drive up a hill to get to and then you could easily overlook her home.  We stayed for quite a while and not sure of the exact length of time, but I can say for sure over an hour.  We walked the cemetery and studied the names, date of births and deaths.  This was the first time I felt a true connection to my reserve and birth family, trying to connect who my relatives were and where I fit in.

As I drove away I wondered what kind of conversations this may have stirred in the community as I declared who my mother was.  Did it get dismissed so easily because everyone thought it impossible this visitor was Diane’s child?  More to come on this!

As my children grew older, I took them to see Diane’s house.  We would spend time looking down from the cemetery and wondering who she was and what she looked like.  Some fun memories happened in that cemetery. As you can imagine in the 1990s, my kids came to the realization that we could have been “The Simpson’s”!  My son also learned how to drive in that cemetery, or rather learned how to pop the clutch in the Jeep and I learned how to run beside a Jeep and stall it.  We actually spent time just hanging out there with a strange feeling of comfort and contentment. 

I am not a huge visitor of cemeteries but this one I always spent time in, walking and pondering.  I think it’s because I know it’s my land, the place of my people that is so unknown and was so surreal being there knowing the history I was not a part of.  It’s very different knowing my adopted Mom and Dad are buried at Capital Memorial Gardens and that I don’t need to visit there to ponder the unknown.  I know the difference between having closure and not having closure.

Many of you have messaged me with your thoughts on how I am feeling writing this blog.  I am discovering so much about myself, my feelings, my “unfinished” business in my thoughts.  Writing has actually pieced together a lot of missing blanks that were in my mind but now has so much more clarity.

Thank you, miigwech