She Touched Tomorrow with Her Prayers

She Touched Tomorrow with Her Prayers

Next Chapter: When the Sorrow is Too Much to Bear

Deena's Story – written by Susan Schiller following a life story interview

Trigger Warning: This is a "pushing back the darkness story" – one of the "True Love Prevails: 100 Stories". There is a mature theme, but if you look beyond the horror you will see incredible brilliance shining through the woman I am calling "Deena" here, which is not her real name.

Rosy pink clouds scuttled across an orange sky as the sun charged up the eastern horizon. A lone woman approaches, her long black hair wound in a tight braid swinging down her back. She hastily makes her way up a solitary, barren hill, intent on her mission.

A chilly breeze in the badlands catches her blouse and sprinkles icy prickles down her back, but her purpose is so urgent she cannot stop to button her sweater but instead raises her arms to the heavens and from her mouth gushes a musical stream of Lakota words.

Soon she is lost to the material reality of the world and has entered another dimension… a world that is more real to her than the dry desert ground she stands on. Her words of prayer construct a fortress around her so strong that no mere worldly force can penetrate.

She engages in prayer with the Creator of the universe. Unseen to the human eye, forces from the spirit world – more powerful than anything on earth – are summoned into action. Like the sand swirling into the air all around her, so these angels are rising up and rushing, on assignment. She is praying for her family and generations to come, touching the future with her prayers of today.

Coming up behind her, a small brown child with large sparkling brown eyes, just five-years old, is seen running in bare feet up the hill to meet her grandmother. She is more at home outdoors than in the house. Her worn clothes and dirty skin cannot hide the charm and sparkling beauty of a little girl who has already experienced the pain of a broken world.

“Grandmother! Grandmother, look at me!” sings Deena, dancing in circles around her grandmother’s feet. The little girl is irresistibly drawn to her grandmother – the one person Deena could always depend upon to provide her with compassion, wisdom, and understanding.

Children thrive on love even more than meat and bread.

This time, however, Grandmother would not stop praying, no matter how loudly Deena called or how persuasively she twirled around Grandma. What was happening that made Grandmother pray so fervently? Deena was about to find out, because this hill would soon become a memory that would haunt her the rest of her life.

Deena relished the freedom of this solitary hill, and for many years into the future she would return, in spirit, to this hill as the one place that represents true freedom in her life.

Hunger to know the Source of her grandmother’s deep peace and wisdom was to become the chief driving force of Deena’s life.

The Lakota people once walked in their Creator’s way, a migratory tribe that never once moved without asking their Creator for wisdom. They were a tribe that never feared adultery, theft, or cheating of any kind. Neighbors lived in peace with each other… until the white man arrived.

With the entrance of the US government, blew the dark winds of change… a change that was to nearly wipe out a whole race of God's people. Using government, education, and religion as agents of that change, every Indian had been forced to change their name and to take on a new identity. They lost their land, their means of providing food for their families, and their dignity.

Although the Lakota submitted to changing their names, they stoutly refused to give up their political sovereignty. Nevertheless, they felt helpless as their children were removed from their ancestral homes and housed in Catholic boarding schools. This tribe had little choice but to enter a new world.

Grandmother was a keeper of the wisdom and remembered all the stories, all the prophecies, and felt compelled to pass them on to the next generation.

Would they remember who they were as a people once the elders passed away? Already so many were losing their way, following the so-called gods of the white man, their own faith battered and shaken… tainted.

There had been talk in town that their children were soon going to be taken away to the Catholic boarding schools… a whole generation. Could that be what inspired Grandmother’s hurried mount up to her prayer hill? Deena was too young to imagine something as cruel as the separation of children from their homes.

Meanwhile, at her grandmother’s feet, Deena is quietly gazing into the sky. She is wondering what her grandmother sees that she cannot see. What is Grandma hearing in the gusting winds of the badlands?

There must be something more … more than eyes and ears could yet see and hear, is all Deena can imagine.

Deena has recorded about this season of life in her journal:

"My mind goes to the warmth of a fireplace and the arms of my parents surrounding me with love and protection, then the harshness of what is real awakens me as I reach over for my clothes and my ragged homemade doll. I snuggle behind the back of the wood stove burning in the small one room house of my grandmother. I close my eyes to what just happened.

I was 4 years old then and though I did not know it then. I was setting my mind to an off switch so as the things that were yet to come would be kept in a secret place that I would not have to turn on until I was ready. There were 26 of us in that house and the thought of it now seems impossible.

Most of my time with my sisters and brother were spent on the side of a dirt hill.  Each time we were on that dirt hill and I would hear my name being called we all knew what it meant and my brother would tell me, "It's going to be okay. Just close your eyes and when you open them you will be here next to us again."
 
The day came when we were all to leave there and be put at what was called Holy Rosary Mission (Red Cloud Indian school). I thought to myself, "Someone is finally going to take us out of here." Only I was not prepared for what was ahead. Our first day we were brought there and just left alone.

A nun had come out and in a stern voice said, "Follow me." We walked down what seemed like a long hallway and into this open room where it was filled with many kids just like us. Everywhere I looked the boys and girls had long hair. One by one the nuns came and cut our hair off.

No one cried out but the tears inside did not stop.
 
Then all the boys were taken to another building across the way and we were all put in one huge room, the biggest I had ever seen. We were stripped one by one and put on our knees in rolls. Two nuns came from each side and poured kerosene over our heads. When the entire room was done they took us one by one to rinse it out and I remember the burning on my head waiting my turn.  

The rules were told right away and it was clear we better remember them.
 
I will say we all became family with a bond no one could break, not even the nuns and priest. Because I had already endured abuse it was decided I would take the place of my sisters for the thought of it made them want to die, and I was not going to let that happen.

I could not tell you what went through my mind at 5 years old or why I felt I could save anyone but I knew somehow there was a purpose for me in this hell I was living.
 
So many things happened to us behind those walls where animals were treated better, but at that school, that was what we were thought of. We were no longer human beings as the nuns and priests believed we were nothing and were treated that way.

But I tell you the truth, somehow we knew we had to hold on to who we were and there would be light through all the darkness.

It was like a living hell. You fear pain.  Your needs and your life shut down. You become like the living dead just going through the motions waiting for the day to come when you are on that hill with the wind blowing and free."

Let's pause this story and if you're ready for the next chapter: https://loveyourstory.org/too-much-sorrow/

To Read her Previous chapter: "When the Sorrow Is Too Much"

Click here to read more of the "True Love Prevails: 100 Stories"

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With all my love,

Sue

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Tagged as: Deborah White Dove, New Family Legacy, Writing a Life Story