[from newsletter 6]

My brother Bill and I would occasionally see each other in Oklahoma on our crisscrossing travels. One of those times we went out in the country to visit with Uncle Frank and Aunt Suzy, and waited briefly for them in their Indian summer home (a bark house). I commented on how peaceful, calm and content I felt at that moment. Bill simply said, "This was your childhood." I can still see Aunt Suzy in her traditional Kickapoo dress with other women, young and old, making mats from cattail reeds for their winter homes. Making tuk wa hon (an Indian corn food) with a pestle, cooking fry bread for a feast, maybe preparing clothes for a recently-deceased relative - always busy doing traditional chores. She never wore pants, never wore make-up, and never went to a beauty parlor. She was the umbilical cord to our past. I never saw her look old. She danced to a beautiful heritage only spirit knows now. Bill was hospitalized back in the mid-eighties in Oklahoma City, and was showing me a get-well poster from the Grateful Dead. After our visit he told me Aunt Suzy was there in the hospital too. I went to see her and we sat in silence and held hands awhile. I didn't know much Kickapoo and that's all she spoke. Finally I told her in English, "Well, I gotta go home now." I heard her speak English for the first time ever: She simply said, "I want to go home, too." That was a compliment and it humbled me, her nephew. A few years before she left for the spirit world, I spoke to Aunt Suzy through her daughter. I asked aunt Suzy what she would like to do in her elder years as a last hurrah or fling. She told her daughter for me, very gently in Kickapoo, "I would like to get in your van and travel with you and your friends." She knew how to express love. Had she traveled with me, many good people would have been touched by her beauty. Martin High Bear, Brave Buffalo, Philip Deere, Philip Martin, Stanley Smart and Mad Bear Anderson, just to name a few that have gone on to the other side. A-ho to my brother Bill Wahpepah, another dancer. Our relatives have seen the wind and are the wind. It is our belief that as our loved ones go on, they become our ancestors in the heavens as the star people. The ones mentioned here left this world a better place and touched many people. They had the faith of our long ago ancestors, who were like children, knowing everything was going to be all right. There is no word for hope in our language. Self-healing goes towards the healing of our Mother Earth; they helped. In memory, they allow us to walk with dignity and with joy. - kaa pee chee he (I acknowledge you) Fred Wahpepah

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