Life, Me, Native American Women

That Little Girl Within

Yeah, you can hang that excuse up right now. We know you too well to allow you to continue to try to use that line on us…”that little girl in me…”. Just let it go. I know that there was a time when you did not know that you were operating from some serious hurt that you carried from your childhood to today but we all know that it was more than a few years ago you saw what you were doing to yourself. More than a few years ago that you realized that the big hurt was causing you to make decisions a grown woman would not make. Instead, you were making your choices based on what that little hurt girl wanted.

Today you are making bad choices and every time we sit and talk and you start feeling like we are calling you out you run to that same excuse “the little girl in me says…”. It’s old. Let it go. The next time we have to have the same conversation (again) I might just knock you over the head with a wiffle ball bat. At the very least I will call you out and then I will make you stand. That’s right, stand, not as a little girl but as the woman you have become. She may not be the strongest person to be trying to have that same conversation with and you may not like having to stand on your own. Time to once again look into the mirror….oh I know, you hate that mirror. You hate to look and see what we all see because when you are sitting with that counsel of women who know, you cannot look into the mirror without seeing the truth of who you are.

Today begins the new year. A time, I realize, when we all sit and reflect and then think that we are going to do better, be better than we were last year. But we all also know the statistics of New Year’s day resolutions. I say, let’s just start the new year with a renewed commitment to be the women we are and then let’s move to the place where we are strongest as the year progresses.

I am filling my life with women who are strong. I am filling my life with women who understand that old hurts helped to shape us but do not define us. I am filling my life with women who I want to emulate. I would like to include you in that circle but I leave the choice up to you.

Life

Observing Men

I was thinking about this today…whether you were called to be a medicine man or you just want to be a medicine man really doesn’t matter to me. Of the two, neither is more important than the other. Of the two, one is more difficult to do than the other. I know men who have and or are doing one or the other and so I know this to be true.

Let’s say that I want to be a doctor. I understand from the time I decided to become a doctor that my school work matters so that I can be accepted to the best college. I know that the college work I do matters for the residency that I am looking for to come to fruition. I work my butt off for many years because I have a goal. I am driven in every area of my life based on the choice that I have made. It is the same for a man who wants to be a medicine man. The desire to be that means something. I have never known God to turn down a willing spirit, a willing servant. I think that any man who want to serve the People in this way will be a good medicine man.

If you have a calling to be that, a calling to be a preacher, a calling to be anything else that’s all it is…a calling. You still have to make the choice. This is the downfall of many men who have had strong callings to service. They feel the call in their spirits but they spend a lot of time and energy running from that call. They would rather drink or do drugs or run around doing anything but answering that call. The times that they do follow and act on the call bring amazing results to the people who they are called to help but instead of answering the call, they spend most of their time running from the call. A man can waste most of his life running from his calling. If and when he does answer then truly amazing things can happen.

You would think that having the calling would be the easy road but obviously making a choice of the path you want to follow is easier. This is not to say that men who have a calling and answer that call are not successful. Those are blessed men who work hard at passing on God’s blessing to others.

I see both…men who are called and men who just want to serve. Both do wonderful works. Each path is different and neither is better than the other. Somedays these are the things I think about…

death, Family, Life, Me

Been a Slow Day

Yeah, I’m lying. My days are never slow. It just seemed that when it comes to writing I have been procrastinating and since I don’t admit to being a procrastinator I decided to say it has been slow.

I had been thinking that we had to take time out of regular life to bury my mother-in-law. She lost her fight with Alzheimer’s. But I realized that I was thinking wrong…taking the time to bury a loved one is part of regular life. It is no different than when a new life comes into the family.

We moved her into our home a year ago, when it became just way too expensive to have her continue to live in an assisted living home. My husband quit his job to stay home and take care of her.

Our lives are busy, have been busy for many years now. Our children are all grown and gone which left us plenty of time to do other things. The busyness did not slow down once she moved in. We had to rearrange who did what when but we continued to stay busy.

Several friends offered to help us during these months so that we did not just unplug from life. They would come over and sit with us and they would send us out to dinner while they sat with her to make sure that she stayed safe. Our friends were and continue to be wonderful blessings in our lives.

Then the fateful day was approaching and we had hospice come in to help us out with those final details. We called all of those friends who had spent so much time with us. We wanted to make sure that they had to opportunity to say goodbye. They had taken the time to become her family and they deserved the chance to be there in the end…if they so desired.

She passed and we started the process of fulfilling her last wishes. One of the friends come over one morning for coffee and she sat in tears thanking me for allowing her to be part of the entire process. She had been sheltered her entire life from death and she did not know what it felt like to say goodbye to a loved one in such a beautiful way. She and her (then) fiancé came into the process with us. They are married now and begin their lives as a family with this beautiful experience. I am happy to have had the opportunity to share.

I am constantly amazed at the people that I know who claim to be spiritual in their everyday life and when something like this happens they fall apart, not only falling apart but getting angry at God for the loss. I don’t get it. How do you profess to believe in such things as an afterlife and then get angry at God when a loved one gets to go home?

My children, my husband, my brother-in-law, myself…all sad to be sure…but also all very happy that Mom-Grandma was no longer suffering, no longer not knowing who her family is, no longer being alone. She is surrounded now by complete, total, eternal love. I cannot be anything but happy about that…happy for her. We will miss her, we already miss her. We both walk into the bedroom looking for her, still….

We had the traditional burial, her wishes fulfilled. We notified all the family we could of her passing. Now we prepare for her Memorial. This one is for those beautiful friends who gave their hearts to her, claimed her as their own Grandmother for a short time. We will share those stories that we dared not share at the funeral home (she cussed a lot) and we will eat…holy smokes she loved to eat and we will do so in her honor!

And now I have taken the time to sit and write this final chapter in our adventures with her. Now I can stop procrastinating about writing and just get on with my life. I did so without tears (progress).

Who knows? There may be more to write about later, depends on what stories are shared this weekend.

Uncategorized

She Struggles to the Other Side

Her breathing has become shallow and each breath is labored. We watch and pray and cry. For several years we have watched the decline and we have worried about this day and now it is here. Every hour finds one of us walking into the bedroom and silently watching over her.

Yesterday several of her friends came over to say their good-byes. She is unaware on so many levels and (we are all hoping) so aware on the most important level of all. We all hope that our love is able to penetrate the fog that has enveloped her consciousness. There are tears to be shared all around and then hugs and just all the love that develops when a group of people have decided to call each other ‘family’.

We know that it has been over a year now that she forgot the boys, her deepest memories…all gone now. It has been even longer than that since she could remember who I was but then, I am the newbie, I have only been in the family for 22 years. I am OK with that, it has given me the distance to be able to help him watch his mother decline without being an emotional mess myself.

The grandkids all know and they are making visits as they can. The great-grandkids never had much chance to get to know her like everyone else did. By the time most of them were born she was already a stranger. That part makes me sad for the kids. They will only have our memories to go by now. Pictures will be important to some and not so important to others.

We, my husband and I, have been crying each day for two weeks now. We are not done crying yet. Once we are done with our own tears there will be tears for the rest of the family and the friends who have meant so much to us (and her) in the last year who will all grieve like she was their grandmother too. We will hug them and smile with them and carry a big box of tissue to help wipe away the tears.

I write today to take the place of some of the tears. I face my own fears and shortcomings as a daughter-in-law now at the end of her life. I sit and reflect on our years together and I laugh out loud at some of the arguments and jokes we shared. I let the tears roll gently down my cheeks as I come to terms with her end here and her new beginning “over there”.

Our buddy came in last night with his family to sing her some songs to help ease her spirit and to let her know that we are all OK and that she could leave anytime she was ready…not that we are rushing her…everyone just hates to see her hurting. I stood there crying, listening to the soft beat of the drum and the soothing sound of his voice. I know that she heard him too.

My husband asked me months ago if the Alzheimer’s would kill her. I told him ‘No. her body would give out long before the disease had time to run it’s course’. That is what we see now…her little body getting tired of fighting. That is the part we cannot help her with. All our coaxing and all our prayers cannot give her more strength if she is too tired to fight anymore. All we can do now is watch her go peacefully with our love to ferry her on.

Family, Life, Me

Surviving America

Ok, so I survived another holiday weekend. Oh I know that technically the holiday happened during the week but it was close enough that many people tacked on the weekend as well. There were numerous office populated with the dreaded skeleton crew. Some of us who ended up working while others were off playing. Yes, I was one of those who worked on Friday…but it was nice so I did not mind. On the plus side there were not nearly as many emails as I normally would have to read during the weekend.

I accidently started a family tradition years ago and now the 4th of July is my daughters very favorite holiday. I always found this highly unlikely because I do not know ANY kid who picks July over Christmas but I have come to accept over the years that she really does like the 4th of July more than Christmas!

When my baby was young I started taking her to fireworks displays in town, the big ones. We had two big displays in Fort Wayne each year. The first was at the traditional end of the Three Rivers Festival and, of course, the 4th of July show. She named each of the fireworks big booms by the sounds that accompanied the flashes. I was not a fan of the backyard do-it-yourself shows put on by the dads and granddads. Oh not that they were not fun for the kids (and yes, that is supposed to be the target audience) but it was not so much fun for me.

These shows became such a thrill for my daughter that even after her father and I were no longer married she still insisted on going and by then it had become his tradition as well. I liked that for her. Some years we would meet up during the show and some years it was my turn to take her. She was just happy to be out and looking up into the night sky those hot summer nights.

Over the years I have found myself sitting on some grassy knoll waiting for the sun to set and the show to begin. I have noticed that, over all, the fireworks have not changed so much. Probably safer for the pyro techs and computers have made some of the shows interesting with music blaring along with each big bang but essentially, they are unchanged and I think that this is one of things I like the best.

These days I am heading out to find “my spot” alone. My husband does not find the excitement that I find in a good old firework show. But I am never lonely. I chat with my camped out neighbors and we share snacks and drinks from time to time. I meet new people who have also found what a nice spot we have all discovered. There are always the new people in town who did not realize that our little town offers such a great show.

This year I sat with my girlfriend and her son as well as several other friends. She is an Ojibwa woman. We were quite the sight, two full-blooded Native women sitting in the grass in our camping chairs eating snacks and drinking pop waiting on a celebration we aren’t so sure about but we like the fireworks. We laugh at the irony and we clap at the really cool displays. Her son heads out to scout the crowd and see who is around, not that he knows anyone, he is one of those guys who finds a new friend everywhere he goes. He comes back exited that he found a Di’ne woman sitting on the hill. We are three now. Native women who sit in the crowd celebrating the birth of America, who would have thought?

getting in shape, Life, Me

Got It!…Muscle Confusion

OK, so now I get it. I listened to the workout guru try to explain how beneficial muscle confusion is to my body. I wonder every now and then if it really works. I wonder also if runners use this technique to help in their own training.

Last week I started (or restarted) my own training to be a runner (once again). I started the week walking about 4.5 miles in two days and then incorporated some running-finishing out the week with a total of 9 miles under my belt. My muscles….totally confused. At first there was much yelling and screaming and out right refusing to move then by day four all my muscles were beginning to get with the program. I had even started developing a real “like” of getting out there and walking. A “like” of how the gravel felt as it crunched under my foot each time I advanced as I ran. My body was beginning to remember how it felt to move fluidly.

Then Friday came and I didn’t even get home from my busy day until dark. I do not run in the forest after dark (monsters) so I decided that it was a good day to rest. I woke up Saturday morning still feeling “OK”. I don’t know about you but summer weekends for me are action packed and it was Sunday night and I was still not home from busyness.

My muscles were confused again.

It is now Monday night. I have sent several reports to the “powers-that-be” and I have eaten my dinner and even had some dessert but it is dark again. I am starting to feel a little guilty about not running. I have read from expert runners that this feeling of guilt is quite normal and I actually feel good about that.

Tomorrow I do not have to be on the road so I will start again. Tomorrow I have so much work to do but I will start again. Tomorrow my muscles will again be confused about what the hell I am expecting them to do. I am hoping that this will not become the normal pattern, four days of working out and then four days of not working out. No matter how confused, I think my muscles will just stay in revolt and this is not my goal. It is hard enough to think about trying to keep my feet moving for thirteen miles, hard enough to keep that mental picture of me succeeding getting up those killer hills, hard enough to fight those nicotine cravings without fighting my muscles who don’t like being quite so confused each week.

getting in shape, Me

One small step?

OK, I did it. I ran. I didn’t die…I’m happy about that. It started this morning. My dog decided not to hear me calling his name so I ran across the backyard barefoot to intercept him before he was so far gone I would have to jump into the van and drive to the neighbors to retrieve him….again. My legs felt good and I wasn’t too winded.

After a full day of driving and meetings and some paperwork as I let the sun be overtaken by some clouds and it was cool enough to breath before I gave it a go. I have been walking. My running route is 4 miles in total but I haven’t even walked that distance yet. I did make it 3 miles walking one day. I suppose I am being a bit overconfident but I figure I have to try sometime, huh?

Still working on the quitting smoking part. I decided to stop smoking about 20 minutes before I leave and wait at least 30 minutes afterwards.

I found my ear buds for my ipod. I guess really I ran out of excuses not to try to run again.

My dog has been walking with me, he likes to be on the walks and he is grounded for life for running off to the neighbors and staying gone for 6 hours whereby causing me some serious worry. He is a little guy and there are many, many monsters in the woods these days. He is just the right size for coyote food and eagle food and probably hawk food. So now he walks with me for his exercise rather than run the neighborhood. Like I said, he likes the walks but he misses getting to be loose and on his own.

When I started actually running he gave me that sideways look he gives me when he just knows for sure I don’t know what the hell I am doing….I get that look a lot.

We walked the first 3/4 of a mile, listening to music and watching for monsters. Then I stopped and turned around and started actually running. Now I didn’t run the entire way home…no, just running off and on for the return trip. But I ran…I didn’t jog, I didn’t walk fast…I ran. The weather is just summer hot….temp around 95 (89 in the shade) and the humidity hovers around 99%. Sweat is pouring from every pore on my body and I feel good. When I did run (35 years ago), I ran in the heat of the Texas summer…East Texas, so the weather was about the same and I have to admit, I smiled as I chugged along today with that memory fresh in my head.

My guess is that tomorrow I will not be able to repeat todays’ performance. If memory serves me right… I will spend the day whining about how much my shins hurt.

getting in shape, Life, Me, Uncategorized

The Battle Continues

OK…so now it has been two weeks since I started planning to run again. I can honestly say that my planning is going quite well. I have not, however, bothered to hit the road yet. I did find my running shoes. I was examining them to ensure that they were fit to carry me again and discovered that a flying squirrel had decided at some point that they made perfect storage units for stolen dog food.

I have also continued to work on quitting smoking. I have not quit yet but I am beginning to not like smoking. I think that is a great step that needed to be taken. At least this time around planning to quit does not involve hiding cigarettes for later (for emergencies). Another positive step.

I have been looking into a couple of apps for my phone to help me motivate and decided that it was much more trouble than I was willing to tackle, not that downloading apps is an issue but relying on them for each run just seems to be a lot of trouble. I started reading a book about running and bought myself an ipod-holder-thingy so that I can take my tunes with me. My next goal is to find my ear buds so I can listen to those tunes. Could I buy a new set? Yes, but I know I have some around her somewhere and I might possibly lose my procrastination license if I do not spend at least a week looking around the house for them.

Our oldest child came down with his family to spend some time during Father’s Day weekend. He has managed to run the mini in Indianapolis for the last two years. I took some time to talk with him about motivation and running routines. He is younger than I but only by 13 years (yeah, I married an old guy the second time around) so I still have this image of myself being able to run. He agrees and I feel much encouraged by his confidence in me.

I am dealing with some guilt and I am dealing with some fear. Knowing that I can run and that I should run keep the gears turning in my head. Managing my schedule to open some time is the obstacle I face today.

“You have time to sit and write….what’s the hold up?” Good question, I wish I could say that I had a good answer. I will use work as an excuse for now and keep on working on getting my feet on the pavement again.

death, Family, Life

As Night Begins to Fall

Her teeth are sitting in the plastic cup beside her bed. Her one good eye is open but unfocused. She will respond to a silly nickname spoken in love and it doesn’t have to be the same nickname twice; it is the love in your voice she hears and it is the love she responds to, then she is gone again.

The doctor gives her a good prognosis, providing she can survive the surgery. Her mind is not what it used to be, her body is frail despite a good constitution. We kissed her and loved on her and let the tears fall after they wheeled her out of the room.

He remembers walking home for lunch in grade school. She was never a good cook but she was smart enough to know that her little boy thought it was a grand treat to have biscuits with jelly for lunch….

Prayers are for “what ever the Creator has for her”…nothing more. Now we wait.

He remembers the weekend he decided to run away…out of state to an outdoor rock concert. He still laughs when he tells the story about how she made his father drive to Michigan to find him…needle in a haystack. He went home after the concert…she was so angry but happy to have him home.

The minutes tick by, friends come out to sit with us. It wasn’t too long ago that we sat in the same waiting room with those same friends for that friends’ mother…I guess turnabout is fair play after all. There are smiles and jokes all around.

I update all the facebook family while we have time.

Time; this is when it runs at its’ slowest…waiting for news…good or bad. It was only an hour and a half but I swear it felt like six. I was thinking that I should have brought a hoodie or something, it is 95 degrees outside and cold in the waiting room. Why is it always cold in the waiting rooms?

The nurse finally calls her name so that family will know. A quick glance into her eyes tell us much and for the first time since we sat down our shoulders relax and we look into each others eyes, eyebrows raised to ask “good news?”. He is a good surgeon they say, so we head to the next room to await our consultation.

She won’t remember anything, not the pain, not the hospital food, not the nurses names or faces, not the gentle hands of the surgeons. We will, we will remember prayers answered and sighs breathed out and a bracing for the next phase of her life…however long that may be….

Family, Life

Surprise for the Surpriser

My daughter came to visit this weekend. It was a big weekend for her. Her husband decided to surprise her with a visit to our house to celebrate the beginning of their 5th year of marriage. I thought it was wonderful that he thinks this way. She and I are very close, even when they lived in Arizona we talked on the phone at least 5 times each week. She only lives 3 hours away these days but with her job and mine we don’t have a lot of time to make the drive.

Additionally, she is pregnant. She doesn’t travel far without getting sick so instead of taking her away for a nice weekend he opted to stay close and make her not have to deal with not enjoying a wonderful weekend away because she is running to the bathroom constantly. Sometimes he really surprises me with his kindness. Personally I would expect a husband and new father-to-be to think just like that and it might be sad that I am surprised.

Finally, it was the dogs’ (hers) second birthday and they are the typical “we don’t have any kids yet so we treat our dogs like that are our children” kind of people. So they stopped at the gourmet dog store and bought 5 cupcakes for the dogs to celebrate a birthday…one for each of their dogs, one for my dog and one for each of the neighbors dogs…it was a happy celebration.

The only problem with the whole weekend is that it was a surprise so I was not home most of the weekend. I am a typical “don’t have anyone at home who needs me so I think I will pack my weekend with things I want to do” kind of Granny. I didn’t get home until almost 9pm on Friday, they pulled in at 10pm. We visited for two hours then everyone crashed. I was up at 6:30am to get ready for a multi-family yard sale I had been planning with my girlfriends for two months. I was gone from the house by 8am. The kids had to come see me at the yard sale. I got home after 7pm and had to leave for another commitment and finally got home at 10pm. They left today by 11am. I think next time my son-in-law decides to surprise us with a family visit he should call and make sure that the family is going to be around. She did come in with two bags of laundry (her machine is broken and the new one isn’t due until next weekend) so I am happy she could keep herself busy while I was gone. I would have liked to have sent her to the grocery store for me while I was stuck at the yard sale but with her morning sickness she isn’t good for tasks that required plenty of time between bathroom stops. It is an old habit we developed since she moved out at age 17, when she would visit and I was busy I just handed her my grocery list and she did that laborious task for me while I was otherwise occupied.

My husband was home all weekend, he is not a yard sale kind of guy, so he was able to have a wonderful visit with the kids. I am very happy about that…they even had a cook-out, sorry I missed it. He is still getting used to his baby getting ready to have her own baby.

Now it is Sunday, the kids have left. My dog and I are finally sitting down to rest for a minute and my husband has volunteered to head to the grocery store. I am surprised….again!

firstnationwoman

First Nations Women are the Nations' first ladies

Tag Archives: Native American women