That Takes Ovaries! (10 page)

“What do you want to read tonight,” I’d ask. I wanted to share with Askia the books I’d loved as a kid, like
Harriet the Spy
and novels by Judy Blume. But that first year, the books Askia wanted to read horrified me.

“Animorphs!”

I’d sigh and grimace and stall and finally pull one of the blue books off the shelf.

From the beginning, it was important to me to make a full commitment to being a partner and coparent, rather than trying to leave room for a quick exit, should it become necessary, by telling Askia I was a “friend” or “aunt.” I knew Askia would eventually have to field questions about his queer parents, and so I wanted to be very clear that I
was
his parent, and that his family was just as stable, strong, and normal as anyone else’s.

Fortunately, Askia has not yet encountered any superobvious or in-your-face homophobic reactions to his parents; it hasn’t seemed to matter much that he has two moms. Like all kids with same-sex parents, though, Askia did have to figure out what to call me, the nonbiological parent. In the beginning, he called me “Rebecca,” which felt safe and neutral for both of us. Then, a couple of years later, Askia looked up at me across the breakfast table and asked, “Can I call you Mom?”

Taken by surprise, I answered without really thinking about it. “Sure, honey, if you want to.”

“Okay,” he replied, picking up his spoon and digging into his Cheerios. “Thanks, Mom.”

It didn’t stick though, he already had someone he called Mom. We tried a few other variations—Mommy, Mama—but ended up sticking with the tried-and-true “Rebecca.” Still, some of the sweetest moments for me are when I overhear my son calling me his “mom” to one of his friends or teachers. This act of naming makes it clear, as nothing else could, that Askia accepts and knows me unconditionally as one of his parents, one of the people who is there for him 24/7, no matter what. Feeling his confidence in me has helped me realize that despite my parents’ divorce and our frequent moves, I always knew they were there for me, too. And so, in parenting, I have finally healed some lingering resentment about my own unsettled childhood.

Now that he’s eleven, Askia doesn’t always need to hear a story at night, but we still love to read together. Now we just have separate books! We lie in his moms’ big bed, me reading the
New Yorker
and him reading
Harry Potter.
If it’s close to bed-time, after a few minutes I can see the sleep entering his body; his breathing slows down and the book falls out of his hands. Before he falls too deep, I wake him up and walk him to his own bed for a tuck-in. After he is under the covers, I take his glasses off and kiss his forehead goodnight. I can’t help but be amazed that this beautiful child, so present, so right in front of me, is my own.

In the mid-1970s, my two daughters, Felicia and Gina, and I were living in East Oakland, California. At the time I was working at the Native American Youth Center. We could not afford our own place, so we shared a house with another indigenous woman and her child. It was a tough neighborhood. When Felicia’s best friend, an eleven-year-old boy, killed himself, I knew it was time to return to my family land in Oklahoma.

I had left my homeland in 1956, when I was ten. That was when my family experienced the pain of the United States government relocation. Our poverty had prompted the move. I recall hearing at that time that the relocation program was being offered as a wonderful opportunity for Indian families to get great jobs, obtain good educations for their kids, and, once and for all, leave poverty behind. In truth, the program gave the government the perfect chance to take Indian people away from their culture and land. The government methods had softened since the nineteenth century, but the end result was the same for native people. Instead of guns and bayonets, the government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs used promotional brochures showing staged photographs of smiling Indians in “happy homes” in the big cities.

I never liked the idea of our moving away. I can still remember hiding in a bedroom in our house, listening while my father, mother, and oldest brother talked in the adjoining room about the benefits and drawbacks of relocating our family. Finally, my parents chose San Francisco.

Neon lights, flashily dressed prostitutes, broken glass on the streets, people sleeping in doorways, hard-faced men wandering around. The noises of the city, especially at night, were bewildering. We had left behind the sounds of roosters, dogs, coyotes, bobcats, owls, and crickets moving through the woods. Now we heard traffic. The police and ambulance sirens were the worst. That very first night in the big city, we were all huddled
under the covers. We had never heard sirens before. I thought it was some sort of wild creature screaming.

The overt discrimination we encountered is what got to me the most. It became obvious that ethnic intolerance was a fact of life in California, even in the urbane and sophisticated world of San Francisco. Not only did African and Hispanic Americans feel the sting of racism, so did native Americans. A popular sign in restaurants in the 1950s read NO DOGS, NO INDIANS.

The “better life” the BIA had promised all of us was, in reality, life in a tough, urban ghetto. Many native people were unable to find jobs. Many endured a great deal of poverty, emotional suffering, substance abuse, and poor health because of leaving their homelands, families, and communities. They were exiles living far from their native lands. Urban Indian families banded together, built Indian centers, held picnics and powwows, and tried to form communities in the midst of large urban populations. Yet there was always and forever a persistent longing to go home.

Many families we met there were like us. They had come to the realization that the BIA’s promises were empty. We all seemed to have reached that same terrible conclusion—the government’s relocation program was a disaster that robbed us of our vitality and sense of place.

Although thousands of American Indians had been relocated, the relocation act’s goal of abolishing ties to tribal lands was never realized—thank goodness. Our traditional people would not abide by this federal interference. They continued grassroots efforts to unify the Cherokees and to resist the initiatives of the federal government to bring about total assimilation of the Cherokee people. A large percentage of native people who had been removed to urban areas ultimately moved back to their original homes.

Now a single mom with kids of my own, more and more, I found my eyes, too, turning away from the sea and the setting sun. I looked to the east, where the sun begins its daily journey. That was where I had to go … back to the land of my birth,
back to the soil and trees my grandfather had touched, back to the animals and birds whose calls I had memorized as a girl when we packed our things and left on a westbound train so very long ago. The circle had to be completed. It was so simple, so easy.

I was going home.

After the sad suicide of Felicia’s friend, and without any idea of where I would work and just enough money to get to Oklahoma, we rented a U-Haul truck, packed all our belongings, and headed across country accompanied by our dog, a guinea pig, and lunches packed by our friends. We covered some of the same territory my family had traveled across twenty years before when we had been relocated by the federal government. When we arrived at my mother’s place, I had $20 to my name, no car, no job, and few, if any, prospects. But we were happy. We stored our belongings and stayed with relatives in a house without indoor plumbing. Quite a change from Oakland! In some ways, it must have been as strange for my daughters as when I went to San Francisco as a child. The girls had had some experience getting along with few amenities … but they were not prepared for such living on a daily basis.

At first, I had a difficult time getting a position. Whenever I went to the tribal headquarters to inquire about the various jobs being advertised, I was told that I was overqualified or, for some reason, just did not fit. Finally, I got fed up with hearing that, so I went right into the office and said, “I want to work! Whatever you have, please let me try it. I need to work!” Apparently that approach was effective. I got a low-level management job with the Cherokee Nation. At last I was home to stay.

“Mireya, pienso que llegó la hora.
I think it’s almost time,” she said.

“Yo sé.
I know,” I nodded, taking her thin hand.

“What will I say to them?” Her fingers squeezed around mine.

“What do you want to say? What do you need to say?” I asked. My throat tightened and I wondered, like always, what
I
could say that would help
her. Por favor, Dios, help me to guide her.

The hospital room was so sterile, so cold. It smelled of disinfectant. No place to die. No place to say good-bye, to say last loving words, the most important words ever needed to be said, to three little kids about to begin such a difficult journey. They were about to be left to live their lives—their childhoods, adolescence, adulthoods—motherless.

“I won’t see them at their proms, or driving their first cars,” Lisa cried.

“I know.” I blinked. How long before my own tears flowed? How much of a professional distance did I need to maintain? I could cry later, on the way home, if I needed to. That always helped; a necessary release.

I am a social worker who for ten years has been leading support groups for women who are HIV positive or have AIDS. One of the hardest parts of my work, the thing that takes the most strength and compassion, is when a woman is at the end
of her life and she asks me to help her find a way to say goodbye to her children.

Lisa (not her real name) was Latina, in her thirties, and mother of three—ages eleven, seven, and four. She had been in the hospital a lot during the last few months, so her ex-husband and her mother were caring for the kids. I had known Lisa for three years and we weren’t especially close, but she had attended my support group. Our primary contact now was by phone. She called during moments of anguish and distress. One evening she called from the hospital and asked me to come in.

“Mireya, it’s time,” she said. Over the years I have found that the women I work with can often tell when they are close to dying. “My kids, Mireya. I haven’t done enough. There’s so much I haven’t said to them. I haven’t told them what I want them to know, about everything, I mean,” she wept.

What could I possibly say to this woman to ease her mind?

I just encouraged her to talk. I asked her what it was she felt she had not done, and what she needed to do to get it done. As she spoke, it became clear it wasn’t so much that she had specific things she needed to do or say, it was just that she was having a hard time letting go. She needed reassurance that her children would be okay without her. Unfortunately, this was something I could not—no one could—give her.