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Missed opportunities to say 'We're sorry ...'

Images. Volume. Wounds. Pains. Forgiveness. Memories. Hardships. Success. Failings and failure. Human decency and frailties. Always a wanting to carry on, to never give up – to move forward despite the burdens.
For me, there is always a single reminder of my past that lingers over me each and every day that I did not have the day I was born. It colours my view of the world because I do not share it with my siblings. It has provided an umbrella at times, an anchor at others, yet still a wall in those moments when perhaps a barrier wasn't needed. It is something that I will forever carry until the time comes to meet my ancestors.
Dahl. Not King, nor Perrault, nor even Williams, for I am a carrier of those heritages and more. But no less, my last name is the burden and responsibility I carry. A crown of a different colour, size and weight than what I was born with.
They say life is measured by moments. Good. Bad. Great. Intolerable. Always however, passing. We are measured by how we keep those moments collected in the circumstances of our unique lifetimes. If so, then I hope my life will be eventually measured with favour, for I have tried to keep true to the legacy of my last name and the nature of my ancestors.
But in the moments I remember as a Dahl are times I have never wished upon anyone.

Placed in a children's home
Picked up from my alcoholic mother at age 3. Fluent in my language during time split between trapline, reserve and community. Sent into foster care via Fort Frances-Kenora-Red Lake. Placed into a children's home operated by a local Mennonite congregation and finally adopted out to the Dahl family. Like picking out a puppy, I was selected by my step-brother when I was almost five.
I never knew my biological father. He simply disappeared into the shadows of time shortly after I was born and I received word of his passing when I was eight. I didn't know who I was supposed to grieve for, myself or for someone I never met or knew. I saw only glimpses of my mother, usually when she was drunk. She would smother me with alcohol-smelling kisses in town whenever we encountered each other. The last time I ever saw her was a year before she died of hypothermia in 1991, when she hugged me and simply said "you are my son" before letting me go.

Code of strict discipline
My step-mother believed in a code of strict discipline and regularly enforced it with "the board of education" - a piece of wood about three feet long, four inches wide and an inch thick. I could expect to be on the receiving end of that board whenever I did anything"wrong."
Accidentally breaking a dish. Swearing. Not scoring over 70 per cent in an academic test. Accidentally ripping my pants while playing. Being late. And other reasons she could think of. My step-sister confessed in later years that she would run to her bedroom crying and covered her ears to avoid hearing me scream. My step-brother moved away at graduation so he would never have to endure the discipline he witnessed.
In the summer of 1970 my step-father was injured in an industrial accident. Disabled, it fell upon me to assist with his occupational therapy exercises and complete all the chores around the house. Carpentry. Plumbing. Electrical. Labour. Exercising and caring for our three dogs. Whatever needed to be done, in addition to my newspaper route.
Whenever I needed money I had to earn it, so I did. Shovelling driveways and walkways in the winters. Mowing grass and washing
cars in the summers.
Members of my biological family would drop in once in awhile to see how I was doing. Sometimes my brother Lawrence or one of my sisters, Mina or Melina. Occasionally my grandfather, Robert Perrault and great-uncle, Albert Perrault. Conversations over coffee in English. Never any mention of discipline, anger or tears. Always a missed opportunity for someone to say "We're sorry we took him away from you."
See the weekend edition of Yellowknifer for part two of Roy Dahl's column on his personal perspective on the Sixties Scoop.