“At the powwow,” a mourner said, “I sat in a folding chair and Lillian yelled at me and told me I should let an elder have that chair. Made me cry. I was just a kid. But she was right. Lillian was always right about stuff like that. I have never sat in a folding chair at any powwow ever again. I probably won’t sit in a folding chair even when I’m old.”
“I was at the post office,” said another mourner. “This was when I was a senior in high school and we lost that big game to Selkirk. Anyway, Lillian comes walking up to me and she yells at me for being a ball hog. For shooting too much. And I yell back, saying I pass the ball all the time, and then she yells at me about one play. At the end of the third quarter, on a fast break, I went up for a jump shot. And I was in midair when I saw Greg was open in the key. I knew I should pass to him, but I wanted to make a buzzer beater. I wanted to pass and I wanted to shoot. Anyway, I ended up shooting but was so distracted by everything that I threw up an air ball. I missed everything. And Lillian is yelling at me in the post office. She yells about that air ball. She tells me I shot an air ball because I felt guilty about not passing. She tells me Greg was open. She saw that Greg was open. And she was right. Man, Lillian knew basketball.”
Yes, my mother had vision. She had glare. So imagine how it felt to grow up under her surveillance.
At her wake and funeral, after hours of listening to other Indians talk about my mother’s life and death, I stood to deliver my eulogy. I’d wanted to say something epic and honest. But epics are rarely honest, and honesty should never be epic.
I said, “My mother and I had a difficult relationship. We weren’t always kind to each other. So it’s good to hear how kind she was to some of you. But it hurts, too, to hear that she mothered some of you better than she mothered me. And it was also good to hear how mean she was to some of you, too. I knew the mean Lillian maybe better than all of you, maybe even better than my brothers and sisters. My mother was good to people and she was mean to people. And sometimes, she was good and mean to the same person at the same time. Anyway, that’s all I really have to say. I am not a traditional Indian. You all know that. I don’t sing or dance or do the ceremonies. I don’t pray like other people pray. I just talk. So I am really going to miss talking to my mother. I am really going to miss her voice.”
My mother is buried next to my father. They share a tombstone. My reservation is a very quiet place. You can hear the wind whistling through the pine trees from miles away.
Hush, hush, hush, the wind says to the trees.
Hush, hush, hush, the trees say to the wind.
Yes, there was a three-year span when my mother and I did not speak to each other.
But I cannot remember exactly why we stopped talking to each other.
And I do not remember the moment when we forgave each other and resumed our lifelong conversation.
How could I have forgotten important shit like that? I have no answers for that question. And my mother has no answers, either, because she is dead.
26.
Your Multiverse
or Mine?
AT MY MOTHER’S funeral, my smartest Indian friend—the one who never went to college—corners me to deliver a metaphysical lecture.
He says, “In an alternate universe, exploding next to this one, you are the creator of your mother. You are her mad scientist and she is your monster.
“In another universe, you are the man who gives birth to his own mother. I know that sounds crazy but, speaking outside of biology, it’s possible.
“And in the universe next to that, your mother and you are strangers who ride the same train to work every day and are always unsettled by the sense of having met before. You stare at each other all the time.
“And in that universe after that—well, I just blanked and can’t think of any other universes—but physics teaches us that all kinds of crazy shit is theoretically possible.
“I mean, in another universe, maybe I’m your mother.
“Maybe there are ninety-nine people, totally unknown to you in this universe, who are your mother in other universes. And you spend all your time, in this universe, trying to find the ninety-nine people who retain a bit of that other-universe maternity and can maybe give you the love and attention you ache for.
“Maybe there are ninety-nine women in the world who you could have happily married because they are your mother in other universes.
“Maybe your wife is your mother in another universe.
“Or maybe I’m full of shit. Maybe I’m just trying to assuage your grief. Maybe I’m just trying to find some way to help you believe in a world beyond this one.
“I’m sorry I sound so crazy.
“I just want you to believe in something. If you won’t let religion help ease your pain, Junior, then maybe you’ll let science comfort you.”
I hugged my friend because I love him and because I didn’t know how to respond in that moment and because I wanted him to shut up.
But, now, let me respond to my smart and eccentric friend with a little poem:
Ah, friend, this world—this one universe— Is already too expansive for me.
When I die, let my mourners know
That I shrugged at the possibility Of other universes. Hire a choir— Let them tell the truth
But tell it choral—
Let the assembled voices sing
About my theology:
I’m the fragile and finite mortal Who wanted no part of immortality.
27.
Clotheshorse
DURING MY MOTHER’S funeral, one of her friends—a man I’ll call Xavier because I grew up vaguely Catholic—walked up to me and said, “Your shirt is wrinkled.”
I felt the urge to punch him. But Xavier is a tiny man. I probably would’ve broken his face and ended up in jail.
I also felt the urge to say, “Xavier, you’ve been a jerk your whole damn life. I have my theories about why you’ve been so angry since puberty. But I ain’t judging you for having those theoretical fears and doubts. I’m judging you because you’ve let your fears and doubts turn you into a judgmental little monster.”
But I didn’t say any of that. I just smiled and said, “I’m always wrinkled.”
The smug bastard walked away. I suppose he thought that he’d burned me with his quick wit. We Spokane Indians are famous for our verbal cruelty. I’d been trained from an early age to fire insults like arrows. Hell, I’ve made a lucrative career out of being a smart-ass who can cuss you out in free verse or in rhyme and meter. But I wasn’t interested in insulting Xavier back.
Well, I didn’t want to dishonor my mother by insulting her friend during the funeral. And maybe I had the slightest bit of compassion for him. After all, he’d been my mother’s friend for years. He was in pain.
But, regardless of that pain, I am perfectly content to give him hell now that the funeral is only a memory.