Keeping Pace with the Rest of the World

This cold gray day seemed right for what Pearl had to do. It was a simple thing really, taking her Grandma Ahniwake to the Indian Hospital — except that Ahniwake, at 68, had never been to an American doctor. She had always gone to traditional Cherokee doctors.

Ahniwake was ready when Pearl arrived. "Do you need help with anything?" Pearl asked quietly. "If you can find my cane, I'll be ready to go. My legs are very swollen today and my left leg hurts when I walk." She did not tell Pearl that she discovered her toes were purple when she woke up that morning.

As they walked to the car Ahniwake remarked, "You know, its been almost a year since I've been doctored. Not since Charlie Christie passsd on. It will be good to feel well again." Pearl knew how long it had been. She had taken Ahniwake to other Cherokee doctors, and they had even gone to the Creeks and the Eucha but no one knew the medicine to help her. "Grandma, remember last summer when we went to see that Creek medicine man and we had to wait all night for him to finish his clan ceremony before he could talk to us?"

"Yes. And when he told us that the Creeks had also lost the secret of the blood medicine, he seemed as sad as we were." Ahniwake looked out the window at the stark beauty of early winter and said, "He was sad, Pearl. Very sad."

Pearl drove on and Ahniwake continued speaking. "When Charlie Christie passed on, we lost many of our medicine secrets. Charlie once told me that many young people came to him and told him they were interested in learning about medicine but that he couldn't teach them because they weren't willing to accept the pure lifestyle of a Cherokee doctor. For some healing ceremonies, the songs will not allow themselves to be sung by anyone except the purest of spirits." Although she had heard the answer many times, Pearl asked her grandmother, "Is everything Charlie knew lost?"

Ahniwake was quick to say, "No. The way it was told to me, as long as Cherokee people continue to honor our ancestors and our creator through good living and our ceremonies, the roots, herbs, and medicine songs will be available to us. When it is right, these things will be shown to our people again. They are never really lost, as long as we are not lost. I wish Charlie had passed on the medicine to help me, but when it is right his knowledge will be shown to our people again."

Again they rode in silence, each lost in her own thoughts. After a while, Ahniwake laughed and said, "I hope Maude and Thelma don't find out I've gone to the clinic. Lots of times we've talked about the way things have changed - about how our people don' plant big gardens anymore, put up food for the winter, raise chickens, hunt squirrel, rabbit, and deer, or go to Cherokee doctors. I told them I would never go to a modern doctor, an American doctor who did not know how to heal an illness, only how to cut it out." She continued fretfully, "I wish I didn't have to go. I feel almost ashamed."

 

The Indian hospital was just as Ahniwake had heard it to be. The hallway and waiting room were full of people. They reminded Ahniwake of cattle waiting to be herded through a gate. When she and Pearl were seated, Ahniwake commented, "Most of these people don't much look like Indian people."

After hours of waiting, a nurse finally took Ahniwake and Pearl into a small white room. A young man entered the room, introduced himself and began to ask questions. Pearl let him know that Ahniwake did not speak English well, and Dr. Brown began to talk to Pearl as he examined Ahniwake.

Ahniwake thought he looked like a young school boy - except for his eyes. He examined her with cold gadgets that matched his cold eyes, occasionally asking questions which Pearl translated. Ahniwake noticed that he made hurried notes in his folder and she commented to Pearl, "He must have a poor memory."

After 15 minutes Dr. Brown said, "She appears to have severe diabetes, but we can't tell for sure without further tests. She also has high blood pressure and there's some indication of heart problems. We need to keep her in the hospital for more tests. It shouldn't take more than a day or so." The doctor had already begun reading his next patient's chart when Pearl began to translate all he'd said for Ahniwake. He stopped reading to look up when Ahniwake blurted out, "No!" and started out of the room.

Pearl grabbed Ahniwake's hand and pleaded, "Grandma, it's serious. After these tests, a medicine will probably be prescribed to help with your legs . What else can we do? We've already tried to find a healer among our own. Where else can we go?" Though Ahniwake was wary of the young doctor she finally agreed to stay. "I've gone this far," she sighed. "I'll see this through to the end."

While Pearl finished filling out papers, Ahniwake was taken by wheelchair to a room more spacious than the examining room but it too was colorless and cold. Pearl waited until the nurse helped Ahniwake settle into bed before asking her what she needed from home. As Pearl was leaving, Ahniwake called out, ''And don't forget to bring my hairbrush." She liked to brush her thin, waist-length hair and rebraid it every night.

With Pearl gone, Ahniwake suddenly felt exhausted. She lay back on the smooth, soft pillow and fell asleep. She almost immediately slipped into a dream of her youth. She was dancing alongside her husband-to-be, Levi Buckskin, at a summer ceremonial dance. Everyone was laughing and happy. Levi and the other men sang ancient Cherokee songs while Pearl and the other women kept the rhythm with the sound of turtle shakers strapped to their lower legs. They all circled the fire, circled each other, circled the four directions of the world.

Suddenly, Ahniwake felt one of her turtle shakers slipping so she stepped out of the line of dancers and leaned down to tighten the straps. While she was stooped down, she felt chilled, the night seemed darker, and she was instinctively afraid to look up. When she finally forced herself to look up, all the other dancers had gone, the fire had died and the only person she saw in the moonlight was a young blond man wearing a white jacket. He moved toward her and she somehow knew she had to dance with him so she managed to shakily stand up and wait for him to join her. She linked her left arm through his right arm and they began to dance. But instead of the familiar Cherokee songs she had heard earlier, he sang a fast, loud cowboy song while twirling her around so rapidly she tripped and fell to the ground. She was out of breath, there were sharp pains in the left side of her chest, she could not get on her feet again. He jerked her up, laughing in a way that frightened her even more and told her that she had to keep pace with the rest of the world.

She was still twirling around in this terrible dance with the strange blond man when Pearl shook her awake. It took her a moment to shake off the dream. It left her drained and frightened. At home she never had bad dreams - her house was well protected against such things. Though Pearl stayed to talk until Ahniwake felt sleepy again, Ahniwake did not tell her of the dream. When she fell asleep again, she slept dreamlessly through the rest of the night.

The next afternoon, the doctor came in to talk to Ahniwake. He talked very slowly, and she understood part of what he said. " ... remove part of your foot ... possible loss of your left leg." Ahniwake merely stared at him till he finally left the room. He returned shortly with a woman who spoke to her in Cherokee. Ahniwake did not respond. She was looking out the hospital window at the parking lot. Pearl had just parked the car and was getting out. As Pearl walked toward the hospital, Ahniwake thought how like a very young girl she looked, tall and slim with long, straight black hair.

 

Ahniwake sat up and waited for Pearl while the translator explained that the doctor had to remove part of her left foot to save her left leg and ultimately her life. When Pearl entered the room and saw the three of them and noticed the look on Ahniwake's face, she asked, "What's wrong here?"

After the doctor had explained, Pearl turned to Ahniwake and was not surprised when she merely said, "Take me home." Though she knew Ahniwake would never consent to surgery, Pearl sat on the edge of the bed and dutifully repeated all that the doctor had said about her worsening leg.

Ahniwake was adamant. "Pearl, I have asked you to take me home." Pearl knew it was pointless to continue pleading with her so she helped Ahniwake get dressed and collect her things; together they left the Indian hospital.

Though she felt no better now than when she had left home the day before, Ahniwake told Pearl, "I am so happy to be home. I don't care if I can't walk again without a cane, I never want to go to that hospital again. I don't know why I agreed to go. That place may be okay for white people but it's not for Cherokees! What kind of medicine would require removal of parts of the body to heal an illness?"

While Pearl made a pot of strong coffee, Ahniwake continued, "I've heard of other people with blood problems like mine who were treated at the Indian hospital. First they had their toes removed, then their foot, then their leg, and later they died anyway.” More to herself than to Pearl, Ahniwake added, “He did not know my clan, my family, my history. How could he possibly know how to heal me?”

 

There was one Seminole doctor Pearl had heard people talk about. It was said that he could heal almost any illness. She decided that she would try to get some sleep and then take a day or so off from work to go to Seminole and search for him.

The next morning, after checking to be sure Ahniwake had everything she needed, Pearl went to find the Seminole doctor. After many wrong turns and telephone calls to Seminole friends, she finally found Billy Joe Harjo’s house. He seemed to be expecting her. After she explained Ahniwake’s symptoms in detail, Billy Joe said, “I have doctored some people with your grandmother’s illness. Many of our people suffer from blood problems, but most get insulin from the Indian hospital so the need for my medicine is not great, but I do have some.”

Pearl was very excited. “When can you see her? Should we bring her up here or can you go to her house,” she asked. Billy Joe said he thought it would be better to go to Ahniwake’s home.

Noting her relief and exhaustion, Billy Joe invited Pearl to spend the night. He told her to rest and that he would gather the medicine in the morning and travel to Ahniwake’s house in the evening. Pearl slept well, woke up early the next morning, and began the long drive home. She stopped at her house, picked up a change of clothing and finally arrived at Ahniwake’s house in the late afternoon.

When she entered the small, warm house she called out to Ahniwake but received no answer. She went to the bedroom and found Ahniwake sleeping soundly. Pearl called her name repeatedly, and finally began to shake her. When Ahniwake didn’t regain consciousness she decided to get help. With mounting panic she went down the road and got one of her cousins to help put Ahniwake in the car. Not knowing what else to do she took her to the Indian hospital. Only after she got there and the interns and nurses began immediately to attach wires and cords to Ahniwake's body did Pearl allow herself to wonder if she had done the right thing. Her grandmother had told her she never wanted to come back to this hospital. "Maybe I should have tried driving back to Seminole," she thought. "But then I might have missed Billy Joe on the road," she realized. She consoled herself that she had done the only thing she could have under the circumstances.

One of the interns called the doctor who told Pearl that her grandmother was in a diabetic coma and would not regain consciousness until the insulin took effect. He advised Pearl to go home and come back in the morning. They planned to keep Ahniwake in the intensive care area and Pearl would not be allowed to stay in the room. Pearl looked at Ahniwake, thinking that she looked beautiful and untainted even with all the wires attached to her. Pearl hated to leave her in this unfamiliar place. She went into the waiting room for a couple of hours and then, finally, after another peek at Ahniwake, went on home.

Hours later, Ahniwake began trying to get through a veil of drugs and illness to figure out where she was and what was happening. She felt strange, as if she was in a space between something incredibly beautiful and the present world. She knew she was on the edge of the most significant feeling a human could experience, more powerful than childbirth, or the love of young Levi, or the feeling after a cleansing ceremony. Yet she lingered there on the edge and did not go over quite yet.

Ahniwake broke through to see a fire in the center of a white room. After she was able to focus her eyes, she realized it was not a fire but a bright light. She was in that hospital again! There were tubes in her hands, on her chest. She tried to call out but there was even a tube in her throat. She managed to turn her head slightly toward the sound of voices. She could see two men in white talking by the swinging doors. One started walking toward her. To her absolute horror it was the same man who had appeared in her dream. The doctor walked behind him and said, "It won't do much good to try to talk to her even if she's conscious. She doesn't speak English." The young bad dream doctor replied, "She should have kept pace with the rest of the world," and laughed in the same frightening way he had in her dream. As he got closer to her bed, she felt a sharp pain in her chest and as the bad dream doctor reached toward her she tried to move away and could not. He leaned down, linked arms with her and began to sing the loud cowboy song he had sung in her dream. She gave in and they began to dance that same fast, whirling dance until she again stumbled and fell. But this time she fell much further. She floated into the soft arms of her Mother Earth and lay nestled there near the fire - waiting for the Creator, waiting for her life to be complete.

 

Pearl was up early the next morning. She wanted to get some of Ahniwake's things before going to the hospital. She also needed to find out what had happened to the Seminole doctor. She telephoned Billy Harjo's and found out that he had gone to Ahniwake's house while they were at the hospital and finding no one there had returned home. She wanted to take care of all her other errands too so she and Ahniwake would be free just to talk when she arrived at the hospital. She knew her grandmother would be mad because she'd taken her back to the hospital but they would talk about it. Pearl was sure she could convince Ahniwake that she'd done the only thing she could. They had always enjoyed each other's company. They would talk for hours, more like girlfriends or sisters than grandmother and granddaughter. Because of Ahniwake Pearl had learned the Cherokee language and knew many of the ancient tribal stories.

The past few days had been so extraordinary that when Pearl got to Ahniwake's she paused for a moment to absorb the familiarity of the house. She had always liked this house. Levi had built it when he and Ahniwake were very young. It was lighted by coal oil, heated by wood, and Ahniwake still drew her water from a well out back. Pearl's own father had been raised in the wood frame house and Pearl herself had spent many years there. It was warm with memories and if houses could be friendly, then Ahniwake's house was definitely so.

 

Pearl got to the hospital in the late morning. When she stopped at the nurse's station to ask for the room number of Ahniwake Buckskin, the nurse said, "You need to talk to the doctor."

Pearl felt a surge of fear. Questions went rapidly through her mind. What was wrong? Was Ahniwake still in a coma? Was she still in the emergency room? What was it? The nurse asked her to sit down but Pearl leaned against the nurse's station and watched the hallway until she saw the doctor. As he came towards her she knew that he had no good news for her. Before he could say anything, Pearl surprised herself by yelling, "What have you done to Grandma? I want to see her now. Where is she?" Pearl knew she was shouting to keep the doctor from talking and to keep herself from thinking.

The doctor put his hands on her shoulders and said, "Pearl, Ahniwake died of a heart attack last night. I can't explain it. We decided to perform an emergency amputation of her left foot. It's really a relatively minor surgical procedure. She was in the recovery room. I was there with her. I thought I saw her move her head slightly so I went over to examine her. She suddenly looked terribly frightened, as if l were some sort of monster. She had a massive heart attack. There was nothing we could do."

Pearl shook his hands off her shoulders, slapped him as hard as she could, and left the hospital.

 

Pearl went to her uncle's house and asked him to go to the hospital to get Ahniwake and let the rest of her relatives know of Ahniwake's death. Pearl then went to Ahniwake's house to wait for the others to arrive for the wake. She built a fire in the old wood stove and sat and watched the flames. She knew she should put on coffee and stew or beans for the many relatives who would come to see Ahniwake one last time but she did not move from her place in front of the fire.

It was now almost dark and the house was lighted only by the fire. She suddenly felt warm, as she had often felt when she and Ahniwake were together and her eyes were drawn to a certain spot in the fire. She leaned forward and looked more closely. There, in the back of the flames, she saw Ahniwake with old man Charlie Christie on one side and Levi Buckskin on the other. Ahniwake looked very happy but Pearl began to weep. They could not speak to each other across the worlds that separated them but Pearl knew the message Ahniwake was sending. Once again she heard Ahniwake saying, ''As long as the Cherokee people honor our ancestors and our Creator, the roots, herbs, and medicine songs will be available to us. These things will be shown to our people again. They are never really lost as long as we are not lost."

There in the warmth of these words, Pearl knew what it was she had to do. She vowed to do all in her power to restore and revitalize the traditional Cherokee way of life as a tribute to Ahniwake and to the lives of other Cherokees who are yet unborn.