I visited Janie in a retirement community in St Louis. In her small living room, her overstuffed couch and chair were covered in blue and white cloth, as is the shower curtain and ironing board cover. Janie was dressed in blue and white. One of the first stories Janie told me was how she ended up wearing only blue and white.
“At the time of my birth, in 1924, there was a tradition in our church for some girls at birth to be dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus. One of the requirements, if one was willing to pick up this challenge, was that the child was to be dressed only in blue and white until she was seven and took her first communion. My mother brought me to the church, dedicated me to Mary in this way, and dressed me in blue and white until my seventh birthday.”
Janie said that for many years she gave up wearing only blue and white, but she has returned to it. She says that everyone now gives her blue and white presents.
As I took in the rest of her living room, I saw books piled from floor to ceiling, photographs of family members from three generations on the tops of the tables and the dressers. A high wooden stand held a huge dictionary crammed with papers. Janie said that these are important papers, bills, cards still unopened from Christmas, and letters that she means to answer. She calls the dictionary her filing system for all the projects that she has to do. It is an important resource for her letter writing and book projects that include a history of The Sisters of the Cenacle the order in which she has taken vows as a lay nun.
Janie is a tiny woman who at eighty moves in a sprightly way. She showed me around her apartment and then she suggested that we sit on her overstuffed couch to speak with each other. Her face was open and warm, and it wasn’t unusual for her to reach over and touch me while we spoke. She exuded a sense of occasion, as if in our meeting she expected good things to happen. Her infectious laughter and merry eyes were irresistible. Her sense of herself is intertwined with many generations of family members on both sides of her family. Each story she told reminded her of another one. As she glanced around her room her eyes lit on a picture and a story followed.
Janie was born into a wealthy Irish Catholic family in St. Louis headed by her grandfather. a well-known and respected member of St. Louis society. Unlike in other parts of the country where Catholics were often among the working class immigrants, Catholics founded St. Louis. The French were the first Catholics to arrive there, and St. Louis was known as the Rome of the west. Lafayette went out to visit it, acknowledging its importance. German Catholics came next, followed by Irish Catholics. Class distinctions were strongly held Within the Catholic community everyone knew his or her place in the pecking order. Janie’s grandfather was well at the top of the heap. As his granddaughter, Janie was known socially as “a Vis girl” because she went to Visitation, a prestigious Catholic girl’s school. Unfortunately, life at home wasn’t anything like the family’s public image.
In Janie’s words:
“The life around me, our big house and all the people, didn’t mean that much to me. My grandfather, who we called Papa, was the important one, according to everyone else, but really by the time I knew him he was an alcoholic. Once when I was five years old he fell down the concrete steps and lay spread-eagled on the basement floor. I didn’t know if he was dead. I ran next door to our house and somehow called my father at work. He came home in about twenty-five minutes and got my grandfather up.
“Papa was a terrible alcoholic. I remember those glasses that had thumb marks all around the bottom. He didn’t drink by a shot glass; instead, he drank bourbon in those old tumblers. You heard about him as ‘the illustrious’ outside the family, but inside the family you were told to keep your distance, to walk softly, and not to disturb him.”
“When Papa, died in 1936, I must have been in the sixth grade. The funeral-- well you wouldn’t believe it. I was as much in awe of that funeral as I was of Reagan’s funeral although it really wasn’t anything like that. I mean it was greater than anything I had ever seen. My grandfather was laid out in the house, and the many people who came to visit him filled our big house.
“I remember that house. When you came in the front door you entered the foyer and there was a big room with stairs that went up around and up again. We called this main room the living room. Around the living room were other rooms with doors entering onto it, like the library and beyond that the dining room. So many people came to see Papa laid out in the main room. When we went to the cemetery after the mass policemen were there to line up the cars for about a mile long, or maybe I just think it was a mile long, but it was long.”
Listening to Janie’s story I imagined her as a small child in a huge house living in the old fashioned tradition of children who are seen, but not heard. Janie another Keeper like Florence defined herself in relationship to her elders. Next time she tells us about her grandmothers.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Janie: A keeper who moves through illusion to faith
Introducing Janie 1
Janie came into my life soon after I joined my second husband’s Irish Catholic family. Everyone called her Aunt Janie, except for my mother-in-law who called her “Sainted Janie.” Along with stories of her goodness came stories of her special sense of humor. My husband’s favorite story about Janie was titled by everyone in the family who told it; “The Disability Sticker.” It went like this:
Janie is known at her church for going to great lengths to perform acts of kindness without thought for her own convenience, but she found herself with a problem when she took on the task of driving disabled church members to their doctors’ appointments.
At the doctors’ offices, there were few parking spaces except for cars with disability stickers. Since Janie didn’t have a sticker, she and her patients had great difficulty finding places to park, and they often arrived late to appointments,
Janie’s solution was to go to her doctor and request a disability sticker for her car. She carefully explained her mission with the disabled churchgoers. Her doctor listened, but refused Janie’s request. He knew that Janie didn’t like to exercise, and he said that he was concerned for her health. From his point of view, Janie needed to walk more.
Thinking that her doctor had totally missed the point and seeing injustice in this, Janie made her own disability sticker. She did this quite carefully, using the cardboard back of a pantyhose package and a blue magic marker to make it into a facsimile of a disability sticker. She attached this to her car mirror whenever she delivered her patients to their doctors’ offices. She successfully used the sticker for many months, until one day she came out to find a $250 ticket for using a counterfeit sticker stuck underneath her windshield wiper.
With summons and sticker in hand, Janie went to the police station to explain her situation. When she got to the head of the line, Janie’s short stature made it necessary for her to look up to see the policeman who sat behind a high counter. The policeman looked down and saw a small woman with a softly rounded form. Her wispy white hair fell softly on her neck and curled up at the ends. She had pale white skin, pink cheeks, and clear blue eyes. She was dressed in blue and white, with a large cross hanging from her neck. He probably knew right away that he was at a disadvantage.
Janie placed the summons and the sticker on the counter and told the police officer of her plight. He told her that what she had done was illegal and that she would have to pay the fine. Politely she told him that she couldn’t pay the fine. Sternly he told her,
“We don’t negotiate here. You’ll have to pay the fine, lady.”
Janie smiled at him sweetly and waited patiently for him to change his mind. They went back and forth, until the police officer realized that with a line of people forming behind Janie, and with her showing no signs of budging, he might as well give up, rather than look like he was taking advantage of a gentle old woman. Exasperated, he asked Janie what she could pay. She told him that she thought she could manage ten dollars. Not knowing what else to do he agreed to take what she offered. Janie paid him the ten dollars and, as he got busy with someone else, she picked up her forged sticker and returned to business as usual.
When I met Janie, I told her that I had heard this story. Smiling, she said that she now has her own disability sticker. Somehow, she can’t quite remember how, she ended up with two stickers. She gave one of them to a friend from her church group who isn’t quite ready for one yet, but drives disabled people who need her to have one. On Sunday mornings, Janie’s friend uses her sticker to get them a place near to the Church. Janie uses her sticker on Sundays to park near the restaurant where they have their breakfasts after church is over. For Janie, if disobedience is needed for service, she is clear about what to do.
I also had heard painful stories of Janie’s life, told not with sadness or judgment, but with warmth and understanding. These stories were about her prominent St. Louis family who denied their alcoholism and her life as a single mother struggling with alcoholism herself, especially after the violent deaths of two of her children.
From my distance, I couldn’t imagine how she had survived let alone found humor and warmth to share with others. My husband and his siblings told me that when they were young, she was the only grown up around who looked them straight in the eye and listened to what they had to say. When others described the chaos of her life they said that misery slid off her, and she radiated goodness no matter what came into her life.
Keep Posted for more about Janie.
Janie came into my life soon after I joined my second husband’s Irish Catholic family. Everyone called her Aunt Janie, except for my mother-in-law who called her “Sainted Janie.” Along with stories of her goodness came stories of her special sense of humor. My husband’s favorite story about Janie was titled by everyone in the family who told it; “The Disability Sticker.” It went like this:
Janie is known at her church for going to great lengths to perform acts of kindness without thought for her own convenience, but she found herself with a problem when she took on the task of driving disabled church members to their doctors’ appointments.
At the doctors’ offices, there were few parking spaces except for cars with disability stickers. Since Janie didn’t have a sticker, she and her patients had great difficulty finding places to park, and they often arrived late to appointments,
Janie’s solution was to go to her doctor and request a disability sticker for her car. She carefully explained her mission with the disabled churchgoers. Her doctor listened, but refused Janie’s request. He knew that Janie didn’t like to exercise, and he said that he was concerned for her health. From his point of view, Janie needed to walk more.
Thinking that her doctor had totally missed the point and seeing injustice in this, Janie made her own disability sticker. She did this quite carefully, using the cardboard back of a pantyhose package and a blue magic marker to make it into a facsimile of a disability sticker. She attached this to her car mirror whenever she delivered her patients to their doctors’ offices. She successfully used the sticker for many months, until one day she came out to find a $250 ticket for using a counterfeit sticker stuck underneath her windshield wiper.
With summons and sticker in hand, Janie went to the police station to explain her situation. When she got to the head of the line, Janie’s short stature made it necessary for her to look up to see the policeman who sat behind a high counter. The policeman looked down and saw a small woman with a softly rounded form. Her wispy white hair fell softly on her neck and curled up at the ends. She had pale white skin, pink cheeks, and clear blue eyes. She was dressed in blue and white, with a large cross hanging from her neck. He probably knew right away that he was at a disadvantage.
Janie placed the summons and the sticker on the counter and told the police officer of her plight. He told her that what she had done was illegal and that she would have to pay the fine. Politely she told him that she couldn’t pay the fine. Sternly he told her,
“We don’t negotiate here. You’ll have to pay the fine, lady.”
Janie smiled at him sweetly and waited patiently for him to change his mind. They went back and forth, until the police officer realized that with a line of people forming behind Janie, and with her showing no signs of budging, he might as well give up, rather than look like he was taking advantage of a gentle old woman. Exasperated, he asked Janie what she could pay. She told him that she thought she could manage ten dollars. Not knowing what else to do he agreed to take what she offered. Janie paid him the ten dollars and, as he got busy with someone else, she picked up her forged sticker and returned to business as usual.
When I met Janie, I told her that I had heard this story. Smiling, she said that she now has her own disability sticker. Somehow, she can’t quite remember how, she ended up with two stickers. She gave one of them to a friend from her church group who isn’t quite ready for one yet, but drives disabled people who need her to have one. On Sunday mornings, Janie’s friend uses her sticker to get them a place near to the Church. Janie uses her sticker on Sundays to park near the restaurant where they have their breakfasts after church is over. For Janie, if disobedience is needed for service, she is clear about what to do.
I also had heard painful stories of Janie’s life, told not with sadness or judgment, but with warmth and understanding. These stories were about her prominent St. Louis family who denied their alcoholism and her life as a single mother struggling with alcoholism herself, especially after the violent deaths of two of her children.
From my distance, I couldn’t imagine how she had survived let alone found humor and warmth to share with others. My husband and his siblings told me that when they were young, she was the only grown up around who looked them straight in the eye and listened to what they had to say. When others described the chaos of her life they said that misery slid off her, and she radiated goodness no matter what came into her life.
Keep Posted for more about Janie.
Comment on Guides
Connie Rubiano wrote:
Thank you for the story of your birth-giving in Lagos. When I am afraid I call on my higher power as I was taught as a child. And now I also talk to my friends, like Penny, who have died.
Thank you for the story of your birth-giving in Lagos. When I am afraid I call on my higher power as I was taught as a child. And now I also talk to my friends, like Penny, who have died.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Reflection on Keepers and family Legacies
Keepers and Family Legacies
Before introducing you to Janie, a second Keeper, I thought it might be interesting for us to consider how Florence’s notions of family fit with our own. She never moved far away from home Left by her husband she never divorced. She placed herself and her children in a coherent story of family and community history. In telling and retelling family stories, she reminds herself and everyone who listens of the past that she treasures. When someone she loves falls away from the family, or from what she sees as a good life, she weaves these periods of distress into an ever widening family story. Her capacity to hold onto good and bad stories arises from her belief that life is naturally made up of the good and the bad and her stories combine difficult experiences with hope for a better future.
Florence’s story is remarkably different from my own and may be different from yours. I wondered how I could build on her stories of the past. I started out by reflecting on my ideas about family, and I encourage you to do the same as you think about Florence’s stories and read Janie’s stories which are up ahead.
Part of writing a new survival story means revisiting ideas of family. Have we chosen to live far away or nearby our family members? Have we resolved family conflicts so that our relationships remain open and loving or do we distance ourselves? Do we have the option to call upon family members when we need them? Which past stories of family can we call upon in strengthening connections to our family history? If we do not find useful family stories, what stories from other cultural histories give us stories for survival?
Florence also relied on the wisdom of her grandmother to guide her, but what if our grandmothers were not good guides? Not long ago I was hiking and thinking about whom, other than my grandmothers, I could call upon as a guide. A picture flashed into my mind of a six-foot tall Nigerian nurse in a brown uniform with large strong arms. She had saved my life and the life of my second child, Sarah, when I was living in Lagos. My mother had warned me about the dangers of giving birth there, but with the ignorance of my youth, I scorned her advice. I made few plans for the delivery and went into the hospital without concern. My labor was induced by a well-known Nigerian doctor, who then left me at the hospital. When we were told that my husband wasn’t allowed to stay with me, neither of us protested. It was a busy time at the hospital, and there were not enough rooms for the many births happening at once. Since my labor was developing slowly, I was left on a gurney in a hallway for many hours. As my labor became more difficult, I panicked and tried to get off the gurney and leave the hospital. When I realized I couldn’t walk, I began yelling very unladylike epithets to get the attention of someone. No one came, and I yelled louder. Finally I heard someone coming down the hallway. Before I saw her, I heard her booming voice ask, “What is going on here?” When she reached my gurney, I tried to explain my situation, but I was too frantic and incoherent to make much sense. She said, “Calm down, woman, and let’s get this baby born.” She wheeled me into a room, told me to breathe and to push, and Sarah was born in minutes. I was told later that we were both in physical danger and that if she had not arrived when she did, we might have died. I can still hear the tones of her Yoruba-accented English as she told me that we were going to get this baby born. I quieted down immediately, and I followed her directions exactly, confident that finally, Sarah and I would be OK. I know that I can call upon her in my mind and feel her calming presence.
I believe that each of us knows someone in our family or in our history upon whom we might call when we are afraid. I now ask beleaguered clients to choose a guide to travel with them. Each of us can find a guide to imagine when we need someone by our side.
With these thoughts in mind we are more ready to write new survival stories.
Before introducing you to Janie, a second Keeper, I thought it might be interesting for us to consider how Florence’s notions of family fit with our own. She never moved far away from home Left by her husband she never divorced. She placed herself and her children in a coherent story of family and community history. In telling and retelling family stories, she reminds herself and everyone who listens of the past that she treasures. When someone she loves falls away from the family, or from what she sees as a good life, she weaves these periods of distress into an ever widening family story. Her capacity to hold onto good and bad stories arises from her belief that life is naturally made up of the good and the bad and her stories combine difficult experiences with hope for a better future.
Florence’s story is remarkably different from my own and may be different from yours. I wondered how I could build on her stories of the past. I started out by reflecting on my ideas about family, and I encourage you to do the same as you think about Florence’s stories and read Janie’s stories which are up ahead.
Part of writing a new survival story means revisiting ideas of family. Have we chosen to live far away or nearby our family members? Have we resolved family conflicts so that our relationships remain open and loving or do we distance ourselves? Do we have the option to call upon family members when we need them? Which past stories of family can we call upon in strengthening connections to our family history? If we do not find useful family stories, what stories from other cultural histories give us stories for survival?
Florence also relied on the wisdom of her grandmother to guide her, but what if our grandmothers were not good guides? Not long ago I was hiking and thinking about whom, other than my grandmothers, I could call upon as a guide. A picture flashed into my mind of a six-foot tall Nigerian nurse in a brown uniform with large strong arms. She had saved my life and the life of my second child, Sarah, when I was living in Lagos. My mother had warned me about the dangers of giving birth there, but with the ignorance of my youth, I scorned her advice. I made few plans for the delivery and went into the hospital without concern. My labor was induced by a well-known Nigerian doctor, who then left me at the hospital. When we were told that my husband wasn’t allowed to stay with me, neither of us protested. It was a busy time at the hospital, and there were not enough rooms for the many births happening at once. Since my labor was developing slowly, I was left on a gurney in a hallway for many hours. As my labor became more difficult, I panicked and tried to get off the gurney and leave the hospital. When I realized I couldn’t walk, I began yelling very unladylike epithets to get the attention of someone. No one came, and I yelled louder. Finally I heard someone coming down the hallway. Before I saw her, I heard her booming voice ask, “What is going on here?” When she reached my gurney, I tried to explain my situation, but I was too frantic and incoherent to make much sense. She said, “Calm down, woman, and let’s get this baby born.” She wheeled me into a room, told me to breathe and to push, and Sarah was born in minutes. I was told later that we were both in physical danger and that if she had not arrived when she did, we might have died. I can still hear the tones of her Yoruba-accented English as she told me that we were going to get this baby born. I quieted down immediately, and I followed her directions exactly, confident that finally, Sarah and I would be OK. I know that I can call upon her in my mind and feel her calming presence.
I believe that each of us knows someone in our family or in our history upon whom we might call when we are afraid. I now ask beleaguered clients to choose a guide to travel with them. Each of us can find a guide to imagine when we need someone by our side.
With these thoughts in mind we are more ready to write new survival stories.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Renewal: Preserving Traditions-Never Giving up Hope
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
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
Monday, November 06, 2006
Ongoing Struggles:Celebration of Prayer
Florence # 5 Crying and Praying
Two days before I was to visit Florence, I called to confirm our meeting. One of her sons answered the phone and told me that Florence was away and would not be back for a week. She, who rarely left the reservation, had gone to be with her grandson in a hospital fifty miles away. No one called to cancel my visit because everyone was focused on the events of the moment. I called a few weeks later, and we rescheduled our time together at her home on the Lakota Reservation in South Dakota.
During our interview, I asked Florence about her grandson who had been in the hospital when I first planned to visit. She told me that she had had to manage intense emotions during this time of his illness. She said:
“I just never gave 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.
“My parents were Christians,” Florence said, “and I learned to rely on the Bible along with the Lakota traditions. The Bible pulls me through the hard times, and gets me through the day and just recently, I needed those prayers. It was very strong. My grandson, he is only sixteen, and he was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer. The week you were supposed to come they had to amputate his arm. I was there with him in the hospital, and I broke down. I only could pull myself together because I had to be strong for my son. I told him that they had to take that arm to save his boy’s life. Now my grandson is healing, but we don’t know what is going to happen. The boy and my son have to go back and forth for chemo. I cry, and I pray, and it gets me through. Once in a while I go to the church, but mostly, I pray at home.
“My dad taught me about the Bible. As an old man, he had diabetes, and they had to amputate his leg. He had his Bible with him, but he finally gave up, and he died. When he passed away, I was going to put his Bible in his coffin because he had thought so much of it. My conscience kept saying however, ‘Keep it. Just keep it.’ A cousin of mine came down for the funeral, and I asked her what I should do. She said. ‘Maybe he wants you to keep it.’ I listened to her, and I kept the Bible. A while later I looked through it, and I found notes my father had hidden in different sections. One note said, ‘If you get lonesome read this chapter.’ I thought then that he had meant for me to keep his Bible. I was real glad to have the Bible with me when my grandson got sick.
“The Christian tradition and the Lakota tradition go together because we all pray to one god. The Bible says to spread the word in all directions and this is what we believe too. In our dances, we acknowledge the four directions and this is similar to the Christian way.”
Crying and praying go together for Florence. The unity between her Christian
God and Lakota spirits comes together as naturally as breathing. In addition to her family stories, Florence’s religious beliefs provide her with a compass that shows her where to look for relief and what to do to prepare for what comes.
For those of us who do not share with Florence a formal set of beliefs sometimes we wonder if there is a spiritual path for us. I have come to believe that prayer takes many forms and that with each prayer we offer up solace and hope for us and for others. I ask people these days if they pray and I am often surprised to hear that many people have a practice of prayer that is not tied to a particular religion. Florence reminds us to give voice to our prayers and to celebrate them.
Two days before I was to visit Florence, I called to confirm our meeting. One of her sons answered the phone and told me that Florence was away and would not be back for a week. She, who rarely left the reservation, had gone to be with her grandson in a hospital fifty miles away. No one called to cancel my visit because everyone was focused on the events of the moment. I called a few weeks later, and we rescheduled our time together at her home on the Lakota Reservation in South Dakota.
During our interview, I asked Florence about her grandson who had been in the hospital when I first planned to visit. She told me that she had had to manage intense emotions during this time of his illness. She said:
“I just never gave 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.
“My parents were Christians,” Florence said, “and I learned to rely on the Bible along with the Lakota traditions. The Bible pulls me through the hard times, and gets me through the day and just recently, I needed those prayers. It was very strong. My grandson, he is only sixteen, and he was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer. The week you were supposed to come they had to amputate his arm. I was there with him in the hospital, and I broke down. I only could pull myself together because I had to be strong for my son. I told him that they had to take that arm to save his boy’s life. Now my grandson is healing, but we don’t know what is going to happen. The boy and my son have to go back and forth for chemo. I cry, and I pray, and it gets me through. Once in a while I go to the church, but mostly, I pray at home.
“My dad taught me about the Bible. As an old man, he had diabetes, and they had to amputate his leg. He had his Bible with him, but he finally gave up, and he died. When he passed away, I was going to put his Bible in his coffin because he had thought so much of it. My conscience kept saying however, ‘Keep it. Just keep it.’ A cousin of mine came down for the funeral, and I asked her what I should do. She said. ‘Maybe he wants you to keep it.’ I listened to her, and I kept the Bible. A while later I looked through it, and I found notes my father had hidden in different sections. One note said, ‘If you get lonesome read this chapter.’ I thought then that he had meant for me to keep his Bible. I was real glad to have the Bible with me when my grandson got sick.
“The Christian tradition and the Lakota tradition go together because we all pray to one god. The Bible says to spread the word in all directions and this is what we believe too. In our dances, we acknowledge the four directions and this is similar to the Christian way.”
Crying and praying go together for Florence. The unity between her Christian
God and Lakota spirits comes together as naturally as breathing. In addition to her family stories, Florence’s religious beliefs provide her with a compass that shows her where to look for relief and what to do to prepare for what comes.
For those of us who do not share with Florence a formal set of beliefs sometimes we wonder if there is a spiritual path for us. I have come to believe that prayer takes many forms and that with each prayer we offer up solace and hope for us and for others. I ask people these days if they pray and I am often surprised to hear that many people have a practice of prayer that is not tied to a particular religion. Florence reminds us to give voice to our prayers and to celebrate them.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Ongoing Sturggles: Grandmother as Guide
Florence 4
(See earlier posts for more of Florence's story).
At our interview in her house on the Lakota Reservation, Florence told me about her grandmother:
“My mother died when I was thirteen, and I went and stayed with my grandmother, my dad’s mother. My grandmother was a woman who lived by traditional Lakota values that were connected to keeping the family together, no matter what. When relatives came unexpectedly, she would pitch up a tent for them even though we had little. She would find enough food for them even when they stayed for a week. She would go out into her garden and dig up the hole where she stored the fresh picked vegetables. She would go out into the forest and pick wild berries and plums and make berry juice.
“Following in her footsteps, I realized one day that my children were not safe on the reservation. I immediately moved with them down to the river to a small piece of land owned by my husband. We were twelve miles away from the main part of the reservation, but it was the place to raise our children in the traditional ways that I had learned from my grandmother, away from the violence around us.
“From 1952 until 1965 we lived down by the river. It was hard down there, but we had some of our best times there. We spent a lot of our time on the riverbank, washing the clothes and washing ourselves. We had fun doing the things that had to be done. We put in a big garden with corn, watermelon, cucumbers, and potatoes. The water from the river made it a rich, productive garden. My husband would get the children out there picking the potatoes, at a penny a piece.
“When we lived there, we could keep the children safe in the ways that my grandmother kept me safe. We were with the hawk, the deer, the fox, and the fish, which swam in the river with the children. Sometimes my nephews would show up. One week I had twenty-one boys down there, but I managed to feed them all. I had a lot of beans, and they loved beans, and we had bread. My grandmother believed that if she could feed the family we would all survive whatever else we had to face.”
“People helped us when we were down there by the river. One day, my father got us a washing machine and a heater to heat the water to use in the machine. After we got the washing machine, even Richard my husband went out to wash all the piles of clothes. One year my uncle lived down there, and he had cattle, and we milked the cows. One of my husband’s cousins brought a trailer down there to house the boys. Up until then the house was way too small for our family.
“Then one day a social service worker came down and asked me if I could take three little girls who had been abandoned. I told her, ‘I’ll take them.’ I didn’t know how I would care for them, but I couldn’t say no. Someone had told this social service lady to ask me to keep them for a year, but they stayed with me for eleven years. After the one year, the social service lady came down again, and she was going to take the girls, but she told me that no one was willing to take all three of them so they were going to have to separate them.
“The oldest one Michelle started crying. She called me Grandma.
‘Grandma,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be separated from my sisters.’
‘So,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep them.’
“When they came of age and married, then they went back to their village, but they still stay in touch and are part of our family.” As if as an afterthought, Florence added:
“All my kids understand how to look out for others. Being poor somehow makes us know how important it is to look out for others who have even less than we do.”
Florence spoke of hardship as a matter-of-fact. I, who had had good fortune found myself reeling in the face of her deprivation. It occurred to me that my expectations of life made me less able to manage life’s difficult demands. Since Florence expected life to be hard, she had a greater capacity to endure. In developing my story of survival, I had to re-form my expectations of life and begin a search for guides who I might rely on when life was hard. Perhaps you might wish to do the same.
(See earlier posts for more of Florence's story).
At our interview in her house on the Lakota Reservation, Florence told me about her grandmother:
“My mother died when I was thirteen, and I went and stayed with my grandmother, my dad’s mother. My grandmother was a woman who lived by traditional Lakota values that were connected to keeping the family together, no matter what. When relatives came unexpectedly, she would pitch up a tent for them even though we had little. She would find enough food for them even when they stayed for a week. She would go out into her garden and dig up the hole where she stored the fresh picked vegetables. She would go out into the forest and pick wild berries and plums and make berry juice.
“Following in her footsteps, I realized one day that my children were not safe on the reservation. I immediately moved with them down to the river to a small piece of land owned by my husband. We were twelve miles away from the main part of the reservation, but it was the place to raise our children in the traditional ways that I had learned from my grandmother, away from the violence around us.
“From 1952 until 1965 we lived down by the river. It was hard down there, but we had some of our best times there. We spent a lot of our time on the riverbank, washing the clothes and washing ourselves. We had fun doing the things that had to be done. We put in a big garden with corn, watermelon, cucumbers, and potatoes. The water from the river made it a rich, productive garden. My husband would get the children out there picking the potatoes, at a penny a piece.
“When we lived there, we could keep the children safe in the ways that my grandmother kept me safe. We were with the hawk, the deer, the fox, and the fish, which swam in the river with the children. Sometimes my nephews would show up. One week I had twenty-one boys down there, but I managed to feed them all. I had a lot of beans, and they loved beans, and we had bread. My grandmother believed that if she could feed the family we would all survive whatever else we had to face.”
“People helped us when we were down there by the river. One day, my father got us a washing machine and a heater to heat the water to use in the machine. After we got the washing machine, even Richard my husband went out to wash all the piles of clothes. One year my uncle lived down there, and he had cattle, and we milked the cows. One of my husband’s cousins brought a trailer down there to house the boys. Up until then the house was way too small for our family.
“Then one day a social service worker came down and asked me if I could take three little girls who had been abandoned. I told her, ‘I’ll take them.’ I didn’t know how I would care for them, but I couldn’t say no. Someone had told this social service lady to ask me to keep them for a year, but they stayed with me for eleven years. After the one year, the social service lady came down again, and she was going to take the girls, but she told me that no one was willing to take all three of them so they were going to have to separate them.
“The oldest one Michelle started crying. She called me Grandma.
‘Grandma,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be separated from my sisters.’
‘So,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep them.’
“When they came of age and married, then they went back to their village, but they still stay in touch and are part of our family.” As if as an afterthought, Florence added:
“All my kids understand how to look out for others. Being poor somehow makes us know how important it is to look out for others who have even less than we do.”
Florence spoke of hardship as a matter-of-fact. I, who had had good fortune found myself reeling in the face of her deprivation. It occurred to me that my expectations of life made me less able to manage life’s difficult demands. Since Florence expected life to be hard, she had a greater capacity to endure. In developing my story of survival, I had to re-form my expectations of life and begin a search for guides who I might rely on when life was hard. Perhaps you might wish to do the same.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Crisis: Turning to Intuitive Traditional Wisdom
Florence 3 (See more of Florence’s story below)
When Florence fell and broke her hip, her daughters immediately called for a helicopter. They assumed that she would take the helicopter to a hospital where she would get proper treatment. Florence took one look at the helicopter and told her daughters that she would never get in that “thing” because it was not safe. Frustrated, her daughters urged her into the helicopter, but Florence kept telling them to put her in the truck. They argued back and forth until they saw black smoke coming from the helicopter’s engine. Florence’s daughters looked at her and said, “Mom, you’re a witch.” Florence smiled and said, “You just take me to the hospital in that truck.”
Florence says that Lakota children learn to sense danger. She fears that young people without traditional knowledge won’t have the ability to know what to do when they are in danger. Traditionally, the young in her tribe hold sacred knowledge and are able to warn even the elders of oncoming danger. She remembered how Tony was looked after by animal spirits when he had to walk twelve miles from the river to get to school. She said that he told her that two coyotes followed him all the way. She said that this meant that he would have a good life and that they were watching over him. One coyote might have meant that he was in danger of an early death.
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 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.
When Florence fell and broke her hip, her daughters immediately called for a helicopter. They assumed that she would take the helicopter to a hospital where she would get proper treatment. Florence took one look at the helicopter and told her daughters that she would never get in that “thing” because it was not safe. Frustrated, her daughters urged her into the helicopter, but Florence kept telling them to put her in the truck. They argued back and forth until they saw black smoke coming from the helicopter’s engine. Florence’s daughters looked at her and said, “Mom, you’re a witch.” Florence smiled and said, “You just take me to the hospital in that truck.”
Florence says that Lakota children learn to sense danger. She fears that young people without traditional knowledge won’t have the ability to know what to do when they are in danger. Traditionally, the young in her tribe hold sacred knowledge and are able to warn even the elders of oncoming danger. She remembered how Tony was looked after by animal spirits when he had to walk twelve miles from the river to get to school. She said that he told her that two coyotes followed him all the way. She said that this meant that he would have a good life and that they were watching over him. One coyote might have meant that he was in danger of an early death.
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 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.
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