Florence # 6
Florence worries that the conditions or the reservation are interfering with their sacred knowledge. She preserves these traditions by carefully choosing when she tells Lakota stories. She holds the knowledge for the people in her tribe. When I asked her to tell me traditional Lakota stories that help the young learn what to do when in danger, she coyly said, “We only tell those stories at night.”
She ignored what I asked, but she told me the story of the day tornados struck the reservation in 1999. She said that some of the young ones in the tribe knew the tornadoes were coming before anyone else knew. They called as many people as they could, trying to warn them of what was about to happen.
“When the tornado came, we just didn’t know what was happening until the wind blew through the door of our house, and by then it was pure white, and we couldn’t see anything. I remembered that someone had told me that she was in a tornado and it sounded like a train coming, and I heard that train. I ran to the phone to call my daughter, but before I got there, the wind threw me over, and I was on the floor. Up to then, I still didn’t know really what was happening. I got myself up and looked outside. I saw that my son-in-law had been badly cut, and they couldn’t find my daughter who was hiding somewhere with her nine month-old trying to protect her. When we found her, she was holding the baby so tight we had to pry her arms loose to get her to let go. Sherri, my daughter had a broken pelvis from having been knocked down, but she protected the baby. Though I was hurt, I stayed here and my daughter went in the ambulance since there wasn’t enough room for both of us. Two days later, I couldn’t sit up. I was badly hurt with broken vertebrae and a toe so badly broken that they had to amputate it. Many people got hurt. One man broke his back. One man, an older man, got killed. One of the trailer houses just disappeared. No one could find it. This group of trailer houses was all destroyed. For a long time, we didn’t have houses. We all had to go and stay in the school. We were praying during that time. We didn’t know what had happened to everyone.”
“Out here you have to be strong for each other. I worried about Denise and some of the people out here after the tornado. For a while, they had no plumbing or nothing. It took a long time for us to get the help we were promised by the government and people had no place to live. We just have to hope that someone will remember us. No one came to help for a long time. Sometimes help happens though when we least expect it. Once a woman from New Jersey, someone Tony met, sent Christmas presents for all the children. Sometimes when you don’t even expect it something or someone helps.”
Florence in her way had told me a traditional story of how nature brings the unexpected and can wreak havoc or goodness. It is the children, closest to nature or to the spirit world who know this wisdom and see what is coming. The adults are often witnesses to a life over which they have little control. Kindness, respect, and spoken truth, values if lived by, offer the best chance that anyone has of having a good life.
Near the end of our conversation, I asked Florence how she kept herself going and raised her twelve children living under such hardship. Her answer was to tell me a story about her son Bill who teaches in special education:
“Bill loves to work with kids. He came to me one day about three little girls in his class who were having a hard time. ‘Mom,’ he said, ‘the eldest girl hides her feet when she comes into the class because her tennis shoes are ragged. Then one day the second one did not come to school, and Bill watched the older one have trouble as she walked. The middle one had lent her older sister her shoes, but they were too short. Bill with the little money that he had went out and got her new tennis shoes. The next day the middle sister returned to school.
“We had hard times too, and Bill knows how it is. My kids never had bikes. So when Bill was a kid he found parts of a bike and he fixed it, wired it up, and rode it as best he could.
“I just never give up hope. It has something to do with spirituality. My kids learned that with the misery out there, our job is to try to keep things going. We know something about how to keep things going.” Florence unexpectedly changed her focus. She told me that life on the reservation was changing. She said that the old take care of the young less often. For the most part, her children take care of their children, and she wants them to do so. This change sometimes makes her wonder about this time in her life.
“I know I have done my share, but I tell them that sometimes I am here to help even though mostly I want them to watch their own babies. Now that I don’t have so much to do, I have to figure out how to spend my time, especially now that I can’t go out. My plan is mostly to just live longer and watch all of them grow. They did offer me a job at the school to teach Lakota and maybe next year when my hip is healed I’ll do that again. I also plan to keep doing my work for the elderlies at this kitchen table. Sometimes I think I should get a Chihuahua to keep me company.”
For the first time in our interview, Florence laughed. Then she got up and surprised me by going into her bedroom and coming out with two gifts for me; one a woven wool bag with a black, red, and grey arrow design, and the other, a painted wooden horse with feathers. I tried to refuse these gifts since she had so little, but she insisted.
As the universe would have it, when I left her house, I forgot my woolen purple scarf, and grey wool vest, which I had been wearing to keep out the cold. I called Florence the next day to say good-bye, and she said that she wanted to return these things to me. I told her that she was supposed to have them, and I hoped that they would keep out some of the cold wind that blows through her kitchen. She thanked me and told me that our exchange of gifts and our sitting together had begun a friendship between us. She apologized for not being able to offer me food during my visit since she had no groceries in the house. She said that she hoped that I would come again when she could invite me to share a meal with her. Our conversation had bridged what had seemed like an impenetrable barrier between us.
Stay Posted for a Story of another Keeper.
Janie: a woman who moved through illusions to faith
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment