Ugly p9

We woke up a little after sunrise.

Grandma was calling to the boys. They told me it was time to get the eggs from the chickens.

I went along. I had never gotten eggs from a chicken, or saw a live one either.

It was like a big Easter hunt. As the chickens roamed a bit.

We had gotten quit a bit in the baskets grandma gave us, so we headed back home.

Grandma, Suzie, my mother and some of the other women were waiting for us to start making breakfast. Grandma patted me on the head and said "good girl". She blew smoke in my face and said "Butterfly".

The boys and I went outside to play some more before breakfast.

"Whoa, I think Grandma actually Indian named you!" Joseph said.

"Really?!"

"Yup, I saw some old guy on the rez blow smoke in a soldier's face and call out his new name in a ceremony we had before sending some of the men off to the war. They all got new names. Indian names. That way if they died, they would have their warrior names and not be shamed." Billy said.

"Now I can say a real old Indian gave me the name Butterfly?" I replied

"Yes." The boys said. We ran and played tag for a good long time. Than one of my fathers called us in for breakfast.

Breakfast a little eggs with fry-bread with jam. This was good. I liked this place. I could eat fry-bread in every meal. I hoped one of my mothers learned how to cook it from Grandma.

We sat the same way. Children and Grandma at the table with Suzie, this time my mother sat with us. A lot of the people on the roof of the bus some sitting on the porch.

Grandma kept looking at me. Smiling. If not with her mouth than with her eyes. They sparkled even at her age. She was very old. Thinking back, Suzie called her grandma too, so she might have been the boys great grandmother. "You like fry-bread, hum, Butterfly?" Grandma said to me.

I smiled and said "NO!" She looked disappointed at me a bit. "I LOVE it! Did you teach my mother how to make it?"

Suzie translated some of what I said. The old woman laughed after hearing what I said after 'No'.

Suzie started speaking for Grandma. "Making good fry-bread takes a long time to learn, many years. Nothing that could be taught so quickly."

I looked sad as I finished my breakfast.

"You can always come back, Butterfly. I will make you more."

I smiled again.

Grandma looked at my mother."You know, the little one has a blessing from the creator. She is a blessing from the creator."

Suzie again was talking after Grandma talked.

My mother gave a look as if she was hearing crazy talk.

Some of the women started clearing off the table. They took the dishes into the house to clean them.

"All children are blessings of the creator." Suzie translated.

My mother just blankly stared off into the dessert. She didn't want to be lectured. Never mind by an old women she just meet.

Suzie spoke, directly to my mother. "Rainbow Dove, " my mother had people start calling her that for some time in 1969,"it is really what we are taught here. It doesn't matter who your father is here, just your mother. Women have been having babies without fathers here for a long time. The men they leave or were only a one night stand or they die, they don't stick around that long. Children are seen as a blessing. They are hope,they are our future. I got no lecture about not having a father for my baby when I walked in that door." Suzie pointed to the door. " I got no questions about what colour the father was or where he was. I came home, soon I will have a baby. A new mouth to feed. But all Grandma did was cry and thank God for the new blessing to her family. Please listen to her. She is not coming from the same place you do. She is wise."

Grandma started talking again. Suzie talked back. Neither of them in English. Grandma nodded.

Grandma looked stern at my mother.

"She says, Creator gave you a blessing, one that can teach you how to fly. You do with your blessings what you want. The creator doesn't care if you don't except his gift with love. He may not give you any more. He may take back what he gave. It is up to you to decide what you do. No one can make you do what you should."

"Thanks for the food and the night off the bus, but I don't need to be taking any old injun advice from a woman who lives in a shack without running water. What do you know about having a child like this? This is just hooky injun talk." my mother said as she started getting up.

Grandma hand came out and held mother's wrist. " Hooky injun talk?! Old woman talk. I have lived long enough."

Suzie started taking over again. "I have watched my daughter throw away her blessings," Suzie looked down and sad when she said those words, " My daughter NEVER saw them again. She never saw anything again. I saw one granddaughter throw away her blessings and her life is as empty as that outhouse, only filled with shit." Grandma made a face while she said that part.

"I took all their blessings, my life is full of love and contentment. It is hard life. But it is a good life. I learn so much from my blessings. They keep my heart light and young. I tell you this as a woman who had her blessings and has seen what happens when young women throw away there blessings."

My mother yanked her arm away and headed toward the bus.

"Creator had better sew that one's legs shut." Grandma said.

I didn't understand what she meant at the time.

Grandma looked at me again. With smile in her face and eyes again. "Butterfly, "

Suzie started speaking for grandma again. " She says, Creator gave you a gift. Wings to fly, fly beyond your mother's understanding. Beyond anything you choose. You always have a way out. Change is your friend. Even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes. You will grow and understand quickly. Do not hate your mother for not understanding as much as you. You will learn she has not the ability to think, to understand the way you do , in time."

And grandma patted my head, "In time, all in time, Butterfly."

Oldest father came to me. "We got to go, Emma, so say good bye to your friends." He looked and Grandma and Suzie. "Thanks for everything, we really appreciate it. And sorry for Bobbie Sue. "

"Don't apologize for Butterfly's mother, she is who is is, she is growing. She needs to grow. She needs to stop all the booze and dope. It stops you from growing."

Suzie was translating.

"Don't your people use drugs to learn, to grow, to get messages?" Oldest father said.

Grandma's cane went down hard and quick. Everyone turned and looked, The boys and I jumped.

"It is different! Holy people led ceremonies, collected the herbs. These plants drink in all the bad from everybody who touches it, it goes from broken person to broken person before it gets to you. You ingest all the bad from every person who touches it. It is not the same. The pure plant touched and prepared by holy people given the ceremony is good, shows you the right path. Plants harvested by broken people gathered broken ways, drinks in the bad and then you are shown the broken and wrong paths, paths full of pain for you and all those around all it touches." Grandma said the last bit with a smile.

"Sorry, ma'am" Oldest father said.

"Take good care of Butterfly." Grandma said.

"I have, I will."

I said goodbye to Joseph and Billy. I gave them both a hug.

Oldest father took me by the hand and brought me to the bus. I snapped away and ran back to Grandmother. I gave her a big hug, one for Suzie too. I waived as I ran back to the bus. I kept waiving from my window until I could not see them anymore as the bus rolled down the road. I wondered if I would get back to them one day.

The desert was long and hot. We stopped every now and again to empty the potty and to empty ourselves behind bushes or tumble weeds.


I will never forget the nights under the stars in the dessert. The dessert that showed more life than the dry dirt would ever let on. I would never forget what Grandmother would say to me.I hung on to it. In the hard times, when I couldn't talk to my mother. When it seemed I was talking a different language then than those around me.

It kept me sane in many a time when all seemed like I was swimming against the tide of understanding.

Understanding.

The ability to understand differently.

She gave me the key to the rest of my life. Without the key I might have still been trying to figure it out. Felt more isolated. Wondered what was wrong with me that I did not think like everyone else. I might have believed them when they told me "when in Rome you have to act like the Romans". I might have believed them when they said I had to be like them.

I knew. It was alright. This was the way God mad me I was a blessing. I have a blessing. I can fly above it, if I choose.