Chapter One: "I Am Your Mother." Florence Jones, August, 1987, during the Meteor Showers, Coonrod
A lot has changed since June, 2018, when I wrote the commencement speech I was invited to give at the UO Ethnic Studies Department graduation ceremony. They picked an alumna who had been around at the inception of the youth led Asian American movement on their campus decades before, one of the last ones who still remained in Eugene, Debbie McDaniels and I. We were the generation who started AASU, before Pacific Islanders were without consultation swept in with Asian diaspora colonial forces of the Island nations and it became APASU on the UO campus. We started Asian American studies, without credit and taught by regular folks guerilla style you might say, with the tacit agreement of the UO. Now there was a graduate program and a major/minor, and I was asked to speak. This was three months before I spent the summer packing half of what we gathered up over 50 years living in Eugene from the house which I made so many fond memories with a couple generations of University students of color and the community peoples who remained to continue making Eugene safer for our own children, children who grew up with Aunties and Uncles of many backgrounds -- all of us who fought the good fight together on this campus. Will and I had made the decision to move to Winnemem, a region identified by Bullyum Pyuk to the north (Mt. Shasta) and along Winnemem Wyakit, (the McCloud River) to the Sacramento River, and if we are to follow our Nur, and it's journey to live, all the way to Sagorea Te of the Ohlone peoples where they grew and changed to young adults who then swam to the ocean, turned south to the Orca peoples area, the Kumyaay, then out to the sea to live and grow in the Ocean.
We were moving to live near Granny's people, our Winnemem family. We met the tribe when we were taken to be helped by Florence Jones, the Chief and Spiritual Leader, the Top Doctor of California who had told me when I went to her in desperation to help our little 4 year old adopted daughter, Soon Sun Park growing up Maki Doolittle and us, her parents, whom a Snoqualmie doctor, Kenny Moses, said we were living under a heavy grey cloud which he tried to push away from us. He did this after he took away a black highway going through our daughter's back, and coming out of the top of her head then on into a black tunnel. There was no good future which lay ahead of her. But he took care of it as best he could and said we would need more doctoring.
Our good friend Marvin Stevens, Kickapoo Doctor, said we would need a woman doctor and he knew exactly where we should go and took us to Granny's August ceremony. "She does what I do with Fire with Water," he said. Florence Jones was an answer to Animithat, Marvin's prayer. He was able to see sickness in people, and thought why do I see this unless Creator had a purpose to help these people and he prayed to be used for good. And he saw Granny, Florence Jones, as part of the answer, the mentor he sought, in the Mountains he prayed to find her. He would travel often from the rolling grassed areas of Oklahoma to the mountains and rivers of northern California for the rest of his life.
Marvin took Roger Amerman, Choctaw, recent single father raising two sons Darren, four and Dawson two. His mother Harriet and her grandsons had moved in with us, and we were raising the children together. Roger took Maki, Darren and Dawson to Ash Creek to play while Marvin took me into a long line of people who came to receive healing from Granny. I would watch her, her cousin Dawinkai, (Emerson), as they worked on people. He used his pipe to blow smoke on them as well as onto Granny, as she put her hands on the people, and with her doctoring box on their chest, telling them to hold it there with both hands, she would close her eyes and put her hands on them. She seemed to be listening to the spirits and spoke in a low voice her own ancient language. Often, perhaps with instruction she would use her strong hands, and would wipe or take something and with her breath, give things to the Creator. One person after another would do exactly what she would say and would receive something from her, which at the point I will call medicine.
When it was my turn, Anemithot introduced me to Granny, and she looked at me and nodded to him. Dawinkai smoked me up with the root, a smell which still settles me and puts me into a mode to be open to the universe of Winnemem ancestral spirits of leaders, species not human and mountain water and fire. My eyes closed and for the first time simultaineously with her deep voice saying "you're going to see something. Tell us what you see." I saw these things one after another. First I saw Maki, laughing gleefully. I burst out in tears and told her I see our daughter. Pain went through my heart, and she said "you think you're a bad mother" and I nodded my head. I was a bad mother, I thought. I can't help her. She said, "you're not a bad mother. " Then she said something that surprised me and gave me a start. "I am your mother." My instantaneous reaction was "but I have a mother" but at the same thought another one lay on top "but you really need help. This is help!" And I nodded and breathed her words into my heart. Thank you, thank you, was my thought.
Then I saw a small animal and a small tree. Suddenly Mt. Shasta came rumbling out of the earth, and rose majestically and the animal and tree looked up to it. "I see a small animal and tree" I said. "The Mountain rose up big" and she said "how do the small animal and tree feel?" I tried to explain how they were happy to see the mountain and happy to be the way they were." She said, "so they felt normal." Yes, I nodded. But at the time I knew that from the society I came from, that was not the norm. All my life as a Nikkei (Japanese diaspora) I was prodded and scolded as being too shy for not striving to be the mountain, you might say, when I was perfectly happy being and growing as a tree. Her words felt assuring to me. Then Dawinkai said "That's good!" and that set in place that feeling I had inside my heart though I had not expressed it aloud.
Before I could say what I saw next, Dawinkai woke me out of whatever dimension I was in with a loud clap, and his words, "Do you see that!! It's a white butterfly that just flew out of her head!" I opened my eyes feeling kind of light headed. Granny finished up, and I walked dazedly out of the meadow with Dawinkai after thanking her. She put her attention to the next person. This hugely significant moment for me was just one of many people she helped that day.
The thing about these healings is you feel completely the same, unburdened, and just go on your way. What changes are in the days ahead, and if you are lucky or should I say, if you are grateful, you notice where the blessings ahead come from. It began very quickly, as we walked toward Ash Creek to see the children. "Hey, Misa!" Roger clambered up from the creek. "You should have seen it!!! This white butterfly came flying and it flew and tapped every one of our kids on the head before it left!" I was so happy!! My thoughts were partially feeling badly Roger and the kids did not also receive a blessing from Grams, but I was wrong. They all were blessed, I was sure of it.
Now 30 years after, Will and I have moved ourselves to be close to Gram's people, her sacred lands, right by the Village of her people led by her niece, Caleen Sisk, who has led her people for twenty years following her Grams step by step. That is the story I will continue to blog. I am no longer the distressed 40 year old woman who was over my head in misery parenting a little girl who seemed to disdain everything about her new life, wrong parents, wrong home, wrong way to be, unafraid of the dangers looming ahead on the path she seemed to be choosing, but I know it was the path she was familiar with raised by neglect and abuse from infancy in a crowded orphanage which Holt Intnl broke ties with upon seeing what had happened to this little girl, our daughter, when we reached out for them for help. They turned their back on that orphanage which closed the next year, after they had wholesale gotten rid of all the children and the whole staff at once and ceased to exist. And they turned their back to our desperate calls for help. As Maki told us as soon as she could speak clearly her ideas, "Mom. I don't learn by experience, not by listening!!" And she meant it.
That is also the time, that at the moment I believed her words, I took Florence Jones for her word. I called her every two weeks, to check in even though I knew I was just one of many who came to ceremony every year. One time she had run out of firewood, I called an Asian brother in Mt. Shasta, Mark Miyoshi, sansei drum maker. I knew he was a friend who would say yes. I said I'd send him the money if he could buy a cord of word and take it to Grams, and he was happy to do it. Granny said he came and unloaded the wood, chopped all of it to a size for her stove, and stacked it neatly. That was Mark's way. Meticulous. Which brings me to the third image I saw, under the medicine of the root at the doctoring, I saw Mark, looking down on the Mountain with the most lit up smile he could have. I puzzled about that image, but this moment was the beginning of a long relationship he had with Grams, became like a son to her, and with Chief Caleen Sisk right now, he and his wife Luisa Navajes, are her strong left arm-helpers. His Winnemem Name is "The One Who Looks Over The Sacred." I had seen his name. And if I hadn't been startled out of talking, Grams would have gotten the message "Miyoshi is coming."
Chapter Two: "I Am Your Mother" is the Medicine
It's only been recently that I have begun to realize the import of Granny telling me during her doctoring that she was my mother. What I realize now is that Granny was giving me the medicine I had prayed for. She offered herself. She offered to take me under her wing as a daughter, treat me like a daughter, and if I were to reach out my hands to receive I would put myself into her care, I would trust her, believe in her authority to lead me through life as any parent would a child. I would humble myself as a daughter raised Nikkei. Listen, learn, trust, love, and in the way of a forty year old, take care of my elder mother as I would my own both at the same time. So, I called both of them every week or two, check in on how they were doing. Florence, I thought to myself, must wonder who I am but she never made me feel strange and we would always have a small conversation of how things were at the ranch.
One day, someone else answered the phone. I now know it was Ben Branham, Hoopa, now a brother to me born 24 years after me. When I said hello, he said "I can't talk. The ambulance is hauling Grams off to the hospital - she's had a stroke" click! I sat down stunned. "Oh, no!!" I began to fret and by the afternoon I got the courage to call again. This time his mother, Sharon Branham, answered and she said she was glad I called back. They needed help because Granny's family were all up in the mountains running a culture camp for children and Granny needed someone to come and help her in a few days when she came home from the hospital. Of course I said our daughter Maki and I would be there. It was June. We were out of school. We could stay as long as needed either with Grams or in Hoopa taking care of Sharon's household while Sharon stayed with Granny. She called the next day. She had checked with Grams and Florence Jones had said, "the daughter was quiet. They can come ahead."
Some days later, our five year old daughter and I packed our car intending to stay as long as it took, and headed to Florence Jone's ranch on Bear Mountain Road. I called ahead, and she instructed us to take the Mountain Gate exit and turn over the freeway." I marveled that she just didn't seem like she had just been through a stroke, clear voiced and clear headed.
We arrived at the ranch. The first thing I saw was a large pond, and pink roses tumbling down from the edge to the waters. The neat white framed home was on the other side of the country road which became the driveway, meandering along the hill, grass meadow on one side and the hill on the other. A green barn sat on top of the first slope. To the east loomed Bear Mountain. Granny would tell me later that Bear Mountain was Suun Sawal, and the first rock the Great Olelbis put down in this territory which I since learned was Winnemem territory named after the river, Winnemem Wywaket, the middle river. Maki and I sat by the pond and waited. No one seemed to be home yet. Soon enough on a small tractor, Oso or Bear arrived to greet us. I had seen him at the ceremonies. He seemed to be one of the people organizing. He wore his bandana around his head, and jumped off the tractor with the same authority as he had in ceremony, friendly, and instructed us. "Just come to me if you need anything or want to know anything. The old people in there" he gestured with his head toward the white framed house, "they're not very friendly. They're crazy. So just come and ask me." I didn't answer. And thanked him and turned with Maki in hand to walk into the house. If he could read my mind I had already dismissed him. For the next month all my needs and questions were answered by the four elders in the house, the most influential elders and whose every word I believed and well being I prayed for each day. They were an answer to a prayer I had made each day for our daughter which I thought was a wish. Each day I wished sadly that Maki would have my childhood. Poor as we were, crowded into a white framed house of our own in Twin Falls, Idaho, a farmworking family for the Potato King, JP Marshall, we were happy, safe from the WW2 incensed Jap-hating neighbors and kept ignorantly secure surrounded by my little sister and my Issei grandparents, two Nisei uncles just back from serving at the European front in Italy, and our single parent mother, fresh from a bad divorce. I wished for that happiness and safety for Maki who came with a propensity toward dangerous behavior which caught negative attention from teachers and predatory white old males all at the same time.
I walked in to four elders. Leona was the first to greet me. Dawinkai was sitting at the little melmac kitchen table just like the one Grandma (Obachan) had at our kitchen in Idaho. He had is usual cup of coffee. Leona bustled around the kitchen making sure I knew that in this house, everything had a place and there was a place for everything. She nailed me with her eyes, and announced, "That's the way Ms. Jones likes it." Yes, I said and nodded. I knew exactly what she meant. She showed me into the living room. I saw Gram's daughter, Margie and Grams herself sitting there. Grams had her signature house dress, her white hair neatly pulled in a side pony tail framing her face like a halo. She was seated on the end of a couch and probably with a flyswatter in her hand. Placed in front of her was a tv tray with her yellow cereal box mug, probably with Rose tea. In the months ahead, I would make sure she had that every day with a snack. Sliced avocado. Peach cobbler. A treat from McDonald's -- apple pie, or chicken nuggests. Margie sat in the armchair where now sits my sister Helene Sisk who lives in the main house of the Winnemem Village, Margie had a gallon jug of fresh spring water at her feet and carried an armload of her dolls on her lap. She would be noting the goings-on around her. Her ears were sharp because she was blind from an accident in her childhood, although sometimes we wondered, is Margie really blind? She walked fearlessly everywhere, knew exactly where to sit, or at least, had the greatest of faith that when she fell back there would be a chair to catch her. Her smile spread across her face, and her cute face crinkled up as she lifted her head toward us, eyes shut. I looked at them, remembering the two in the kitchen behind me and said, thank you! thank you for these grandmas and grandpa for Maki. And began being a daughter who just came home with the little granddaughter for the first time.
