Okanagan Indian Band prior to the Bradley Creek Wildfire that moved through my community on July 31. Photo by kelsie marchand (kilawna)

To my relatives at Okanagan Indian Band: I have been watching you.

I watched you the afternoon the sky turned black and the ash fell upon our cars. I watched you pack what you could carry and leave the rest. I watched you drive past the places that raised you, the old homestead, the berry patch, the creek where your grandmother would fish, and I watched you keep driving.

I watched you answer the phone calls from relatives who couldn’t reach you, and I watched you say: “We’re okay. We’re fine.”

I watched you lie so beautifully.

Because what else is there to say? To the cousin in “Vancouver” who calls twice a day. To the friend from high school who sends a text with a heart emoji. To the reporter who asks how you’re feeling and wants to know if you’re “resilient.” You say you’re okay because the alternative is too heavy to hand to someone who cannot carry it. You say you’re okay because you don’t have time not to be.

And then you go back to work.

You go back to the office. You go back to the job site. You go back to the kitchen, to the orders you promised. You pour coffee. You answer emails. You show up for meetings and nod at the right times — and you hold it together.

No one sees what happens when you close the car door and drive past the spot that used to be your uncle’s place. When you try not to look, but you look anyway, because that is what we do. We do not turn from grief. We face it. We let it be seen.

And then we keep driving.

I see you, my people. I see you with your homes still standing, and I see you carry a grief you don’t feel entitled to.

Survivor’s guilt is a quiet thing. It sits in the passenger seat with us while you drive past the empty lots where your cousins used to live and says: *“*At least you still have a roof. You still have a door. What right do you have to cry?”

But grief is not a competition, and we can’t measure it in chimneys that fell and chimneys that stood, because grief is not about what you lost, but about what you deeply loved.

And we loved and cherished this community, so deeply. We loved the roads we learned to ride our bikes on. We loved the homes our uncles built with their own hands. We loved the kitchens where our grandmothers and aunties taught us to cook. We loved the sound of our people laughing in a room full of food and noise and life.

That is what we lost. Not just houses. Houses are what outsiders count. But we lost home. We lost the shape of our ordinary days. We lost the geography of our belonging.

Outsiders will not understand this. They will look at the numbers, 245 structures, 45 band homes, 200 non-band homes, and they will think they know what happened. They will think they can measure our grief in hectares and acres. They will say we are “resilient” like it is a compliment, like it is a badge of honour, like it is something we should be proud of.

But we are not resilient. We are responsible for continuance. We are the ones who carry the thread forward. We carry it because our ancestors carried it first. We carry it because the People-to-Be are waiting for us to hand it over.

That is what it means to be syilx. That is what it means to be from the Okanagan Indian Band. We are the dream in a spiral, coiling forward generation after generation. We are the people of the stories. We carry what we carry because we have always carried it.

Everything we need is here, they told us. And they were right. Everything we need, the land, the language, the knowledge, it is still here. It is in the green shoots pushing through the ash. It is in the horses that stayed together. It is in the way we hold each other.

Because I have seen you, my people. I have seen you show up for each other.

I have seen you bring food to a family that lost everything because you know what it means to have nothing and still be held.

I have seen you pull over to help a neighbour change a tire on a road that has become a ghost of what it was.

I have seen you fill a fellow community member’s GoFundMe before the smoke cleared, because you know that one person’s loss is all of ours.

I have seen you sit with an Elder who lost their home and just listen, because that is what they need, a witness.

I have seen you rebuild a food forest that was reduced to ash, because you remember that the land heals and so do we.

I have seen you get back on a horse that hurt you, because if you could walk through fire, you could face your fear.

I have seen you show up for the kids at the hockey school and tell them they belong here. That this is their home. That no fire can take that.

I have seen you show up to fundraise with a shirt that says We Are Still Here, and I have seen you mean it.

I am writing this because I want you to know; I see you. I see you lie so beautifully. I see you hold it together when everything inside you is falling apart. I see you pretend to be okay so that someone else doesn’t have to worry. I see you protect your children from the weight you carry. I see you wake up every day and do the work of continuance, the work of being sqilx’w, the work of being proud, the work of showing up.

I see the way you hold your composure when someone asks how you’re doing. I see the way you say “We’re okay” even when you are not. I see the way you carry the grief of a community that no longer looks the same.

You do not need to be resilient. You need to be held. You need to be seen. You need to know that we are here, and we are not going anywhere.

You are allowed to accept kindness right now.

That is what the Elders are teaching us. That is what we are learning to believe. Accepting help is not a weakness, it is a ceremony. It is how we heal. It is how we keep going.

So this is what I want to offer my people.

We are sqilx’w. We are the dream in a spiral. We are the thread that cannot burn.

We show up. We keep going. We hold each other. We grieve the community we lost and we honour the community we still have.

We do not have to be okay. We do not have to be resilient. We just have to keep showing up for each other.

Because that is who we are.

Because that is what we do.

Because we are syilx.

Because we are from the Okanagan Indian Band.

Because despite everything,  puti kʷu‿alaʔ, we are still here.

And we still show up.

If you are a member of the nation and are struggling, help is available through the OKIB Mental Health and Wellness team at 250-540-7416. The First Nations Health Authority has resourceshereand Interior Health has othershere.

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