The White Side

The telling of this story is not an easy thing to be doing. In some ways, it seems simple -- in a common sort of way. But, it's not. It's complicated. Or, maybe it's just me and the way I'm putting it together. It's not the traditional White linear way of handing out information. Rather, what you're learning is outlined in an Indian framework -- one of visualization and circularity. An Indian making sense of things might go to the end of a story and then circle back to the very beginning. But, you'll see. There's a definite purpose.

This is a story of two families coming from two different worldviews, two different cultural histories, with different aims and goals. They didn't like each other. Whites and Indians just weren't supposed to 'mix.' Prejudice abounded and there was not too much trying to make sense of each other.

The leader on one side was mother; the other, my grandmother, daddy's mother. For starters, you could tell that mother was White (as a matter of fact, she came to be known as 'Little White Mother') because traditional Indians, especially Indian leaders, don't give orders. They abide by the rules of 'right to self-determination.' And, as a sign of respect, they do not try to impose their beliefs on others. From the get-go, mother just cut through, tore up, and threw these rules away. And, just when you thought you had her rules figured out and memorized, she'd change them right on the spot. There was no keeping a step ahead of mother. And, while trying to keep a step ahead of her for safety's sake, I think I need to lay a bit of family flooring for you. Just watch out for splinters.

Mother was proud of her family. I could never see why. But, she held them a high notch above daddy's family. Her parents were uneducated, poor, sharecroppers with five children; four girls; one alcoholic brother, whose behavior was always excused because he came home from WWII with a back injury. Only later did I learn of his multiple marriages and one child. Let's not forget the fact that -- finally -- he was murdered. Somehow, these events slipped mothers mind and fell into her basket of secrets. But, even kids sense when there is hidden information. Lurking in the shadows, and always at the ready to ambush, concealed information poisons the atmosphere; creates tension and anxiety.

Too, these were historic, harsh, almost unbearable, times in the country. The Great Depression, drought, and Dust Bowl years hit this family like a sledge hammer. The essentials of life were in short supply. Absolutely nothing was wasted. It was a bare boned life, dull colored -- quite a distance from our current lives, where most folks actually have extra money to rent storage space for their extra 'stuff.' But, in mother's growing up years, what the family lacked in food, furniture, and clothing, they substituted with pride. According to this grandfather, their shoulders would always be held back, heads high, their posture straight and tall. No apologizing found in this family.

Right now, we've tiptoed into the territory of family secrets that have been secrets for so long, I'm wondering if I should honor their memory and not tell the tales. But, in the past, if I hadn't of kept pestering, and asking for answers to fill in the dark caverns of wide blanks, how would I have ever known that this grandfather moved his entire family several states away from home after he found out my mother had secretly married an Indian. Eventually, he migrated then to Texas, and back to Oklahoma Indian Country, completing a circle.

Maybe this is why Joel keeps pushing me to write this story. Maybe he senses I have hidden information/secrets. It's possible. We're imprinted with the ways of a family. Some of these prints can  be dusted off; others are permanent. The habit of keeping secrets may be a stain my sisters and I just can't get out of us.

My maternal grandmother could bake like heaven, quilt beautifully, using patterns only found in the recesses of her imagination, and grow a vegetable garden that would make Whole Foods proud. Mother told me that people thought my grandmother had the 'healing power.' Maybe this came from her Pentecostal beliefs. Folks would knock on her door to find a cure for their aches and pains. Friends and family were accepting of her highly tuned sixth sense about events that had happened, but were yet unknown -- or, eerily, her 'sights' of events to come. Mother also told me that my grandmother said I had the same gift and it should not be encouraged. Mother later denied ever having said such a thing. But, my younger sister claims this is true, having heard the same story more than once.

My grandfather was just plain mean. I didn't like him because he liked to bend my fingers until the knuckles hurt. Mother adored him. He died in a car wreck. I guess life just didn't turn out quite like he expected.

But, boy! Did they believe in education -- maybe because neither one of them ever graduated high school. I'm not certain if my grandmother was the education pusher or my grandfather. My bet's on grandmother because she taught me my multiplication tables while I stood in the center of her small kitchen and she baked good-smelling biscuits.

College didn't 'take' with my Uncle. But, mother and her sisters worked and put themselves through four years of college. As they married, this side of the family produced five grandchildren. Mother's three girls and two boys from two of mother's sisters. I'm not counting my Uncle's child because I never knew this cousin existed. There was closeness with only one of these cousins. He died too young. It was his job during the Vietnam War to dump Agent Orange out of helicopters. While his mother could survive the tragedies of nature and Wall Street, the son fell to our government's policies of war.