Gathering What Has Been Broken

And now I will tell you this.

I didn’t have a good family growing up. I was raised by a Wasicu (white) family that was abusive and negligent. My roots were nurtured in a traditional Lakota family. My Unci (Grandma) and La La (Grandpa) lived in the same house as my Ina (Mother) and my five brothers and sisters. I was the youngest at the time, the baby, the Wakaneja.

I was sacred; I was treated in a sacred way, sometimes much to the annoyance of my siblings. They wanted to run and play and be free, not have to care for a small baby girl who couldn’t walk on her own and was a hindrance to their fun. But I was loved, by everyone. I had a temper, the same temper I see in my little Cunksi (daughter). I was called Matowin (bear woman) and still have the fiery temper to this day.

Unfortunately, my mother drank. It was the 1970s and she was an Indian woman who was trying to figure out what it meant to be a woman in a revolutionary time of Indian History. We’d just come out of an extremely volatile time for Indians everywhere. The Freedom of Religion Act had not yet been passed, and we were not allowed to practice our ceremonies and beliefs publicly.
Indians had to belong to an organized religion, be it Catholic, Protestant, Mormon. The American Indian Movement (AIM) was active on the reservations and beyond, and Indians were either embracing their heritage or running from it.

My mother was torn between the culture she knew, which included speaking the language, knowing her roots, and her history, and yet she bore the scars of boarding school and the immense burden of being a Lakota Winyan (woman) in the 70s.

I don’t excuse her drinking, but I understand it. When her children were taken she was told, “You are an unfit mother and you will never see your children again.” Imagine being told that. Would you want to sober up? I think she crawled into a bottle and never came out.

Our mother loved her children; I have no doubt of that. Critics have said to me, and still say, “Well, then why did she drink?” Knowing what is good and doing what is good are two different things.

Again, I’d challenge anyone who wants to stomp my mother into the ground for her choices to have walked in her skin.  Remember, she was an Indian woman and it was the 70s.

And I can tell you from personal experience, just because you “go to church” and don’t drink  doesn’t make you a good mother. I can tell you this: the scars I bear from my adoptive mother are much deeper than what my “drunken” mother left me with. I was 18 months old when I was taken, and wasn’t yet walking or talking. My adoptive mother told her friends I was broken.

So, being torn away from my birth family — my birthright — left me longing, left me searching. I spent the next 23 years searching for family, for connections, for a mother who would be nurturing, attentive, and supportive in most every woman I’d meet.

Looking for a place to belong became a mission, one I would continue on without even being aware. Instead of reading Are you my Mother? I began living it, or rather, Will you be my mother?

When I would be at friends’ houses, I’d watch the way their mothers interacted with them, watch the way they interacted with their siblings. I wanted that, the deep connection to other people who were your family. Mine was publicly functional yet all discombobulated and completely dysfunctional behind closed doors.

In spite of my adoptive mothers’ behavior, I worshiped her, because an abusive mother was better than no mother at all. As long as I was following her rules, playing her game, I’d be loved. But I knew it wasn’t solid, wasn’t secured.

When I was a senior in high school, I started dating this boy. He had two very attentive parents. His mother was slightly overbearing, but I’d trade overbearing for manipulative and conditional. He wasn’t as close with his father. But over time, I just started talking to both of them and eventually they became much closer and good friends.

A few months later, his father died from complications after being injured in a car accident. We were at the hospital and as he lay dying, he spoke with his son. Then he turned to me and told me he was grateful that I had healed their relationship. I was shocked, and totally unaware that I had been responsible for that.

In the weeks that followed, both he and his mother said that they were grateful that the rift between them had been healed. All I had seen was some miscommunication and helped them clear it up. I guess I was just giving them what I had always wanted, a real relationship with someone.

Looking back, years later, I realized I did this everywhere. I’d see families at odds and sort of help open the lines of communication. It was so important to me that my friends see that they had a good family and a good opportunity to embrace their blood relatives — and that not everyone had that.

Flash forward 23 years. I found my birth family and went back to my birth state. I found out my birth mother had died, but I met my birth father and in time, he gave me my Lakota name: Tiwahe Wica Yu Wita Win. It gave me goosebumps. It means “Gathers Family Together Woman.”

Photo Credit

“Heart Mosaic” Chris P. @ flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

Recent Mary Black Bonnet Articles:

• Meeting Lady Liberty
• Where I've Been
• Do You Understand?
• Ina’s Dilemma
• The Wounded Knee Massacre