A Wake-Up Call
Abstract
To be the eldest son of a traditional Indian woman has shaped and influenced my life in ways both abundant and momentous, in ways that continue to be revealed. Even now, as an Indian elder, I remain in her cultural shadow, as do my siblings and most of my kin my age and younger. In her eighties, to recall the effort and the sacrifices she’s made for me and her family are memories that are always close at hand. Yet it would be an exercise, an effort in itself to account for and bear witness to the detail of the life she’s lived. There has been so much. This past winter, in a modest rural hospital room, there was a gathering of Indian elders. All were children of the man in the bed and my mother, who was there not only as our comfort but also as his concerned sister and interpreter. Her brother’s essential illness is of the mind, made, on that day, much less apparent by his depleted and fragile form. During that visit home, I could see his awareness of those assembled come and go, and in both, when words were spoken, the language was never English. And so, my mother’s fluency with our Native language and her ability to calm her brother once again reminded us of her central significance in our lives and among our people. Grey heads all, we watched them communicate, much as we did as children and young adults. Limited understanding of the words spoken, but a full knowledge and awareness of them as Indians; more than us. Claims and counterclaims about the closeness and therefore the overall mutual support of Indian families notwithstanding, a sense of loss and the fact of suffering continues to expand. Despite the socioeconomic, educational, occupational, and medical improvements in the lives of American Indian families throughout the twentieth century, a natural toll is being taken on Indian families and people as, I should think, never before!