BRIDGES

Have you ever loved a child or wanted to?

“Hold hands. Stay close. Keep looking forward.”
– Jillian

Sina’s daughter, Talisha, asks me to dance. At the Navajo Song & Dance, a couple of hundred Native Americans fill a gymnasium for a day of tradition. I am the only Belagana (“white person”) there.

Talisha’s friend, Bubba, had just asked me to dance. He held his arm upright and guided me around the floor, moving to the beat of drums and song. He returned me to my seat after one round. Sina, my host on the reservation, said to Bubba, “You’re supposed to do five!”

I am delighted when Talisha is not disqualified to win a prize after dancing with the worst partner out there – among four and five-year-old children.

I have some trepidation. I have come to the Navajo Nation with Amizade, a service learning and volunteer organization, to tutor for a week at a local boarding school and have never taught young children.

As Sina and I watch the dancers, I tell her about an article I have read in my journal for this trip — “Never Trust a White Woman” — about a visitor who comes to stay in Sina’s home town. Sina says her grandmother also shared this wariness of people outside their culture and wondered why Sina hosted volunteers.

Sina’s grandmother had been one of the greatest influences in her life. She had taught her granddaughter all of the traditions, ultimately inspiring Sina to return to the reservation and raise her children with those traditional ways, after some time off the reservation.

I do not know these ways. I am a stranger here. Will I be able to serve?

 

I want to learn about this culture, but I fear I will commit some faux pas in conversation – unaware and waxing poetic about some animal they consider an evil spirit or even taboo.  Maybe Sina and I can develop a sign, a Modern Day Navajo Code, to cut me off in mid-sentence…She agrees and laughs.

It feels good to make Sina laugh. She tells me laughter is key to their culture. When a baby is typically two to four months, the first person to make that child laugh must cook many people a feast. “It’s a good time to avoid babies at that age,” Sina says, deadpan. She also tells me this festive ritual celebrates giving, not selfishness.

Walking to sacred ruins, Talisha and her friend, Sister, on either side of me, each hold my hand for the entire mile-and-a-half journey. I imagine Jim saying after I return home, “Were you dying? Your ovaries must have been glowing so bright they could’ve spotted you from space.”

Talisha balks as we start to cross a bridge. I tell her, “Hold hands. Stay close. Keep looking forward.”

***

After a full day, we leave Sina and her partner John’s “country home.” She and John will drive the lead vehicle. Sina has said it is OK for Talisha to ride with me. We have a long drive ahead. We will not arrive at their city home until 1:30 a.m.

Pushing through the deep darkness, no hint of lights, just the occasional cow or horse grazing roadside, I think how fortunate I feel Sina has trusted me with the care of her child tonight.

Talisha sings songs to me in Navajo before she drifts to sleep in my front seat.

As I glance over at her, I think of the stuffed bear she gave me to sleep with last night after I told her I miss my family when I am away from home traveling.

 

***

During the week, Talisha and I take care of the baby chicks she and Bubba won at the Song & Dance. We feed and water her family’s horses and cows. I teach her how to take pictures and some salsa dance moves. She learns the “around the world” dip and reminds me of the joy of spinning each other endlessly in the living room. And how fun it is to have someone dance while standing on your feet, like I used to dance on my father’s.

At school, I give a lecture to Mrs. Begay’s second grade class about being an author. At break, many kids ask me good questions about my life and work.

Mrs. Begay suggests that I take the remainder of the afternoon to teach them more about writing, maybe give them an exercise they can do on their own.

I am thrilled, and a little nervous, as I have never done this before.

Soon we brainstorm story topics and list them on the board. The kids fold paper like a book, staple them, create titles and cover art.

They return from bathroom breaks, lunch, and ask, “Mrs. Begay, can we work on our books?”

Mrs. Begay approves and tells them she loves how excited they are about this.
I take a deep breath and think of words also written in my volunteer journal:
“Every day, do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow.”

At a Navajo cultural museum, Talisha and I sit together, alone in a viewing room. A film talks of the Creation Story and Talisha sings along in Navajo as the film describes the four sacred mountains that surround the reservation.

In another room, again alone, we sit watching a film about the Navajo Code Talkers. The movie segues to a talk of the Long Walk. In the mid-19th Century, the U.S. military deported the Navajo people from their homeland in an attempt at ethnic cleansing. The Navajos were forced – at gunpoint – to walk from their reservation in Arizona to southwestern New Mexico in a march that lasted almost three weeks. Though I have heard the story before, now it horrifies me. I cry a little, quietly. Talisha immediately lays her head in my lap and I hold her sweet little six-year-old body.

There, together, I think we can build a bridge, two people at a time. With Talisha’s mother, that makes three.

Back in Sina’s home, Sina lies on the couch with her legs strewn over my lap. Years ago, she had a car accident and almost didn’t survive. Today a residual pain in her foot throbs. I massage it.

As we talk alone, Sina tells me that for six years, she lived in California with a Mormon family. She returned to the reservation each summer. Her foster mother in California was “amazing” with Sina. She tells me, “Even though she was Belagana, she was still my mom.”

As Talisha spins me around their living room, she calls out, “Auntie!” “She’s my Auntie,” she tells her mother.

Sina tells me with peoples’ aunts, it is their way to also call them “Mommy.” As part of the Ke´(clan relation) they, too, are the child’s mommy.

Before we go to sleep, Talisha nestles into my arms on the couch and says “Mommy.”

***

In a sweat lodge ceremony before I leave, I have a “vision,” as Sina later describes it.

To be there for Talisha, however I can in her life, and help her along the way.

In the halls of Talisha’s school, “Be Your Best” signs say, “Be responsible. Be respectful. Be safe.” I want to help Talisha Be her Best. Another “mommy,” as Sina would say.

Dr. Wayne Dyer has said we also reap rewards when we “give a little extra.”
Before my trip is over:

• Mrs. Begay comes in on her day off and gives me a beautiful silver and turquoise necklace.
• “Our” 2nd grade kids ask me to play with them in the playground during recess. We play “Tag” until we’re breathless.
• Sina gifts me a pair of earrings she has made and creates a necklace especially for Jim.
• Sina tells me I healed her foot; she has had no pain all day since my massage.
• John and Sina invite Jim and me back as their guests to go fishing.
• Talisha invites me to her 7th birthday party.
• Talisha becomes the youngest sales representative of my book, Change Your Life Through Travel, wanting to sell to people on the reservation.
• Talisha tells her mom she is not so afraid of crossing bridges anymore.

***

Action:
The only suggested action on this post is: Did this story touch your heart? Why? What’s one thing you can take action on now? I know, for example, I’m going to call Sina and Talisha the minute I finish this post. It has been too long since I’ve connected with them…

Is there another Bridge you can care about today?

Love,

Jillian

***

Jillian Robinson Weaver is an Emmy-winning TV Producer, Author/Photographer, and Coach, whose passion is to help people live their Highest Self. Come join her on Instagram for daily “Coffee Conversations,” where she shares that passion. https://www.instagram.com/jillianrobinsonweaver/