I could not answer immediately; I had to think about that one. I was adopted away from my biological family when I was a baby and grew up without them. So when I turned 40 I started to search for them and within 45 minutes I was talking to my oldest sister. I was so shocked to find that my family had really missed me and thought about me an awful lot. This euphoria was very short lived and so began my journey home.

When I arrived home to my Native American Indian reservation, I found that I actually had over 4,000 living relatives. I found them in 1992 but did not travel home until 1998, so they had time to find out about me, but of course my sisters for some unknown reason did not tell anyone about me and actually tried to hide my existence. So in March of 1998 when I arrived at the Lummi Nation reservation in northwestern Washington State, many people were very surprised to find out that I was actually related to them. The news that one of the lost birds (Native children who had been stolen by the government at birth to be raised by white people) had actually found their way home was a miracle. There was no fanfare, no welcome home dinner, no polite introductions, or any of that stuff. I was on my own and so I went around trying to fit in and finding a new and unknown relative at every single step.

To say the least it was very nerve wracking, and exciting and at times confusing, but there were many times in the next 8 years that I would find ecstatic humor in the things that we all did. Like the time when I was at the college and one of my younger cousins came rushing in and tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned around she said “oh you’re not my Mom!” I smiled and said “No your Mom is over there.” I had at least five girl first cousins that if you stood us in a line and looked at us you would think that we were all the same person. My husband used to say that if he did not recall what I was wearing that morning that he would not even recognize his wife. I might mention that my mother was one of 19 children and my father was one of 14 children, so I had a lot of first cousins, because most of the Aunties and Uncles had 6 or more children. Then of course in Native families if you are a first cousin to someone that person is like another sister or brother, so by the way I had over 480 first cousins, plus my own 6 brothers and sisters; 5 of whom I share with my mother and a brother shared with my father.
I really consider myself very fortunate that I was able to reunite with them especially since I was 48 when it happened. Yes, I did miss not knowing my parents nor did I meet many of their siblings and missed the grandparents but from what the family has told me about history I missed the years of pain and sorrow because there has always been a huge problem with drugs and alcohol on the reservation. I also feel that because of the reservation is the reason there are so many members of the family in one place.

The life that many of them have been raised has been tough and poverty stricken but the beauty of their spirits have continued to pass on in themselves and in their children. I also feel that when I returned home I found a part of me that I never knew existed, the spiritual me. Not the religious kind but the side of me that can feel and hear my ancestors and relatives who watch over me daily. I did not actually know my parents but there are many parts of me that came specifically from them, and those things I can cherish. My father was quite a jokester and many times we will be riding in the van and something in the very back will move or slide even though we are not doing anything but driving on a flat straight part of the road, my husband and I will look at each other and I will laugh and say out loud “hi Dad!!” I also have found that my mother loved to have beautiful clothes and really enjoyed to be colorful and in that respect I find that my wardrobe is filled with bright colors and patterns that are to some might be considered loud and garish but I know that my mother would have encouraged me to be a bright colorful person.
I also learned about my heritage and accomplished several things while living at home. I went back to college because some accused me on not belonging to my father’s family because I was not as smart as he was, so I proved them wrong. I graduated with honors in Environmental Science with a specialty in Habitat Restoration. Then there were those who said I could not fish as well as any of them because I was not raised there, so I set out to gather up all of the no-good boats that people had in their yards, fixed them up and registered them and found my cousins to crew them and ended up with the largest privately owned Native fishing fleet in the United States, and even made a profit. After that rarely did anyone tell me what I could or could not do again. I also found many of my cousins who really cared about me and got to know them much better. This is the way that family is supposed to be, but unfortunately my own siblings did not understand and would not accept me in any way. So life goes on and rarely does that change who you are inside and what you can be to the world.

In the last few years though I have realized that many of us at our ages have had our lives and are now settling into a serene and restful time of our lives and handing the reins of power and changes to the younger generation. I do not have the energy that I once had but I see that same boldness and focus in many of my younger cousins, something that many might see in their own children. Not having any children used to bother me, but when I was home and had the opportunity to get to know my cousins children and love them, I became less depressed and less lost about not having my own children. I only worry now because we have moved so far from them and I wonder who will help us when we become much older and cannot do for ourselves as much. But I find the rewards do outweigh the anger and sorrow that my own siblings relish in and that they are very much missing out on being part of my life, but you cannot make people like you and you can only hope that life is not so rough on them. As I enter into the life that I have always wanted and complete my journey in the next 30 or 40 years I will always remember the time that I spent with them and the love that we shared. My parents would have been very proud of this daughter, and in heaven they are looking down and seeing that I am, at last, ok.

I remember playing in a huge green yard with a giant tree and I would hide from the sun in the shadow of the trunk of the tree. Thinking I was safe from who knows what. A few years later I had a visit from a lady who came into the yard and played in my wading pool with me. She sat down in the water and gave me a little green frog, and told me that no matter what that frog would always protect me that someday I would want to know where I came from and who I was, and the little green frog would tell me. A while later my adopted Dad came out and talked with the Lady, although I could not hear what they were saying or understand any of it, and then she left. As she walked along the fence I watched her and just before she went out of sight she turned and looked at me with sparkles on her cheeks and waved good bye. I always remembered her, but when my Dad found the frog he took it away. Many years later I realized that was my real mother and that she was trying to leave something with me to find my way home.

It was a long time before I knew or understood what adoption was or how I was involved in it. But once I understood I was very angry with my adopted parents for not telling me who my real mom and dad were. It would not be until the age of 48 when I would find out about my family and find my way home to them. Until then I only had the lies that the adopted parents had told me. They said that my real parents did not want me and that they gladly gave me to them because they did not have any children. Somehow I did not believe that and years later I found that it was true. Until then I would have to survive on my own with my own guts and hope that there was still someone there when I found my way back to my real family.

My real family consisted of 5 brothers and sisters, 420 first cousins, and numerous nieces, nephews, and Aunties and Uncles.  My parents had passed on by the time I found them and so I was never able to reconnect with them.  Of course with a reunification there are always good and bad, and you take what you find and leave the bad where you found it.  I did learn much about my people and I understood why when as a small child I would search out mud puddles to splash in no matter how dirty I got.  It was because my people were from the area of the beautiful and spiritual Puget Sound off of the Pacific Ocean just west of Washington State. 

For centuries my ancestors had followed the paths of the wild salmon and halibut and had gathered the shellfish like clams and oysters.  There are a group of islands in the sound that are known as the San Juan Islands, that include old camp grounds like Orcas Island, Lummi Island, Waldron Island and others, these were where my ancestors of the old days would camp and troll the waters of the sound for catches of many kinds of fish.  On these Islands they found groves of stands of berries that were also collected for the winter use for the tribe.  They were known as the “Salmon People”, but other nations and were Nomads of the Sound, as were many of the tribes of the Pacific Northwest.  They are part of the Coastal Salish and are today known for their carvings in cedar and the baskets that are hand woven and are still used today, as they were passed from generation to generation.  One of my most prized possessions is a small basket woven by one of my Aunties.  Another is made from cedar bark by one of my Uncles and is used to scoop the water out of a canoe.
 
There are the things that I found when I made my journey back to my beginnings and met those who I would have grown up with had I not been taken from my family.  In the 1950’s thousands of Native children were stolen from families just because the societal issue at the time felt the children would be better off in a home that provided acceptable provisions for them instead of leaving them to live in the rough and unorthodoxed conditions of their families.  Many families began naming their children with unusual names in hopes that this would prevent them from being taken or stolen by the Child Welfare Agents or the government agents of the time, as the government was trying to decrease the numbers of tribal members by taking the smallest of them and placing them in non-Native homes to be raised as a white child in hopes that they would never return to their families and be lost forever.  There are many children who were adopted and have never reunited with their families but I was determined to find out who and what I was. 

I have always believed that I am the kind of leader that shows or teaches by action and not by lecturing.  I have tried all of my life to set an example of an honorable and compassionate person and hoped that others might follow my lead.  I always wondered if that ever made an impression on anyone and while discovering my familial roots I found the answer to that.  I had been living on the reservation for many years, and had kept my chin up and my hopes even in the darkest of times.  Though poverty and loneliness I would still hold my head up and smile in a pleasant manner. 

One day a cousin of mine came up and sat down to talk to me at a Thanksgiving gathering the tribe was having and all of the members of the tribe were in attendance.  He asked if I remembered him from when I first arrived home and I told him I did, that he was the man who drank a lot and ended up in desperate situations and troubles.  I asked how he was doing now, and he answered that his life had changed.  He said that he had been sober for the past two years and was again living among his family at their homestead with his daughter and her children.  I wished him well and told him how proud I was to hear this news.  He then looked at me and smiled, and told me that it had been because of me that he had given up the drinking.  He told me that he watched me for a long time and noticed that even when I had the same problems as everyone else I did not take up the bottle or the crack pipe.  He said that he figured if I could do than he could do it too, that he said was what gave him the incentive to go to rehab and change his life.

Thus my long time question was answered and that is true about life, wonder and the answer will come.  If in your life you believe that you are living with hope and love and you continue to walk the straight line of your path your rewards will be obvious to you.  Life is a long journey and a great learning experience for all, even for those of us that were once lost we can always find our way back.  With that conviction comes great strength that can sustain your life and love forever.

Life can be exciting and rewarding, but actually life is just a long learning experience that many of us just do not understand.  When things go wrong we have to find someone to blame, but when things go right we hold that as one of our successes.  When you are growing up you do not think of the things that will be tough, or challenging to endure, you dream of the good times and the rewards that you will gain while you grow old.  I grew up dreaming like every little girl does about getting married, having children, living in a big beautiful house, and going to fantastic and beautiful places on vacation.  I never thought of the trials and tribulations that I would face or have to live through.  My parents while raising me never clued me into the problems of day to day life and neither did they ever tell me that things would not go the way they were meant to be.  They did what they felt was right and raised me with dreams and hopes for a wonderful life with good times and peace.  Little did I know what life had in store for me when I set out on that journey on my own.

I can remember when we first moved to Washington and the things that happened to us. They were devastating. We had decided a year before we moved there that we would not go unless one of us had a job. We saved money and we applied for jobs, and within that year I was offered a job with my tribe as the payroll accountant. I had 6 yrs experience with accounting and was thrilled that I would be working with my tribe. So we moved and the night that we left Ohio I became very ill, thinking it was just a cold we travelled on anyway. All across the country I just got sicker and sicker. We arrived at our friend’s house in Redmond a few days before I was to start my job and I started feeling better. So I thought maybe it was just nerves, after all I had never met any of these relatives, being adopted as a baby. I started my job and began getting sick again and about a week or so after I began working I met my real brother. He lived on the rez and so he asked if we wanted to stay with him at his house, which meant a shorter drive for us. Everything seemed so perfect and finally I was where I had been born, around my family and meeting new people every day.

Then all hell broke loose. I disagreed with the Finance Director about putting a million dollar check for the tribe in his personal account for a long weekend and went to the health clinic and was told I had to stay home from work and they loaded me up on medication and sent me to my brothers. A month later when I returned to work, I found that I had been fired while on sick leave. So I started to help my husband with the little Espresso Stand, and my brother being a devout alcoholic got into a screaming match with us and we ended up leaving his place. We started to stay at the Espresso stand, sleeping in our car at night. The Veterans director offered us a place to stay in a building they had at the Stommish grounds. We had very little money and our life was so unlike what either of us had ever experienced. Soon things got worse and worse and worse. I was meeting many of my cousins but they were no better off than me. One of them suggested that we go to town and have a free lunch since we hardly had any money for food. We were getting food from the food bank on the rez but that did not go far, and most of our money went into supplies for the Espresso stand, where we hoped it would soon take off and we could get out of the rut we were in.   Our car had broken down and we had no way to get anywhere, so we had to rely on family who took pity on us to take us to town and help us get the supplies that we needed.  Times were very tough then and nothing like we had ever been through before.  We both thought that we were going crazy and that some day we would wake up for the horrible nightmare that we were stuck in and things would be all a bad dream.  We just kept on trying and hoping and praying for our life to somehow move in a good direction so that we could find our way back to a decent and healthy life without all the troubles that we seemed to be living in at that point.

We started going into town at lunch time and my cousin rode with us and showed us where to go.  We would go to a couple of churches that offered free lunches to those who could not afford it.  I began to notice that many of my cousins were at these places and that is when I first felt amazement at the fact that so many had this on their life schedules and only one of my cousins mentioned and made sure we got there to share in a decent meal.  At first I was very embarrassed because all the homeless and poorest of the poor were there, but the food was hot and healthy. After a while I began to look around and started visiting slowly with the other people around me. I soon noticed that many of them were like us, just down on their luck with no hope of getting out.  Oh there were others also who seemed to be making a living at being poor, and those who were hopeless lost in bottles and needles, but that did not seem to matter.  We all were doing the right things but things are tough when you are at the bottom of the barrel.

We finally got stuff going and years later we now live in Missouri with a home of our own and land we are buying. My health is better and what was wrong with me is totally another story. But my point of sharing this with you, is that you never know what is around the next corner. You never know what cards you are going to be dealt from the dealer in the sky, so if you can help out those who are in need, even if it is not Christmas. I learned a real lesson from that time that I will carry with me forever. Life is not a bowl of cherries but rather a road that we all travel and some do so in big beautiful new cars and some in broken down jalopies and some even walk.

Then in 1998, it was like my whole world had turned on a dime and upside down it was.  I even thought at times that I had somehow while I was sleeping fell off of the planet earth and landed on a sister world that seemed like the place I knew but just weirder.  Nothing was the same.  I went to doctors and they could not help me, I lost my job and then fell into a depression that I was so scared of that I did not want to even breathe or move. 

Somehow I made it and my benefits and claim was done.  My checks have been coming every month and even though live may not be what I thought it was supposed to be, I have gotten to the point of seeing the sunshine again.  I looked around my place today, went for a walk on my land of 15 acres, sat under a tree on a log and just took it all in.  Afterwards I told my husband that I feel very happy, because I have my own home that is owned by us free and clear, sure others may think that it is just a broken down old mobile home, but it is mine and we are working on fixing it up and even planning on expanding in certain areas, I have 15 acres that is ours that I can do anything that I want on or nothing at all, I have my doggies; two beautiful girls who we rescued from lives from hell. And I have my cats, who are relaxing now and having kittens.  New lives and babies that love me so much that when I walk into the room they all come running up to me and want me to hold them. 

I have even been getting stuff together and trying to learn how to paint and draw, something that I once did a long time ago.  When I was much younger before the military and before I graduated from high school I would write poetry, and short stories, and draw things and paint and then my parents told me that I could not make a living with that because the only famous painters and artists were dead ones.  I realize that they were trying to prepare me for a world where I could make a living and support myself, so I left that part of me behind.  Now that I can not go to work and earn more money even though I need it, I have decided to try to do creative things that will make me happy even if no one else likes it.  My husband, bless him, has put up with me being a pain in the you know what and working so hard that I nearly lost myself, and now he sees a beautiful woman that is reaching out to be creative and hopeful and caring, with no thought of whether it pleases the world or not. 

I guess what I am trying to say is that all of us must realize that there are chapters in our lives and even though we can recall when times seem better, we are no longer that person, but we are still a person and still have lots to give and do in these lives we have.  Just reach out and touch something, someone, or don’t but smile for you are all survivors and all are powerful and amazing in our own ways.  Lets hear it for us as we move forward and appreciate that which we have and hope for what we want in the future.

A true friend will listen to you when you are upset or when you have been offended and will let you rage when you need to and stop you when you get too close to the edge of no return.  If you are wearing something that looks totally awful on you they will tell you, not just placate you and say oh that looks wonderful.  When others slam you they stand up for you even if it is the hardest thing to do.  They respect you and care about your well being and laugh with you and not at you.  Friendship is the hardest thing to find and many times we do not see the advantages of having a real true friend, and consider that we have dozens of them, when finding a true friend is something that should be cherished and taken care of, because true friends do not come as a dime a dozen, they are few and far between. 

You want your friend to be there when no one else will, you need to be able to depend on them when the world is against you, and to tell you honestly when you are over the top.  On the other hand, you need to be that kind of friend back to them.  Friendship is a sacred trust between two souls that can and will last forever through good and bad.  We have all had friends who expected us to be there for them but when we needed someone to hold our hand or be in our corner they do not have the time or the effort is just too much to extend.  A true friend will never let you down or be too busy to come to your need, if friends were so easy to find then the importance would be lost. 

These are the things that wanted to share with everyone that if you cannot see someone’s disability do not assume that there is not one there, because it is.  When we finally did find someone like our therapists who kind of understood, we started getting help.  But it never goes away and we never will be the people we were meant to be.  I believe that we must be very strong to even consider fighting for ourselves and standing up for what we have become, because a weak person could not do the things we do.

The time is come for all these stupid monopolies to stop deciding the quality of our life by robbing our bank accounts. Profit and business may be considered by some to be progress and may be the only way that people can feel that they are living in a modern world but the world was surviving before the electric companines, and utility companies in general.  I have been trying to find alternative energy sources and government grants to fund them but they are very difficult to find.   My hard earned money has for years been going out of my pockets to places that are either politically motivated or owned by those who do not care if I can afford the cost of the utility that they are selling me. 

I am not alone, there are many people in this country who pay every month for electric, gas, cable, groceries, rent etc. just to mention a few.  I think that the economic beliefs in this country are way out of line with enviromental ideals.  They keep using things like fossil fuels even though they know that it is destroying the ozone levels in our atmosphere.  So what, you say???  Well, we do not have an extra atmosphere and when we destroy the one we do have we will no longer be able to breath.  I do not know about you but my finances can not afford to purchase air so that I can continue to live on this world.  Maybe some of the extremely wealthy people can afford it but are they going to come to my house and invite me to use their air??  I think not.  Neither is the government going to provide the solution since they are part of the problem.  Everyone just thinks that this will never happen and that the world can never run out of air.  I am also sure that the dinosaurs thought something similar just before they were smashed by the meteor that flatten them.  
 

Time is growing slowly and my brain sometimes gives me a glance into the past in such a way that I can recall the tragedy that has haunted me for so very long.  The smells, sounds, feelings, and confusion.   When will I know and understand what has been hidden from me for all these years. 

Triggers are the hint that somewhere in my brain is a memory that can not be accessed unless my brain deems it a good thing.  I have tried to concentrate on the time period that is comes from and get a headache from trying so hard to remember just one name or one face.  I do not really want to know specifics but I do want to know if those who hurt me so long ago can still hold the power over me.  It is strange that the power of so long ago still haunts my brain and robs me of my piece of mind and there is no way to fight back and win, no way to make the memory disappear and go away.  Maybe some day but not today and never now.  But someday…..

I have been through so many different things and some have even made me feel like I surely would not survive, but seems like that just made me try harder,  The ups and downs of life have a tendancy to make up for lost time, time when you are lonely, or sad, times when you feel extreme joy and for no reason to be explained the life you have just dumps into the ditch and there you stand with mud and ulk all over you.  The best thing to do at that moment is to pick yourself up and march on like there is no tomorrow. 

There is also no way that you can please all the people all the time, so do not even try.  I used to try to keep the peace around me and finally just decided that I was entitled to do things my own way and even though others may not like it or have a “better” way to handle it, the way that you choose for yourself is always the best.  Just be honest with yourself and never deny your ability to know the real you.  Several quotes state this perfectly; one being : “to thine own self be true” and the other being: “it’s my way, no highway option!” 

This world drove the Eagles to the point of extinction and they came back with the help of people who knew the importance of the Eagles.  They were hunted for things as simple as the talons on their toes by inconsiderate bands of non-Native people who then used them to make fake Native American wares and sold them for profit.  The point of even mentioning this is that my life has at times been like that and I have fought one battle after another to keep my spirit safe and my person living.  There are many things that can be taken from you, if you let that happen, but your life is yours and so is your soul.  Never give either of them up for pennies.