Dear birth mother: You were a TB patient when you had me. Who was my father?

This First Person article is the experience of Marilyn Ringland, an Anishiniew woman who has family roots in Garden Hill First Nation and was raised in Selkirk, Man. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see this FAQ.

Dear Irene,

I must apologize for using your name instead of calling you "mom." I didn't get the chance to know you in the way a child knows their mother. 

I do hope you had the opportunity to hold me, and that you got to choose my name — a name that my parents, the ones who raised me, kept as is to honour you. I was promised to people who you knew would love me as their own.

I am slowly finding out your story through records and archives. I don't know which residential school you went to.

I only knew that you contracted tuberculosis and were residing at the Ninette, Man., sanatorium when you got pregnant with me, and were there until your demise.

Demise. I can't even say the words "death" or "dying."

Maybe it's because of what you went through in the short time that you were here. Spending your adulthood in an institution should not, cannot be the end. I can only say that you do live on through me and my children.

Did you know you have three grandchildren? I wish you had the chance to meet them. 

Also, my husband. We've been together for more than 30 years. I smile and think that he's crazy to be stuck with me all this time.

I was very fortunate to be with the family you picked out for me. You knew my mom was Anishininikwe, like you, and my dad a WASPy kind of guy. Both of my parents came from large families. I don't know how much stigma they went through as a mixed couple, but my grandparents were accepting, and that was what mattered to my parents. 

I was told at a very young age that I was adopted, and I felt comfortable enough to let people know that it wasn't such a big deal, and no one asked me if it was. My brother was also adopted, though under different circumstances. I also had an older sister and two other siblings, and all three have since died. 

My search for you in earnest happened after my mom passed away. I don't know how she would have felt, but I do know that I would have let her know what I was doing. I guess because I knew I was adopted and my family life was content, until that point, there wasn't that need or want to find out where I came from.

Finding out bits and pieces of your life has been frustrating. The people who might have known you and your family are gone. I know that I had an uncle, your brother Walter, and a grandmother when you passed.