Residential school buildings are a monument to suffering. What should become of them?
Shelley Clark reads a poem she wrote for her mother who attended Mohawk Institute Residential School. Photo by David A. Moses
WARNING: Information in this article could be triggering for some people. If you feel triggered, in crisis or distress, please call the Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419.
Shelley Clark’s mother is a survivor so emotionally scarred, she still cannot speak about what happened to her at the Mohawk Institute Residential School. So Shelley, who is Cayuga from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, knows little of her mother’s history except that she attended the school in the 1940s or early 1950s.
Like so many intergenerational residential school survivors, Shelley says her mother’s experiences have impacted her own life. She’s long imagined what her mother must have gone through, even writing a poem for her that’s told through the eyes of a child attending the former institute.