My sister the storyteller was seven years older than I was. Doing the dishes was our job. She would wash; I would dry.

Looking back at my last column, I see I wrote about bad feelings between me and the act of washing dishes. Anger. Resentment. But today, I write about good feelings. Put my hands in dishwater, and I feel a sense of solidarity with the many girls and women around the world whose responsibility it is to make food and wash dishes. I remember my sisters. I think stories.

In those days, when I was eight or nine, the rectangles surrounding us were windows rather than screens. And books.

My preferred occupation was reading a book. Spending good reading time on the mindless repetition of doing dishes seemed a waste. My sister got me to help her by telling stories while we worked.
The one I recall, with many chapters, was about the Alphabet family. The father was Andrew for A, the mother was Barbara for B, the oldest brother was Caleb for C, and so on―13 children, all the way to Baby O.

Every dishwashing session, my sister required me to recite the name of each Alphabet family member, and recap the ending of the previous instalment. Only then would she start inventing a new chapter in the family’s adventures.

When I got enthralled in the story, my hands would stop moving. When that happened, my sister’s mouth would stop moving―until I quickly picked up another plate and began wiping again.
When my sister left home, I was on my own. I’d stand hours with my hands in the dishwater, reading a book propped open on the windowsill above the sink. My strategy was to string out the job as long as possible, to avoid the next job. I’d finish just before my mother entered the kitchen to make the next meal.

Some might think I was lazy, but I worked hard at my stories.

Stories are powerful. Think of Phyllis Jack Webstad’s story. She wrote a children’s book telling what happened when authorities took her, at age 6, to a residential school. She was wearing a new orange shirt her grandmother had given her. On her arrival, it was stripped from her, along with her other clothes, and never returned.

The orange shirt story is a strong reminder of the mission of the residential school system to destroy the children’s Indigenous identity. The story became a focal point in raising awareness of the atrocities of the residential school system in Canada. This awareness has been hammered home in recent years by the discovery of more than 1,000 unmarked graves surrounding former residential schools.
Webstad’s story led to September 30 being named as the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, or
Orange Shirt Day. Her story lets readers identify with her, to feel what she felt as a six-year-old. To empathize.

It is said that Truth must come first in order for Reconciliation to happen. I agree. But so must empathy. It is one thing to know what happened to someone else; it is another to understand how they felt. A story lets us imagine ourselves inside their experiences and to feel their feelings, at least for a few minutes.
Today when I am washing dishes, I like to listen to memories in my head, like an inner radio. My hands swing in rhythm, and my mind flies far away on the wings of a story.
In my mind, my sister the storyteller is beside me still. We let the dishes air dry.