#yes; inupiaq christianity has a peaceful afterlife and earthly reincarnation simultaneously; don't ask me how it logically works

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Moving on from yesterday's irritation at that awful anonymous message and discussing characters i'd hook up or do a scene with, i got a request at one point to talk about my grandma and the whole reincarnation through eskimo name experience. I think it'd be nice to talk about that instead of all the abuse and poverty i lived through.

I've mentioned before that Grandma would have been just a little girl when her whole village was made to relocate to a recently desegregated Nome. Alaska's BIA schools for Native Children varied and some teachers even found the suggested treatment of the children sent to them incredibly cruel and inhumane, so I can't speak to the exact details of the Nome school at the time my grandmother would have attended. The fact was, though, that Native children were punished, often physically, for not speaking English. This was deliberate. By taking children away from their families, making them speak in a new language their parents don't speak for eight hours a day, and making their first languages a source of shame and a sign of ignorance, you drive a wedge between generations and tell the younger one that the only way to success is abandoning their culture. What i can say about her time at school and how it affected her was that when she grew up, got married, and had kids of her own, she taught them as little Inupiaq as she could and treated "stupid" as a bad word. It would be about 40 years after she started school that her right to speak her language would be legally protected.

I don't know much about Grandma's upbringing other than that she was the second youngest of six kids, Inupiaq was her first language, and she wanted out of Nome from a young age. I don't even know if she had a high school education since at the time BIA schooling wasn't required to go that far and many high schools for Native Students were boarding schools, and we all know the dark history those have. I know she was a fan of Roy Orbison (the guy who sang Pretty Woman) and Elvis Presley. I've been told that she once met Elvis in an airport and was absolutely star struck the entire time. When she was growing up, cowboy boots were the hot fashion item among teens in Nome and she considered red nail polish salacious and scandalous.

My grandpa's mom was not happy about his relationship with Grandma. Grandpa's mom was a southern woman who didn't believe in race mixing, and refused to acknowledge their marriage, refering to Grandma as her son's "lady friend" long after they married and built a life together. She wouldn't budge from this until she succumbed to alzheimer's in her old age. Grandpa's dad, a WWII air force Veteran who was held as a prisoner of war by the Nazis, on the other hand, absolutely adored Grandma and was happy she married into the family. He thought she was incredibly cute (remember, she was under five feet tall and spoke with a heavy village accent) and would profusely apologize for eating stinky cheese or passing gas around her as she seemed so delicate a young lady to him. She considered this all quite endearing.

Grandma and Grandpa had four kids (my mom was also the second youngest, funnily enough) before medical issues prevented them from having more as Grandma would have wanted. Though she didn't teach anyone Inupiaq she'd still include Inupiaq words in her everyday speach, including calling black people "taaqsis" much to my mother's embarassment (the Inupiaq word for a black person is "taaqsipak" meaning "very dark" and is sometimes considered to have a negative connotation; though the word for a white person means "person of ignorance" which sounds much less neutral but isn't considered that negative; but at the same time it's not my place to say what is and isn't offensive to a group i don't belong to). She had to get her gallbladder removed and told her kids the scars were from when she got in a knife fight with a gang. It's been a while since my mom told me about this one, so i might be interpreting this wrong, but i think Grandma made a habit of going out to nightclubs with friends whenever she had a fight with Grandpa (who liked to start shit when he was bored so not that uncommon) and putting on her makeup in front of him before heading out to it to make him jealous. Healthy form of communication and conflict resolution? No. Funny to think about? Absolutely. Grandpa would say people only go to night clubs to "fuck or fight" and my mom shot back that Grandma was going out without him "because she doesn't want to fuck or fight" and she cracked up telling me this.

The thing that struck me most about what I've been told about Grandma, though, was how much other people liked to be around her. Not even just her peers in age, either. My mom's family was poor. The house was small, they didn't have cable, and ate what they could get on food stamps. It didn't sound like the most entertaining place to hang out, but in their teenage years my mom's friends and my uncles' friends loved visiting and staying as late as they could. Grandma was happy to see them and always managed to make them feel welcomed.

Grandma died in a pretty horrific car accident. I think my mom had graduated high school by then, but i don't know how old she was. It gave her a big scar on her jaw and a near death experience. She saw Heaven and from what she described, it sounds like the Ave Maria animation from Fantasia. Grandma was there; she was a light but my mom knew it was her, and she said to go back because it wasn't her time yet. One of my uncles was also in the car, just 14 at the time. Grandpa had to be pulled off the driver responsible for the wreck, who was also injured and in a hospital bed, so he wouldn't kill him.

I don't know how long after that i was born, but the first time my mom held me, she cried. Grandma had always teased her that she'd end up married to a white man and have blue-eyed babies. My dad is white (tho he wouldn't marry my mom until years later, in the living room, treating the lady who officiated it and the witnesses to a cigarette since we didn't even have a cake) and i have his blue eyes. I don't believe in fate, but i'd be lying if I said that didn't feel purposeful to me.

I got Grandma's eskimo name so she lives through me and my mom explained that to me since i was old enough to understand her words. We'd talk about her as if she was still alive -- and in a way, you could say she was -- but somewhere far away. My mom would always point out the ways i was like her. I was stubborn and sensitive like her, i drew eyes like her sometimes (a dot with a curved line through it), later on even little details like underwear preferences or a habit of drinking single serving coffee creamers like a shot, but it never felt like i was in anyone's shadow. It felt like i was loved for who i was and who I once was all at the same time. I'm trying to teach myself the language and every time I learn a new word or phrase, it feels familiar, like i'm pulling from inside and outside myself at the same time. Sometimes i tear up at it and a few times i've asked out loud "Grandma is that you?"

Sometimes I feel like the Woodsman from Over The Garden Wall, carrying a soul in a lantern. I wonder if she sees or feels through me. I'll think things like "we're still poor but fruit isn't a luxury anymore; isn't that neat, Grandma?" or "Do you like jasmine green tea, Grandma? I think it's exquisite," or "Grandma, this fall air is wonderful for walking in! Look at all the colors!"

It's like no matter how alone i am or feel, i'm always in good company. And i'm sure Grandma wouldn't want it any other way.