The Tao of Nookomis Read online

  And I was thinking when she spoke of her brother that I now know I had a great-uncle named John, who was from Ireland, who I will also meet someday, who will be waiting for me on the other side of a river of water, or of stars. And I reached out and took my great-grandmother’s hand in mine.

  My father. His name was Clarence Bandle. I have to tell you that, for many years, all I felt toward him was anger. Anger because of what he did or didn’t do. You see, when we were finally allowed off ship in New York to begin our new life, we didn’t have anywhere to live, and he had to get a job right away, and we moved into a rooming house crowded with many other families. I just know that it was dirty and old and there were a lot of others living there. There wasn’t enough to eat, and it was cold, and my brother and I spent a lot of time out on the streets. And maybe my father was grieving for my mother, or maybe he was overwhelmed with the responsibility of trying to raise two children alone, or maybe he took to the drink, or maybe he couldn’t accept the responsibility of caring for us on his own. Whatever it was I will probably never know, but he eventually took me to the Children’s Aid Society and left me there one day, and he told me he would be back to get me when things got better. In my dreams he promised me that.

  But I never saw him again. I still remember that day, clearly, as if it were yesterday. And now I’m ninety-five years old, and I’ve been waiting for him for nearly my entire lifetime.

  Her voice was breaking, but she was doing her best to contain herself, so mostly she was strong, her jaw set firmly, eyes looking straight ahead. She continued.

  Like I said, I couldn’t reconcile why he did this for many, many years, so I carried all of this anger, here, in my heart, toward him.

  Have you forgiven him?

  Yes. Yes, I have.

  Listen to me now when I say this. You see, I realize I will never know in my lifetime what was in his heart the day he left me with the Aid Society. And I won’t know until I meet him again on the other side, and it won’t even matter then because when we cross to the other side the overwhelming emotion we feel will be love. I believe that. Anger, resentment, jealousy—all of those things that weigh on us here in our earthly home will be no more. So I knew I had to forgive myself first for being angry with him before I could forgive him. Anger, I’ve realized through living, is mostly wasted energy—it smolders there in the one who is angry, eating away at them. And too often the person at whom the anger is directed is not really affected. So the only one who is destroyed by the anger is the one carrying it in their heart.

  When I was finally able to locate information about my father, I found out that he died in 1936 in New York, a few years before I moved there. I don’t know the circumstances, or where he was buried. I don’t know if he did the same to my brother John, left him with the Aid Society, or if he raised him, or if my brother went off on his own. I don’t know these things. I think if I were ever to find his grave now, I would probably ask him, in a respectful way, about these things, about why he left me with the Aid Society, why he never came back for me. This is what I would say: “I have forgiven myself for the anger I once had for you. I forgive you as well.”

  Such is the way of life, my Genevieve. I still love him. He was my father, after all. Anger, love, forgiveness, we are all of these things, yin, yang.

  We need to learn to forgive.

  I began to weep when she said that. I am just a big crybaby sometimes, guess I’ve always been like that. Can’t help it. I don’t know, but I guess maybe all of the wrongs committed against me in my life all appeared like a big movie screen in my head all at the same time, and then I saw each of them one by one, and I knew I still carried resentments—of people and circumstances, of poor choices and decisions. Anger toward my own father, who drank hard and beat my mother when he was all liquored up and snaky, who left us to fend for ourselves so he could drink some more. Anger for my mother, who put up with his shit for too long. Anger toward teachers at that high school in Bayfield who treated me like some kind of loser and let me know without even mouthing it that I wasn’t going to amount to jack shit. Anger toward myself for drinking years away of my life, for having sex with drunken, drugged-up men just so I could have a place to crash, or for something to eat, or more to drink, or to get high. Anger for giving my mother years of grief, for making her wonder night after night, days, months, whether I was even alive. And I could only hope that maybe one day I might come to a place along the road of my life where I will be able to cast each of my angers, resentments, and regrets away.

  Maybe be more like Grandma Nooko, to be able to forgive myself, to forgive others. And maybe I could do it before I was like ninety-five years old.

  So, because I was still young and stupid, and still carried resentments and anger, I said, I think if I were you, I wouldn’t be able to forgive my father.

  Forgiveness begins by forgiving oneself.

  I love you so much, she said, holding me like she did when I was a little girl and feeling lost and alone, angry. Accept, she said. Accept that sometimes there are no answers.

  The hard things we face in this life are not always lessons to be learned, she reminded me. Sometimes things just happen.

  When I recovered, I returned to my questions.

  Grandma, what happened at the Children’s Aid Society?

  I was there for a while. I don’t know how long. I just remember the place was filled with other children, and it was noisy, and we slept on cots in long rows and the blankets were scratchy, and there were these nuns who cut off all of us girls’ hair so we wouldn’t be passing around nits, and they made us wear clothes that were too big for us. And we took baths with lye soap made there by the nuns, and they made us use scrub brushes all over our bodies.

  Have you heard of the orphan trains? I was one of the young ones put on those trains. I don’t remember what the circumstances were, but one day they told me I was going to be put on a train and that it would take me to a new home, and that I would find a new mother and father. And I said no, I have a mother and father. I don’t want or need to go anywhere. But I went anyway because I was only six years old and didn’t have any choice. The train was filled with children, matrons, and a few of the nuns, and we rode for what seemed like days and days, sleeping on the train, and at every stop a matron would have us change into our Sunday clothes and march us out onto the platform and have us stand perfectly still, and tell us to act our best. There would be couples who would meet the train at each of the stops, all kinds of different people—farmers, clergy, business people, people who looked like they had money, people who looked like they didn’t have a dime—all sorts. And they would pick out children, like we were cattle or pets, and the chosen would go away with them.

  And eventually, after many days, there was a man and woman who chose me. That was in 1926, Ashland, Wisconsin, and they introduced themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Belanger. Their first names were Donald and Zozed and they became my new mother and father, your great-great-grandfather and grandmother. He was a white man and she was a full-blood Indi’n, Ojibwe. I don’t know if they could have chosen me if they both were Indi’n. Just knowing how things were then, I suspect that the man had to be white because they were the ones with the rights.

  I remember being frightened of them at first, but I had no choice. The woman who would become my new mother took me by the hand, and we walked through the depot out to the lot to where their car was parked. Don’t ask me how but I knew she was Indi’n then and there. Maybe I had heard stories about wild Injuns somewhere, and that only made me fear more, that’s for sure.

  Wild Injuns, we both said at nearly the same time, and then we were both laughing because we knew the word, and all the pain it has caused in our communities over the years, to be regarded as nothing more than animals, to be denigrated and dehumanized and treated like that. To end up even calling each other that name and all the others, to accept the labels put on us, to believe all of the lies—drunken Injuns, wild Injuns, lazy Inju
ns, wagon burners, and more. And now, to laugh because it hurt so much for so long that laughing seemed the only sensible thing to do.

  I’m laughing. My Grandma thinks I’m a wild Injun, I said again, laughing. Well, I kinda, sorta used to be one of ’em, but I’m on the straight and narrow now, kinda, sorta.

  Like I said, my great-grandmother has the same survival humor as many of us rez Indians. We laughed until we spent ourselves of it. Then I returned to my questions.

  Grandma Nooko, you talked about fate and luck, circumstances, being at the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time, and divine intervention. Have you made sense of coming to the reservation, of being adopted, and of spending most of your life here, being brought up Ojibwe, so much so that most people don’t even consider you to be anything but Native?

  I guess I’ve thought about it, even more so as I’ve gotten older. I guess you would say I’m very fortunate—fortunate to have been chosen by my new mother and to be raised by her, to be loved by her, to have lived nearly the entirety of my lifetime in this special place. The people of this place accepted me completely, without reservations (no pun intended) aaayyy …

  Aaayyy, that always makes us Indi’ns laugh. Whenever it is said, it is accompanied by laughter.

  If I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have married the man I married, or had my two daughters, or loved their children as my grandchildren, or been part of this sacred place, or had you as my Genevieve. I can’t imagine living my life any other way.

  If I were to have had a choice, I would walk no other path but this one.

  I was chosen to be here.

  All 150 percent of you, I said, and we laughed again. Then I asked her:

  Tell me a little bit about growing up in Red Cliff. I want to come back, of course, and interview you in much more depth about all the parts of your life—about Ireland, New York, the orphan train—to get as many details as I can. I know you have a lot more stories about each of those parts of your life, but for now, today, maybe tell me what you take away the most from growing up here on the rez.

  You know, there weren’t a lot of other kids when I first came here. What we know now because we finally have our history is that the government had taken most of them and put them into those boarding or mission schools. All of the children I would meet later, my cousins and friends, had been taken. So sometimes I wonder if that wasn’t one of the reasons my mother selected me from the orphan train. Maybe she missed having a child at home and I filled that void.

  Can you imagine, having to send your own children away and not being able to see them for years? Can you imagine having to walk your child to a bus, and then watch it pull out and disappear down the road, knowing it was not going to return at the end of the day, or maybe even the end of the year, and year after year goes by, and when they return they are nearly adults. Can you imagine the heartbreak of that?

  And just then I thought of when I was fifteen years old and pregnant, and how when I told my mother she looked so terribly disappointed because she, too, had gotten pregnant at fifteen but had chosen to raise her baby, me, and how I knew then I couldn’t have a baby then because I was just a child myself, and how she took me to Planned Parenthood in Superior where I had an abortion, and how we kept it our secret, and how on the way home my mother pulled the car off the side of Highway 13 where there was an opening along Lake Superior, how she put her hands to her face and wept, and she said she didn’t blame me.

  I don’t blame you, my girl, she said.

  What are you thinking, Genevieve? You look sad and far away.

  I was thinking of what it would be like to give your child away, I said, a lie, a half-truth. I have never told my great-grandmother the story of when I was fifteen.

  Grandma Nooko, I began. I was going to finally tell her. But before I could say a thing, she continued, and so my secret remained with me.

  Just for a while longer.

  So I grew up Indi’n, I guess you could say. My mother Zozed taught me to speak fluent Ojibwe, and I suppose every once in a while some of the real Indi’ns in Red Cliff were jealous because I was given that knowledge, but really, it wasn’t their fault they couldn’t speak it. They had it ripped from them in those schools where they were sent. They told me the stories about what it was like there, of being hit with rulers, and having to kneel on hard peas, and who knows what else for speaking the language. They told me of running away when they could no longer contain their loneliness, of walking the rails back toward their homes, of stealing food and water where they could. Of finally being caught and taken back to school. Of being put into a room without windows and kept in it for days, where they were fed only bread and water.

  No, I never considered myself any better because I was fortunate to be among language speakers and other knowledgeable people, the stories and songs. My mother, Zozed, took me to the ceremonies that were illegal back then, ceremonies the priest at the church would surely have banned. So I got to be around all of that.

  And the same thing is true about learning beading and making outfits. Mother Zozed taught me how to sew and do appliqué beadwork, and work deer hides. So I learned it all from her—how to make dance outfits, shawls, ribbon shirts, breechcloths, yokes, and moccasins. And I’ve used those skills until my eyes and hands gave out to make a little extra income, and to give back, as well, because I gave a lot of it away. When the pow-wow committee came to me some years back, I beaded the tiara the Red Cliff princess wears every year. I made the moccasins for many of the dancers you see today at the Fourth of July powwow. And when they needed someone to teach the language in Headstart, I was the language grandma, teaching what I could to our littlest ones.

  I only recall a few times when I was reminded in a disrespectful way that I am not really from here, that I am non-Native. Some years back one of the elderly ladies at ENP (elderly Nutrition Program) said something that maybe I shouldn’t be the one teaching language because I’m chimookomon (Caucasian, long knife). That lady didn’t know the language herself, of course, and I know it was not her fault, so what she said I couldn’t hang onto. I remember I was angry for just an instant, but I was able to hide it as best I could, and responded only that I thought she was homely as sin, in Ojibwe, of course. I said, well, I may be non-Native, but you, you’re homely as sin, girl.

  We laughed. Nooko could be so funny sometimes. Several homely women in Red Cliff village appeared in my mind, and I’m sure one of them was the one she was referring to.

  I think, however, the one time that still sometimes bothers me was when that Bear fellow on the tribal council tried to pull my lease because he said we should only be giving land leases to tribal members. I’d lived on that lease land for over forty years and even after my husband, who was a tribal member, died, I had no problem getting the lease renewed each year. The council had promised I would be able to live there until I died. That Bear’s motion was eventually defeated, but it was a reminder to me that small minds are everywhere, and they do things that can bring tremendous damage to individuals. What was even more ironic was that he was my husband’s nephew.

  I had almost forgotten about the land lease issue. I was thinking I was too young to vote when that happened. That fat bastard was still on the council. Every time I recalled what he tried to do I wanted to march down to the tribal center and punch him right in the face.

  But my great-grandma, she had yet another lesson to teach me. Not by telling me what I should do, or how I should act toward others, but in the way she lived.

  I harbor no ill will toward him. He has a lot of health problems, diabetes, and is in a wheelchair now. I feel for him. His mother and I were friends. She was kind. Maybe he didn’t learn kindness and the other things he should have learned. Maybe in life he hadn’t yet been humbled, because I know sometimes we have more empathy toward others only when we ourselves have been disrespected, humiliated, ostracized, or otherwise mistreated. I don’t know. It’s not for me to judge. I just know that
everything is in a circle, that we sometimes reap what we sow.

  Great-grandma, I still can’t believe that anyone could do something so mean. I get so frustrated with people like that. They seem to be everywhere, and some of them are our own Native people. They just cause all this mayhem and don’t even consider the hurt it is causing others.

  And when I said that, I thought of something just a few years earlier when I was in the local VFW all liquored up and Bear was sitting at the other end of the bar. I looked up at him when I saw him there, and gave him a sneer, and I mumbled something like “What you looking at, you fat SOB” under my breath, and how I was sure he heard me, but didn’t say anything, just looked over at me and my tits, that pervert son of a bitch who’s old enough to be my daddy. And I wanted to tell that to my Grandma Nooko but didn’t see it as going anywhere, so I didn’t say a peep. I continued with my questions.

  I want to interview you separately about my great-grandfather and how you met, and about your children, especially my grandmother. I know that particular talk is going to take a lot of time. Is it okay for me to come back to that? I just think that part of your life deserves its own attention.

  I will tell you more, then, about my mother, what I remember. My husband, God rest his soul, was a good man, and we raised two wonderful daughters, both of whom have since passed on. Your grandmother was my youngest. She was full of piss and vinegar. I outlived them all, and that is hard. To bury a spouse is difficult enough but to do the same to your own children is painful beyond definition, even though they both lived until they were nearly seventy years old. They were still my little girls, no matter how old. So, yes, we’ll come back to that. Their stories are deserving of more attention.

  I had noticed, of course, that Nooko had not mentioned her adoptive father, the white man, and probably the only reason the church would have approved giving an orphan child to a reservation family in the first place. And I knew I had to ask, so it just kind of blurted out.