Not everyone knows this about me, but my mom’s side of the family belongs to the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma, a Native American community based in the small city of Perkins. At least once a year, Mom flies to Oklahoma to see my grandmother and attend our tribe’s annual powwow. Last year I joined; this year it was my brother’s turn.
Maybe that’s why, for my summer reading, I cracked open Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. It tells the story of Junior, a bright teenager growing up on the Spokane Reservation in Washington with his parents and older sister, Mary. Written for young adults, it’s sometimes cringe-worthy but always touching, with heartfelt anecdotes and quirky illustrations.
There is one episode I was surprised to read—one that would fit in the pages of Mysterious Ways. Spoilers ahead!
Toward the end of the novel, Junior’s father picks him up from school and delivers terrible news: Mary has died in a house fire.
Junior finds himself laughing uncontrollably, a byproduct of his shock. He and his father cross the border into the reservation. Junior just keeps laughing. He laughs so hard that his body convulses, and then (here’s one of those cringe-worthy moments) he spits up a piece of cantaloupe.
This is strange, Junior says, because he hasn’t touched the fruit in seven years. He’d eaten so many pieces of cantaloupe at a school picnic that he got sick, and a wasp, lured by his sticky hands and face, stung him on the cheek. He’d steered away ever since.
That’s when he remembers who did love cantaloupe—his sister, Mary.
Of course, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a work of fiction. But as the title suggests, Junior’s experience with the cantaloupe comes from a place of truth. Sometimes an absurd, “impossible” thing does happen to comfort us in times of grief.
At Mysterious Ways, we’ve published several of these true stories. On our Facebook page, believers and skeptics got into a debate about whether a “text message from beyond” was God or just a glitch. Those same skeptics might laugh when they hear something like how a Steak n’ Shake root beer float could comfort a grieving family, as it did for Mabel Louise Caringer’s clan.
Last week, I was on the phone with my mom when she shared that a member of the tribe had just passed away. She’d helped prepare food for more than 60 people.
“In the tribe, we don’t call it a ‘wake,’” she told me. “We say we’re ‘putting someone away.’”
Putting someone away. A funny phrase, but I was struck by its beauty. Like a toy put back in its box, the dead are not gone forever, but somewhere waiting for us. It was a perfect reminder that different people and different cultures all react to death in different ways and yet share many beliefs about eternity.
What about you? Have you ever received your own unique, unmistakable sign from a loved one? Share your story with us.
