This Was Some Week

I'm glad it's over. Monday night was the only night this week that I was home. Tuesday night I went to the tribe's business committee meeting. Such entertainment. The new chief has sectioned himself off just enough rope to hang himself. What a fine job of doing so, I must say. Wednesday is church night. While I didn't go, Mike was sweet enough to take Shael for me then we later went into town to pick her up. He told me to just stay home if I didn't feel good (which I didn't) but I told him I had to buy some tampons and he looked at me real quick and said "Oh, well, you'd better go, then". (A little rabbit trail here. Has anyone seen, or used, those Instead things? They work like a diaphram, only to keep stuff from coming out instead of going in. It says you can wear them for 12 hours. OMG! I would be so sick feeling in 12 hours and then taking it out....oh, I won't even go there. That's just sick!)

Thursday we all three went to my Aunt Neasy's house. One of my Dad's younger sisters. It was her daughter that was killed in that wreck between vo-tech and Miami. Bobbi was 16, only eight days away from her 17th birthday. The house was packed with family and friends. Lots of teenagers there. We ate there (I've never seen so much food in one place outside of a Western Sizzlin') then Mike went outside with my Dad and most of the men. One of the Indian customs is to build a fire at the house where the body is and to not let it go out until the body leaves the house. So, Mike and most of the men were hanging around out by the fire and Shael and I went to the living room and sat with the body for a while with one of my cousins, my Mom and three of my other Aunts. Four more of the Aunts were sitting in the kitchen and my Aunt Neasy was hiding out upstairs. She came down right as we were leaving and I gave her a hug and nearly choked. Yesterday was the funeral. When we were coming home Thursday night, Shael complained of an ear ache, so before the funeral I took her to the doctor. We sat and sat and sat until finally I had to go so I wouldn't be late for the funeral. I called my mother in law and she, once again, came to my rescue. She sat at the doctor's office with Shael so I could go on. Mike was kind of miffed at me for not making Shael come along with us to the funeral, but I didn't know when I would get another chance to take her and I didn't want her to get even sicker over the weekend. I was worried that we wouldn't be able to find a seat, but they had the whole middle section of the huge church reserved for family. The church was full, every seat taken, and the walls were lined with people standing, the lobby was crowded with people who couldn't even get in to the sanctuary. The parking lot was completely full and cars were parked down every side street for many blocks. Aunt Neasy was practically carried into the church, he feet were literally dragging as her husband and her best friend were holding her up and walking her to her seat. Seeing the casket the night before, seeing it again yesterday and seeing all her baby pictures and pictures of her as she'd grown they'd made a collage out of on a table in the lobby didn't move me to tears, but seeing my Aunt Neasy like that felt like a stab in my heart. The preacher did a good job, it seems his girls were friends with Bobbi so he was directly affected and he choked up more than once. After the church we went on to the cemetery and waited on the hearse and the family car. We knew if we followed behind it like normal, we'd never find a place to park and by the time we made it to the tent the service would be over. But, we shouldn't have worried because it took them a while to get things started once everyone got there. Here was the Indian ceremony. The kind of funeral I'm accustomed to. The prayer in our native language (and he was nice enough to tell us in English what all was being said for the sake of all the non Indians there, I guess), the song, the sad, sad, ballad that made me cry and even sob a couple times, sang in the same language and accompanied by a small leather drum and two shakers. Hearing those four men sing sent chills down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold wind blowing. Then a man grabbed a shovel and scooped up dirt and all who wanted to walked by and grabbed a handful and dropped it over the lowered casket. The man holding the shovel was wearing a suit. I thought that seemed odd. A first for me. I don't even know who he was, he looked like one of the funeral home people. My Dad was a pall bearer so on the way back he rode with me and Mike. He wondered out loud what all of Rob's (Bobbi's Dad) family thought of the Indian ceremony. A half white half Indian funeral. Another first for me. Mike said that if anything, God forbid, ever happened to Shael, that's how he would want it for her, too. Mine will be all Indian. Mike's all white.

After the funeral we went to Joplin because Mike was looking for some leather to make something for his bike. Instead of paying $200 for a sissy bar, he wanted to try his hand at making one. We finally found leather at the third place we looked, which was the first place he said he wanted to look. Hobby Lobby. The whole evening Mike was in the best of moods. I guess the funeral kind of made him look at what he had and gave him some perspective in life. I, on the other hand, can't seem to shake this melancholy feeling. I'm really sad about my cousin, Bobbi, but I really didn't know her. I'm mostly concerned with my Aunt. And her other two daughters. I know that life goes on, they will make it. But, how? How does one go on after something like this? How will her sister, Sara, be able to close her eyes at night after seeing her sister dead on the highway? I won't even tell you how she described her because it's too gruesome. I didn't even see her yet I feel haunted by images described to me. Why did they tell me that, I wonder. How can they go on? They just will, is all I can think. Just like every body else who's lost a loved one suddenly and tragically like this. Almost five years to the day, my cousin, Janey, was killed in a car wreck. Janey was 7 when she died. Her mother's only child. What would I do if my only child, Shael, were killed? I don't know if I could go on. But my Aunt George Ann did. And was there for her sister when her daughter died 5 years and 1 day later.

So, I didn't get to have my utopian evening home alone after all. But that's okay. It turns out that Shael had an ear infection and by the time we got home from Joplin last night she was feeling right poorly. She fell asleep on the way home and when we pulled into the driveway I looked over at her, sound asleep in the passenger seat (Mike had driven separately since we met at the funeral rather than drive together) and thought, this is my child, as I tried to memorize every single freckle on her face. Every tooth in her head, because her mouth was wide open in slumber. She looked so precious. Then she wakes up, smacks her mouth a couple times, looks over at me with groggy eyes and burps. "Are we home?" she asks. "Yes, my love. We're home"