Motherly Love

Drawing/Painting by Dee-Jay Monika Rumbolt

Motherly Love was painted and donated by Dee-Jay Monika Rumbolt, whose name in Iniktiut is Snowbird, from Port Hope Simpson, Newfoundland. She is Métis (Southern Inuit and German) and a member of the NunatuKavut Nation. Monika donated “Motherly Love” at the Community Hearings in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, at which she also testified, to reflect on her experience of growing up in a single parent family and to show the importance of keeping families together. Her mother worked three jobs to support and provide for Monika and her brother, often not eating herself as she could not afford enough food. Monika reflects on her mother’s ability to keep them all together, raise them and to ensure that they were healthy and happy, demonstrating the importance of keeping families together. “Motherly Love” shows three loons representing Monika’s family: her mother (right), her brother (middle) and herself (left). Her mother, who is on the outside and has her wings open as loons do when they are being territorial, represents the fact that her mother was both provider and protector to Monika and her brother. Monika’s brother is closest to their mother in the painting as he shares a special connection with her.