The Love Deep Within You
Solace is being raised in a loving home with his four other siblings and two Mothers, myself (Milana), and their Mother, Brooke. It is a home that is built on a strong foundation, enriched with our Oneida Language and Haudenosaunee teachings.
Being Ukwehuwe women, we are raised with important responsibilities, but the most important one that we were ever given was to give life. This means to grow our clan families, to nurture, love and teach our children how to live life with a peaceful mind and heart, and to show our children how to be self-sufficient and lead a healthy lifestyle. In our way all women play a role, as mothers, grandmothers and aunties to all children, whether they’ve physically given birth or not. It takes a village to raise a child, and they are all loved the same. Our family has been blessed to have had the opportunity to extend our love and care for three other beautiful children so far and we will continue to help in bringing our children home.
Raising our children in a home with two Mothers has been an honor. We are breaking colonial habits and beliefs, reclaiming our true identities and living by our original instruction. We are relearning love as we used to know and understand it. We are making sure our children get to feel what it’s like to be loved and nurtured before the effects of Residential School.
Before the impacts of colonization, our people knew a love so honest and true. There was no shame in who you loved. There were no bounds. We knew how to embrace one another. We really saw each other. But today some people shame it, simply because they don’t understand it. Solace and our four other beautiful children know a love so deep, so pure and true, that they understand who they truly are and what their purpose is here on earth. I hope that they will continue to live in the truest form of love with themselves and others as we did pre-colonially, because love is the answer to all and it radiates in all of creation. If you can find and truly understand the love deep within you, then you’ve found your place in the world. I am so very thankful our children know theirs.
Yaw^ko (Thank You)
Milana Paulson
