Last year I got a seasonal job at Chapters bookstore, and this year I was hired back on for the holiday season. Our managers ask us to share a story at the end of each shift on how we have brought joy into a customers life, as a way of getting us to interact with our customers in a deeper, more meaningful way; this is something that often sets us apart from other retail stores. On a particular November morning, towards the front of the store where a table full of books from local authors resides, was where I would meet my story of the day.

He was an older gentleman slowly flipping through the pages of a novel about the First Nations, I approached him and asked, “Finding everything alright?”

He looked up and smiled, said he was just looking for some new books to read on aboriginal peoples, and asked where he might find more of them in the store, as he had already read most of the ones on the table. I let him know about a section towards the back containing more from local authors, and about First Nations in general. I asked him if there was anything specifically about them he was looking for, and he told me he was looking for books on residential schools, more specifically a book written by a  Aboriginal woman who had attended a Residential School, and advocated for them, as she had received a good education there, and had not fallen victim to any of the atrocities normally heard in regards to residential schools.

This conversation occurred only a couple weeks after we covered residential schools and the education of native peoples in class. We had discussed how, despite the overwhelming negative impacts residential schools had, some students had actually benefitted from them and enjoyed their time there, and the education they received.

Knowing this, I stated to the older gentleman a quick summery of what I had learned only a couple weeks before, and mused that some had good experiences, but often their stories were not as common, or buried under all those coming from students that had been negatively impacted by the residential schools. We began to talk about how some schools really did wish to better their First Nations students, and he revealed to me that he had actually worked at a residential school in the past.

“Well, I wasn’t actually a part of the real staff, I was a janitor at the school,” he told me.

The gentleman then went on to describe his role there. It quickly became clear that he had truly loved his job, and had loved the kids that attended the school. He told me that the children would often run down to the fields below the school, which he also maintained, on their lunch breaks. He said they all knew he would let them play down on the fields, and often came full of wide smiles, calling to him and greeting him with joy. He smiled as he told me this, getting a far off look in his eyes, and I could tell a part of him was no longer here in the bookstore, but back at that school.

As the schools came to an end, and he moved on in his career, he lost touch with these students, all of whom he had known by name. By this point I was beginning to get a little misty-eyed, so it didn’t help when he told me that recently he had gotten Facebook, and somehow all these students, many of whom he hadn’t seen or heard of in decades, found him on it. They reconnected to him on it, some even thanking him for adding joy to their school life and letting them onto those fields.

Our conversation came to an end shortly after, and I ended up ringing him through the cash register about 15 minutes later. We didn’t have the book he was looking for, but he did find two others, one First Nations story, and another full of First Nations poetry. He then thanked me, saying I made his day, but I had to disagree; he had made my day, my whole week even. His story stuck with me throughout the rest of my shift, and will probably stick with me for years. It was amazing to hear someone actually recount an experience like that, and to offer me a glimpse into a past I have only ever read about. I doubt I would have been able to connect with this man, and enjoy his story and its importance, if I had not taken this course. It gave me a deeper understanding of the residential schooling system, and how rare and valuable it is to find a positive story among them. This course taught me how much education can impact whole lives, and how the smallest experiences of it can shape who we are. For this elderly gentleman, the daily routine of these aboriginal children running to him in the field is what gave him joy, and it is something that has stuck with him for decades. For the children, his small kindness of allowing to play on those fields turned into something they were grateful for for the rest of their lives, and still thank him for years later.

Image: Fireweed, taken by Katryna Barone