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Once in Canada Elsie reunited
with her mother and brother in
Toronto. Elsie's parenting
skills were hardly commendable.
She was a performer, a mystery,
enchanting and wild. Her night's
out that extended far beyond the
reasonable hour one would expect
from a mother, led to the
apprehension of Michelle by a
Children's Aid Society.
In July 1964, at 19 months old,
Michelle went into foster care.
Her name was legally changed and
hidden away forever. She did not
see her mother for another 32
years.
At age 34, Michelle started an
official search for her family.
She had known for a number of
years that she had eight
brothers and sisters, but
because of sadistic-like family
separation laws she was not
allowed to know their names or
where they lived. Her older
sister, she later learned, had
been looking for her for 17
years.
Michelle reunited with two
sisters, Colette and Mignon, the
two sisters had remained in one
foster home in New York. She met
another brother, David, who was
adopted in Ottawa. Then she met
her younger brother Raymond, he
had been living not ten miles
away from her for many years.
The siblings decided it was time
to find their mother. Michelle,
with the help of a friend
located her mother in Edmonton,
Alberta. Michelle and her mother
talked on the phone every week
for six months. Her mother sent
pictures of herself, her mother,
brothers and some relatives.
Michelle tore out of work to get
home and rip open the envelope
containing the family
photographs.
She received the pictures ten
years ago, and to this day is
still awestruck that she
actually does look like other
humans. She has showed the
pictures to hundreds of other
humans just to prove that she,
too, is human.
After her first and only visit
with her mother, Michelle became
angry. The anger was unexpected
– she felt like an agitated
dragon, suddenly disturbed after
a thousand-year slumber.
She was angry for all the years
she missed not knowing her
mother and family. She did not
understand why it had been
illegal for her know her people,
identity, ethnicity and
ancestry.
Sadly, while Michelle was trying
to make sense of the two worlds
that had just collided – her
mother died. Elsie's last words'
to her brother were to tell the
kids she was happy they found
her . . . and to give her
decades old dilapidated sofa to
the neighbours in the apartment
above her.
Michelle is the host of a web
radio show that gives separated
families a voice to talk about
their pain. Why? Because it is
in her blood – because she found
her voice – the voice that was
taken from her in July of 1964.
Michelle has one memory of her
visit with her mother that is
paved in her brain: shortly
after arriving at her mother's
apartment, her mother asked if
she was hungry because she had
prepared a pot of Kraft dinner
that was sitting on the stove
ready to eat.
Michelle said, "Oh, yeah, Mom,
thanks . . . I am hungry." She
took one look at the Kraft
dinner then ran to the washroom
and threw up. It was at that
moment the loss struck her – the
years gone; the woman whose
kitchen she was standing had
lost her baby, and that baby was
she.
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