Illustration by Christine Wei
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Life has a way of bringing us our truth. Even at the most inopportune time.
Not so long ago, I was wrapping up an interview for an executive position I had been preparing for my entire career. It was the final step in a 25-year pursuit to reach the position of President and CEO.
The final interview was held in the evening at a hotel in downtown Winnipeg. It began with dinner and the typical pleasantries between the gathered board of directors before moving into an intensive conversation that lasted over two hours.
I remember leaving the interview feeling confident in how I handled questions relating to the industry and leadership. However, when it was time to discuss personal matters concerning family and community, I was notably flustered, deflecting the most basic of questions and hurrying along the discussion in the most awkward of ways.
Holding my third grandchild reminded me of the weight of new life
As I walked to my vehicle, I remember the wind blowing right through me, as snow whipped across my face, freezing my eyes shut. It was much colder and snowier than a typical December – even for Winnipeg.
As my mind retraced the interview, I forgot to remotely start my car in advance. It was frozen and buried under a thick layer of snow. Once I got inside and waited for it to heat up, my hands began shaking uncontrollably on the steering wheel and my lungs laboured to catch my breath. What followed was the most intense sense of dread I have experienced, before or since.
I was in a state of panic, questioning everything I had known about myself. It was not just the interview panel wanting to know who I was as a person; I had many of my own unresolved questions!
The week earlier, I travelled 2,200 kilometres to meet a mother that had been in search of her son for over 50 years. I was that son.
Linda was a kindhearted woman in her late 60s who’d endured a difficult life. She had an infectious smile and a laugh that could fill any room. She explained how her son - she called me Davy - was taken from her at two years old, along with her newly born daughter, Dorothea.
That was in 1969. Linda herself was not yet 18 and a product of a child welfare system filled with systemic racism and policies that included the Indian Residential School System and targeted child apprehension programs, now commonly known as the Sixties Scoop.
Davy was placed into foster care, moved across country and eventually adopted. Linda was told Dorothea had suffered complications and would not survive. The fact is, she did. Dorothea was a healthy baby girl who was placed into immediate adoption within weeks of being born.
Hearing my great-grandfather’s forgotten score felt like he was speaking to me across time
Nothing could prepare me for Linda’s side of my story. She found me after searching for over 50 years. I never knew I was adopted until one of my sisters made a DNA connection to my son several months before.
Sure, I heard of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and read some articles about the 94 Calls to Action. At the time, I thought none of that really concerned me on a personal level.
My childhood was difficult. I grew up in a dysfunctional family living in the inner city and was out on my own at 18. All of that was a lifetime ago and I felt I had left it far behind. I certainly did not identify myself as being adopted – never mind one of an estimated 20,000 children taken from their mothers during the Sixties Scoop.
Everything I had believed to be true in my life was now in question – my name, my family, my heritage. Processing this information was amongst the hardest things I have ever endured. It required time and humility to unpack all the beliefs that had gone into how I defined myself as a person.
It also required the acceptance of a mother who longed to be reunited with her son and the reunification with a family I never knew existed.
Reconciliation is hard and it is personal. It requires vulnerability to accept truths that are difficult to understand and even harder to process. It also requires grieving for what was lost and the patience to reintegrate truths into new action – despite its inconvenience.
Six years have now passed since I met my mother. Linda died in 2023 but not before being reunited with her children. She was deeply loved and is sorely missed.
I did end up getting the job and have recently retired. While my personal reconciliation process continues to this day, I have fully accepted my truth and know who I am as a person: I survived Canada’s child welfare system and its failed Sixties Scoop policy.
David Mortimer lives in Winnipeg.