I remember when I was a kid my dad was cool. He was always busy working. He raised us in Minneapolis. He worked as a Metropolitan transit worker or a bus driver. Once in a while, he would let me or one of my 5 siblings ride along. My dad was very adamant about 2 things school and exercise. He always made us get up and attend school and play some type of sport. I wasn't too gifted with the mass department but I held my own in basketball, baseball, and football. I eventually gave up on football because I didn't have the build for it. However, I did find my mojo with boxing. I started training when I was 8 years old and had my first match when I was 10.
Okay, enough of the paint a perfect picture. I will get to the just of what I want to express in regards to my father.
My dad is a good dude, he means well but somewhere along the line, he changed. Maybe he was always the way he is now but I been able to see through him and what he thought about me.
Anyhoo, when I started my spiritual journey, is when my father started to put me down and keep me down.
What I mean is my dad was also strict when it came to our religion. He was very serious and loving about our Spiritual way of life. He would make me stay in the reservation from a young age to be immersed in the language and culture. It paid off and I'm thankful for him and what he made me endure while I was a child.
I remember one time I skipped attending one of our religious functions. I totally did not want anything to do with it that weekend, I wanted to party and hang out with my friends. I eventually got grounded for skipping out on our ceremonies
I think my dad forgot what the old people had said to him about my SPiritual growth and outlook. However, I did regularly attend the ceremonies. Even after my dad moved back to the reservation, I still managed to attend the ceremonies and make the 2-hour trek to the reservation.
When I was 19, I became totally serious about our religion or ceremonies. YOu have to remember that I was gifted by the elders to carry on the compassion and sacred ways of our village.
The more I learned as a young man, the more I became confident in what I could do or perform in service. I think that my dad waited for me to get his approval to go ahead and start my own path. But I never did, I just went on my path and did not stop. The elders knew I had to learn, they also knew I had to live life and figure things out on my own. That's what I did, I lived my life and learned many valuable lessons which I carry with e to this day.
The more I learned, the more My dad would try and put me down about what I would be doing. I guess, now that I think of it, maybe he didn't want me to get hurt - but he never said that. YOu see my dad was trying to learn what I was already getting ready to do in my young life and that was ceremonies. At times my dad would try and blame me for his own actions. One time I was living in White Earth and working a full-time job. During that particular time, I was starting to teach people, my relatives a new way about our Spirituality and how to make connections. Eventually, people would ask for my service of some sort and I would try and do my best to help them. I had no doubts or hesitation when it came to speaking for a ceremony or having a ceremony for a family or person. At the same time, my dad would try and have his own ceremonies. I remember when I would return home, he would have some wannabe medicine man or woman at his house. I say this because I've always had the ability to see through people and see them for who they really were. Most of the time, the people that my dad would invite to his house, were there for other reasons. My dad could never really see this about the people that he would invite to his house and it eventually caught up to him. One particular time I remember that he had these women at his house and they were performing a sweatlodge. They had asked me if I needed help or wanted to attend the sweatlodge. I declined because I learned that Anishinabeg men do to sweat with women. As you can read, me and my dads cultural interpretations started to conflict and that affected my dads judgment towards me as his son, SPiritual man and human being. I remember after the woman left his house, I went back to school or something. I had heard that my dad had gotten pneumonia, which told me that I was right, that, Anishinabeg men do not sweat with women - because they are too powerful and you might get sick. It was never my way to rub things in my dads face and say "see - I told you so."
When I called to check up on him, I asked him how he was. "You ain't no medicine man. Whatever you're doing in Whiteearth, you better knock that shit off, cuz it's coming back on me. I didn't call to hear your negative crap, I just called to check on you." I then hung up the phone and just let things be, but that didn't help the future of our relationship. Another particular time was when he got into a car wreck. He had gotten hospitalized and it was kind of serious. I was visiting my sister and we decided to run down to Minneapolis to check on his status. When we arrived, we were surprised that he was banged up a little bit and laying in a hospital bed. As I motioned toward his bed, I felt this really bad feeling or aura coming from him. When I looked up at him, my dad was looking at me with anger, disgust, and hate in his eyes. I still gave him a hug and remembered what I had felt. I think eventually he blamed me for that car accident.
None of these things affected me as a person. I learned from a few good elders that my dad's shit was his own and that I would never be able to change that. His feelings towards me never changed but his feelings did change my attitudes and relationship towards him. That - I DO OWN.
Lastly. A few years ago, I became a Chief. When I became a Chief, it made sense in many ways. It made sense in the way that I could always read into what a person was saying, even at a young age. Don't get me wrong, the minus side of having the D.N.A of a Chief is that people dislike your soul, especially elderly men. More on that later. When I became a Chief, not one person in my home community said anything, they couldn't even bring themselves to acknowledge my new position. Again, it did not stop me from being able to perform the rituals that my people need. Eventually, my father was on the prowl again. This time he related to my nephew that I was doing bad medicine and that I was evil. Mind you that I have 20 Grandchildren. Having a big family and Grandchildren help define you as a human being, a Spiritual person, and in my case, a Chief. Children and Grandchildren define you as a human being. If you are healthy, they are healthy. If you are doing bad - they are doing bad. When they are sick - you are sick. Unlike my dad and my relationship, when me and all my children do good - WE ALL DO GOOD.
Happy Fathers day to my dad, Zaan gwe wi gabow.
To all of you reading this, Happy Fathers day. Our Fathers are good men, even if they don't believe it themselves. They still hurt and have feelings.
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