Little Brother of War by Gary Robinson

Author:Gary Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939053886
Publisher: Book Publishing Company

Chapter 8

Old Ways/New Ways

Mom and I followed the ambulance that took Dad to the Neshoba County Hospital over thirty miles away. We sat together in the waiting room while the doctors examined him.

“What could’ve happened?” I wondered. “Did I make Dad so angry he had a heart attack?” I was worried and felt a bit guilty too, like this was somehow my fault. Mom was almost frantic.

In a little while a doctor came out and spoke to us. He said Dad had a tumor pressing on his brain. That sounded way beyond serious. The good news was that it wasn’t cancer. They could operate on him in the morning. He should be able to go home within a few days, the doctor said.

Mom called my Aunt Issi who lived north of us about twenty miles. She came to the hospital, picked me up, and took me home to my house. She stayed with me while Mom sort of camped out at the hospital to be near Dad.

Aunt Issi was my dad’s sister, but I didn’t see her much. It seemed that there was some old argument between her and Dad. They didn’t talk to each other. I never really knew what it was about. I thought now was as good a time as any to find out.

“Aunt Issi, how come you and Dad don’t get along?” I asked when we got home.

“He never told you?” she asked me back.

“No,” I said. “I’m just now starting to hear a few things about how he grew up. About how he didn’t want to follow the old Choctaw ways.”

“That’s the very thing that separated us,” she said. “The old ways against the new ways. Many Indians came to believe you couldn’t do both. Your father was one of them. But, like your grandfather, I believed you could.”

“Sounds possible to me,” I offered.

“You would’ve had to grow up when we did to understand. It was different back then. The churches and the schools were teaching us that we couldn’t follow the old Indian ways. They tried to make us believe that those ways were somehow bad. We were supposed to be like our white American neighbors. But things have changed since then, and I’m glad.”

“Dad hasn’t changed,” I said with a sigh and a yawn.

“Time for bed,” Issi said. “We’ll talk more in the morning.”

I started to head for my room, then stopped. “I’ve always wanted to know. What does your name, Issi, mean?” I asked.

“It means ‘deer’ in Choctaw,” she answered. “My name is Deer. Did you know your father’s name is really Neshoba, not Ned?”

“No! What does Neshoba mean?”

“It means ‘wolf.’ Your grandfather named all four of his kids for animals. Your other aunt and uncle who live in Alabama are named Nita and Fala. That’s ‘bear’ and ‘crow’ in our language.”

“Deer, Bear, Crow and Wolf,” I said. “Cool names.”

“Yeah, way cool,” Issi agreed. “Now off to bed with you. Tomorrow we’ll drive back to the hospital.”

Off to bed I went. As I lay there I thought about what animal name I’d choose if I could.

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