My great uncle: indigenous hereditary chief

Today, I am honoring a hereditary indigenous chief as a father of a whole tribe. My great uncle! He started as an alcoholic and eventually became a judge.

Growing up away from my indigenous tribe and with my mom's family being torn and separated by the residential schools and the 60s scoops. I only really learned about them when I was 12 when my mom took the first plane with my youngest brother to meet everyone she could. I grew up far away, on the other side of the country, away from my extended family. I learn about them from a distance.

I just wanted to say I'm proud to be my mother's daughter and come from this indigenous heritage. My relatives are some of the most outstanding teachers I've ever had. They teach me about my family when they can, and I learn so much from them.

Chief Edwin (Nulis) Newman, whom I've never got to speak to, nor ever meet, but I know my family always tries to bring the whole family together. I pray is resting in power or somewhere among the trees.

As you go to sleep, my dear uncle, I know you by name as my great Uncle Edwin Newman. May you wake up in your dreams as you spread your wings in your new journey to the unknown of the afterlife.

Please watch over my great-grandma (your grandma)! I was a young child then, and she would tell me stories about everyone, my grandma (your sister & my mom's mom), whom I also never got to meet, and my mom and her sister, your nieces, and all the rest of the loved ones lost along the way in our family! I still remember when she used to call my mom, my siblings, and me on the phone regularly.

I know one thing about my mom's family is that you never quit looking for the rest of us and always loved us!

I didn't grow up in my mom's culture. Still, I know I have a voice in the world to carry on the messages for indigenous people, indigenous communities, etc.; you and all the beloved ones before you that this family has lost have set the example. Rest in POWER!! May the rest of us finish the work you started.

Check out my uncles speech here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIGn6cPJTq0&t=102s

I learned these lessons about courage from my father, my mother, and all the men in their families. These lessons come from my cousins to my uncles to my great uncles! They have promoted what leadership looks like to me.

When you find a man for yourself and a future husband:

Time apart helps love grow stronger only if both people take the time to reflect on what went wrong in the relationship. Why it did, and how to make sure they won't make the same mistakes again, so it doesn't happen again instead of living like society and jumping next to find better.

You need to listen to your partner and learn to understand each other better; maybe something beautiful can grow. "The grass isn't greener; it's often muddier on the other side. The grass is healthier and greener where you water it."

Have you ever wondered why you keep going in circles with your love life as you gaze up to the stars? Well, that's your answer to that question. Love takes effort, admitting your mistakes to each other, and being able to overlook and forgive, not selfishness.

If you're looking for the grass to be green and them to water you, you're just leaving them as grass. You may think you do everything for a man, but never fail to appreciate it when the man in your life does stuff for you. Nothing can grow from that if you forget that.

You slowly let the one you claim you love to die inside, and bitterness and anger will never become positive. In the end, it is you hurting yourself. You can't expect perfection from someone. You'll never find it.

You can't expect things. Never start blaming everyone else but taking no responsibility of your own. Take responsibility and change the way you take care of your grass. Then love can blossom, and not only that, you'll start attracting the right people willing to put in as much effort for you as you.

By action, I don't just mean pleasing. I also suggest learning to understand a person and loving them anyways, even on the stuff that drives you mad.

Never forget that you got those bad qualities towards people too. You get what you give. Love is not just a reward, and it's not just a feeling, not just an emotion. Finding real love is work, communication, and learning to understand somebody other than yourself.