Joyce and Earl Burns were childhood sweethearts.
They grew up together on James Smith Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, first as neighbours, then as husband and wife.
“It was childhood love,” said Victor Sanderson, a younger brother of Joyce Burns. He babysat their children and watched the couple grow old together.
He now visits his sister in a Saskatoon hospital room, where she recently regained consciousness after she was stabbed multiple times in the stomach and neck in a mass killing on the First Nation.
The ashes of her 66-year-old husband sit in an urn next to her bed.
Joyce and Earl Burns were among the 28 people attacked on the First Nation and in the nearby village of Weldon, northeast of Saskatoon, on Sept. 4….