I've never had a relationship with my biological father, Clarence Edwards.
From about the age of two years old, my mother and Clarence were separated. Soon after, Jerry assumed the role of being our father from that day forward, even though it wasn't until a few years later that my mother and Clarence actually divorced and she and Jerry married. My father Jerry then legally adopted us and to this day remains the only father I have ever known; emotionally or in any other way.
He was the only one who was there for me on a daily basis, through thick and through thin, until he died in 1987 in the car accident that also killed my mother. Although I was briefly introduced to Clarence a couple of times in my teen years, I never knew him growing up. My mother did not deprive us of the knowledge of his existence.
She let us know where he lived, what he did for a living, a little about his family background, and that there was some Indian heritage in his family. That's what I was raised to believe and know from her to be true.
I never deliberately avoided contact with the Edwards family, but my father Jerry's parents loved us as though we were their very own grandchildren and we were equally accepted by his other relatives.
That's the family we belonged to. It was my Gramma Selina who made my stage clothes when I was a kid. It was my Grandpa Jerry who spent hours with me in the woods teaching me to track rabbits and telling me all his bush stories.
It was on the Matagami Reserve that I spent many summer weekends playing with my cousins. Therefore, I never felt the need to seek the love or support of another family, because I had it from the Twains. I don't know how much Indian blood I actually have in me, but as the adopted daughter of my father Jerry, I became legally registered as 50 per cent North American Indian.
Being raised by a full-blooded Indian and being part of his family and their culture from a young age is all I've ever known. That heritage is my heart and my soul, and I'm very proud of it.