Continuation.....
There must be something inside of me that feels a tug at my soul connecting me to my sovereign land of birth. It's been lying dormant all this time, ready and waiting to carry me 'home'. I never really thought about going home to live, until now. The prospects for work are minimal, but that doesn't sway my need for something deeper that is unattainable by denying who I am, and where I once belonged. Not that I really ever denied my heritage, but ignoring it and pretending that it doesn't matter is just as bad. It does matter, and I'm not sure why it does after all these years of being lost in the 'white' world.
Maybe it's the children I'm thinking of. Children who might never see a real yard with grass. Children who play among debris and dilapidated houses that are all boarded up. Children who might never know they can have a future if they want it badly enough. My people's children of tomorrow. I've been racking my brains as to what I, one person, can do. It doesn't matter how small, just so long as one child will grow up believing in something better for their life.
Maybe it's my need to start collecting my history, and to find out who my grandmas and grandpas were, even though most of them have already passed on. I can't ignore my need to salvage what is left, so that my children will know their history, and my grandkids will know where they came from. Where it all started and began. My need to find out who the rest of my brothers and sisters are. I know of 3 of them, but I heard there were more. Babies I never got to play with and now they are older. They don't know I exist, but I'm their big sister and I'll love them as if I had known them their whole lives.
Maybe it's my need to belong. To be part of the community, in which I should have been raised. To get to know them and for them to know me. To be part of the women in the kitchen helping cook food for wakes and give a ways, and playing with the kids running in and out of people's legs. To visit the elders who have been forgotten and listen to the stories about their lives they have to tell.
To reclaim a connection that was broken, when my brave mother set out alone for an unknown world when she was but a child herself.
Maybe it's the children I'm thinking of. Children who might never see a real yard with grass. Children who play among debris and dilapidated houses that are all boarded up. Children who might never know they can have a future if they want it badly enough. My people's children of tomorrow. I've been racking my brains as to what I, one person, can do. It doesn't matter how small, just so long as one child will grow up believing in something better for their life.
Maybe it's my need to start collecting my history, and to find out who my grandmas and grandpas were, even though most of them have already passed on. I can't ignore my need to salvage what is left, so that my children will know their history, and my grandkids will know where they came from. Where it all started and began. My need to find out who the rest of my brothers and sisters are. I know of 3 of them, but I heard there were more. Babies I never got to play with and now they are older. They don't know I exist, but I'm their big sister and I'll love them as if I had known them their whole lives.
Maybe it's my need to belong. To be part of the community, in which I should have been raised. To get to know them and for them to know me. To be part of the women in the kitchen helping cook food for wakes and give a ways, and playing with the kids running in and out of people's legs. To visit the elders who have been forgotten and listen to the stories about their lives they have to tell.
To reclaim a connection that was broken, when my brave mother set out alone for an unknown world when she was but a child herself.