Red dresses

I like being nice. I like people who are nice. As a Christian, being nice strokes my ego, making me feel like I’m doing a good job for God on this earth. I think about the statement sometimes from the Bible, “they’ll know you are Christians by your love” and I nod pleasantly to myself.

But some days, love looks different than nice. Like today, remembering Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. It’s a tragedy beyond words of our day, and I don’t feel nice about it. I feel angry, overwhelmed and heart-broken. It’s not OK.

How is something like this even possible in our day and age? I read that experts estimate the number could be about 4000, or up to 25,000 in north America. Why do we know such few details about these loved ones? Tiffany, Amber, Rose-Anne, Annie.  The motto ‘Save our Stolen Sisters’ resonates deeply with me. My sister and a dearly loved cousin have indigenous backgrounds, as well as some friends, and I know this could just as easily be them at different times in their lives.  But this issue goes even deeper than troubled girls or communities struggling with violence toward women in their cities. 

There's a problem of family violence inside communities - but that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about systemic violence and institutional negligence towards these women in the investigation of these cases, and in solving the problems that are at the root of the violence against these women. (Valerie Bergeron)

I don’t have a red dress to wear today but I wanted to take some time today to honor the women and precious teens whose lives were taken too soon. Their lives mattered. I hold space today for the families that will maybe live the rest of their lives with unresolved questions and grief. I wanted to speak up and say that our society hasn’t done enough. I don’t know what to do about that, except to use my voice to raise a banner, not tamping down my anger that this has happened and is left so unresolved. It makes me uncomfortable to feel powerless about this, but I want to sit with that uncomfortable feeling and work through it, I want to look for some ways to speak up and be more involved in the coming year. 

Today I remember the women who are now missing or murdered, many of whom were struggling.  IT IS NOT OKAY.  Tanya, Ada, Mary and Cheyenne, your lives mattered. We must do better.