Category: Travel

Family, Grief, Latino family tradition, Memoir, Mothers, poetry, Strong Women, Travel

Hurricane Mom – Memoir, Part 3

Mona Alvarado Frazier
Poem to Mother by Sharon Doubiago
Poem to Mother by Sharon Doubiago

 

Day’s flutter pass like wind blown pages of a book, occasionally landing on a chapter of happiness or sorrow.

Mom’s children leave. Each daughter marries. The hours spent on them are now hours gained to contemplate middle age, not that anyone would guess she was in her mid-life, nor would she correct them.

Grandchildren come into the world as her oldest siblings depart. Men of integrity, courage, and tradition. Orphan men who provided for siblings survived the Great Depression, and wars. Men who married young sweethearts, raised families, and weathered changing times.

The winds of life blow with the ferocity only death can bring. Mom’s brothers died soon after retirement, ravaged by cancer, the affliction of her parents. Their departure like uprooted trees in the landscape of her life.

Her career becomes her greatest pleasure, counseling the unemployed, connecting people with goals, encouraging youth, instilling hope. Evenings filled with meetings, groups of various acronyms, with one purpose: equality. Now there is a community pool, educational centers, and non-profit organizations serving people.

The pages keep turning. There is no slowdown in mid-life. Mom worked until 67, left after a mass shooting at her state office left co-workers dead, injured. Left her with post-traumatic syndrome. She thought about going back to college, for her Master’s degree, but serves on the Grand Jury instead.

Wanderlust struck. So much life, so much to live for. Egypt, Jordan, places we can no longer visit, were first on the agenda. Spain, Portugal, Canada, France, England, Mexico, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, and half of the United States. Places visited in books of her youth or on TV.

She rescues working daughters, son, and walks grandkids to school, makes them snacks, watches them grow. Her home is open to her children when troubles strike. None of us ever go it alone.

Mom’s life temporarily shuts down when her youngest sister died, the one she protected, the one who helped her through every pothole in the journey. Cancer. Again. A light went out, brightness dimmed. The absence of phone calls, trips to casinos, shopping, laughing with her sister leave Mom depressed for two years.

Her eyesight dims like her joy. A prognosis of legal blindness curtails her driving, her independence and link to distant friends and extended family. Worse, it’s difficult to read.

Now family reunions take place in her dreams, between recurring nightmares. Pain fades, aches remain, good times are remembered, wistful visits to previous chapters of life.

The first great-grandchild is born, many grand nieces/nephews, celebrations of sacraments, birthdays, milestones. Tortillas, turkey, tamales, everything celebrated with food and family, traditions kept alive.

And the pages turn.

 

 

Thank you for reading.

Click here for part 1 and 2 of “Hurricane Mom.”

 

Travel

Pow Wow Experience

Mona Alvarado Frazier
Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Santa Fe
Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Santa Fe

My laptop grew dusty during the time I roamed through Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I  stayed with friends on the outskirts of Santa Fe. No wifi, no cable, nothing but a dual wide mobile home sitting on an acre of land, surrounded by horses, sheep, and chickens.

It was awesome. And very cold. It snowed one day and a couple of days bore 30 mile winds.

I’m sorry I missed my last Poetry on Wednesday, but I do have one poem that is apropos to this post. It is by MariJo Moore.

Why We Dance

To dance is to pray,

to pray is to heal,

to heal is to give,

to give is to live,

to live is to dance.

 

The GON Pow Wow took place at the University of New Mexico, in the Pit, a stadium holding thousands of dancers, audience, vendors, and drummers for a full two days and nights.

Opening ceremonies began with the eagle carrier on the stadium floor, joined by hundreds of dancers streaming in from the four directions of the stadium, dancing in a spiral towards the center until every inch of floor space held a dancer.

The strong, steady drumbeats mimicked the heartbeat. The cultural chants and swirling dancers in colorful regalia evoked a mystical atmosphere where I was transported to prayer and gratitude. Unknowingly, the drums took me to my own personal quest for self-identity that increased as the day grew to night.

 

Over 700 tribes from the USA, Canada, and Latin America gathered. The one thousand dancers ranged from tots to tribal elders, men and women.

Of particular awe were the Code talkers and veterans of WWII, Korea, and each subsequent war, including the Warrior Women. One of whom had an incredible reunion with her husband, as she walked with the color guard onto the stadium floor.

 

Captains Jukari and Amileah Davis reunited at GON-photo by Davis Couple
Captains Jukari and Amileah Davis reunited at GON-photo by Davis Couple

 U.S. Air Force Captain Jukari Davis (Navajo), stationed in Afghanistan, surprised his wife, U.S. Air Force Captain Amileah Davis (Métis) in front of thousands at the 31st Gathering of Nations Powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico last Friday.

Some general rules, when attending a Pow Wow: 

  • Respect the dancers. No snapshots unless you ask first. Thank the person (s) for their time.
  • The dancers wear ‘regalia,’ not costumes. Each piece is symbolic and has meaning. Don’t handle their regalia.
  • Stay away from the dance area, even for your photo shots.
  • Don’t go around saying “How” to native people. (Originally, the greeting was “Hao.”)
  • Respect the ceremonies by standing when asked, or keeping silence. 
Two dancers in regalia, GON 2014 alvaradofrazier.com
Two dancers in regalia, GON 2014 alvaradofrazier.com

I asked a young man if he could share the symbolism of his beaded face dress. He smiled and said that the face dress was called beaded eye drops.

“Long ago, the story says that a boy watched grass dancers and spoke of becoming one some day. He waited until he was old enough to begin dancing, but he had an accident before he could begin, which left him in a wheelchair. Everyday, he came to watch the grass dancers, tears falling from his face. Out of respect, the grass dancers strung beads around their eyes, symbolizing the tears of that young boy.” 

Grass dancer, beaded eye drops. GON.
Grass dancer, beaded eye drops. GON.

 

Drum beats reverberated through my body, evoking feeling from some long ago ancestor, moving my knees and feet in the dipping motion of dancers.

From noon until midnight, for two days, the music, exquisite regalia, dances, and aromas of fry bread, roasted corn and sweet potatoes inundated every part of me.

Several times I was asked, by natives, if I was native, and what tribe. Vendors sometimes give other natives a discount on items. The long answer would be that my DNA test says I’m 51% Native North American, but since my mom was orphaned at a very young age and I don’t know anything of my father’s history, and both are Mexican ethnicity, I could be native. My children are one eighth Blackfoot. But  I answered truthfully, “I don’t know.”

I could tell by the reaction on the askers face that this was not an acceptable answer. My  cousin said, say you’re Yaqui-all Mexican heritage has native indian. She is Diné (Navajo) on her father’s side. That feeling of ‘unknown otherness’ swept through me, briefly, until the drummers began another song. My quest is now to find out more about my heritage (although Ancestry dot com isn’t very helpful to me).

I’ve been to several pow wows, but the sheer immensity of this one was an incredible experience.

I hope to attend the Gallup, New Mexico pow wow in August. Maybe by then I can have a more definitive answer to the question, “Are you native, what tribe?”