This #remembranceday I feel complicated feelings for my grandfather. He flew a spitfire in WW1 and was shot down near Malta, but was rescued and lived to go on to Vietnam too. He suffered from PTSD & beat the living shit out of my father from the age of 5, passing on the #PTSD.

My father fought so hard to deal with his own trauma and make sure we grew up knowing we are loved unconditionally. He never laid a hand on us. But PTSD is real and it still affected us. I jump at the tiniest sounds because my dad did. We all live in a state of hypervigilance.

I’m so proud of the superhuman effort my dad made and continues to make to protect us from intergenerational trauma. He has done his damn best and it makes me feel eternally loved. And it makes me feel pure rage toward my grandfather for what he did to him.

My grandfather being an abusive figure, we didn’t visit him much. We heard stories of his heroics, but also his violence. I hardly knew my grandfather, but I both loved and hated him. So when he died recently at the age of 101, I was surprised to feel immobilized for weeks.

Paul Baril was a Québécois settler who lived in Montréal. I grew up in Nunavut, so I barely knew the man. But intergenerational trauma has long fingers, and it’s been a mind fuck to realize I am getting it from both the Inuit and settler sides of my family.

My settler father has undone all the war-induced trauma he was able to, and made sure to explain his failings to us so we would know it’s not our fault.

My Inuk mother has undone all the colonizer-induced trauma she possibly could, and taught me to keep up that work.

My parents are superheroes for doing their best, making sure we know our history, and that we’re equipped to continue the intergenerational healing.

So fuck history’s colonizers & war mongers.

And most importantly, fuck today’s colonizers and war mongers. #lestweforget

*WW2 not *WW1...