I could say here and go on and on about the horrors of the true meaning of Thanksgiving, because there are so many, but due to the fact that only an extremely untraceable amount of Native American heritage I have, and there are still questions as to the connection between my ancestors and the true first nation’s people in the area (due to loss from war, disease, and murder) or if any native ancestors I may have had really wanted to be part of the family.
I have found some clues in Ancestry.com, but am in no way a skilled genealogist. Because of all that, I do not feel qualified to speak for people who are actually Native American and part of that culture.
Also, my last post about veterans’ day may have come off a little too preachy and more like a research paper than interesting to people who are not college professors. I’m a senior in my Bachelor’s of Social work so I apologize but I seem to have been stuck in school mode.
I am, however going to discuss the less patriotic reason for my grief on this holiday and how I’ve recovered over the years. I would give tips to how to handle family conflict on holidays, but I’ve already done that in earlier posts a few years ago.
In my very last post that I just posted a few minutes ago (my first story post) I shared two pictures. These pictures were first the man who would become the most important man in my life as far as now at least, and the second photo was me and that man when I was too small to remember clearly.
For a little background, when I said that I had a bare amount of Native Heritage, he’s where I got any of it from in the first place. This man was my Biological Mother’s father. His name was Albert Gilbert and he died 18 years ago on November 20th 2 days before what was supposed to be his 60th birthday when I was 10 and a half years old several states away.
That was the first Thanksgiving I remember my world changing as I spent that week that year traveling to the funeral of one of only a few people in my biological family who never wronged me in any way or abused me. (He was not perfect, as none of us are, but I would not learn that fully until just last year, and his good qualities still made him loved by all in our family.
While I only knew him for 10 years and could only start to form any kind of memories when I was almost 5, I still remember all of my happiest times in my first 16 years of life before my adoption involving him. He taught me many life lessons in that short amount of time and the several years we lived with him and my grandma I did nearly everything with him.
The bonding:
My earliest memories I have of me in my grandpa is when I was an age I can’t exactly place my finger on, bur I know it was very early, and I know these are genuine memories because I brought them up to others for the first time without anyone telling me about them first. When I was very little possible 4, we lived, not on, but very close to a Native American Reservation between the Canadian and New York borders. The Reservation is St. Regis Mohawk Reservation which now encompasses Hogensberg New York, we were in a sparsely populated village called Helena, New York. From what I was told by my mother my grandfather was very close to the tribe and they seemed to have liked him well enough to befriend him.
I bring this stuff up for various reasons, the first is because I do recognize that I have certain privileges handed to be due to the harmful processes of colonization, even with any small traces of connection, and while I know there are people out there with similar stories of questionable ancestry who jump to claim they understand what true Native Americans feel because of these questionable connections, I know for a fact that I don’t know how it feels to be subjected to such extreme torment and hardships due to such damaging atrocities. I admit that I am just starting to learn more clearly how these injustices are still affecting people today and trying to learn what I can do to help, but I do wish to be a friend and ally to all those suffering from injustice.
My experience of those times we lived together in that area involve spending time on our rural plot of land where my grandparents lived in a one-bedroom house that was a hunting cabin my grandmother’s brothers owned. On the property also was a trailer that burn down, and another one that my aunt, her husband, and my cousins lived in. There was also a one room shack that my mom brother and I lived in with my brother’s dad in the warm months and a small camper we lived in during the cold months.
On that property I spent time with my grandfather playing with him outside, sitting on his lap while he drove his sitting lawn mower, and listening him sing me lullabies including one he made up. We also had an older neighbor who I can’t remember too clearly, but I know she had a bunch of bunnies my grandpa and I helped care for with her adult son. Off the property I often went to where my grandfather worked. He had always made ends meet by doing odd jobs.
At the time the one I know about is that he used to do construction for a racetrack on the Reservation that was, at the time known as Frog-town Raceway (don’t ask me why), but is now known as Mohawk International Raceway. Because of his work we often went to the races each weekend where my mom and aunt also worked at a restaurant for a woman my grandpa had worked for over a number of his years while in New York. We also collected cans and bottles to make some extra money (and there were a lot of them).
Those are the biggest memories I have of that time, but they are not the only memories of bonding with my grandfather. I do know that my mom often moved us away from and back to my grandparents over the first 10 years of my life, while he was still alive. Sadly, I the next age I can remember living with my grandfather was the age of 6 then we left until I was about 8 and then we stayed with my grandparents again until leaving for the last time the summer after I turned 10. That was also the last time I would ever see my grandfather as more than I box of ashes (he was cremated).
Over that period of 4 years on and off, I remember spending even more time with my grandfather. I did still do stuff like go to school, and spend a bit of time outside with my cousins, siblings, and my one friend, but the rest of the time, I was literally right at my grandfather’s side. By that time, he was not working at the race track, but was working on a farm for the woman who owned the restaurant that my mother and aunt worked at. I remember he would often rotate days that he took one of his grandchildren from my aunt and my mom to work with him.
I loved the days that I got to go because I got to spend one on one time with him, when normally our home was like the home of Charlie Buckets from Willy Wonka with 8 people (4 adults and 4 children) living in a one-bedroom apartment. I honestly don’t know how we did it or how we had money for anything as my grandpa and my mom’s brother were the only two who worked and they were only often odd jobs. We made due and survived, but there was little to no one on one time with anyone aside from those times working with my grandpa.
On those days I got to help him with taking care of the animals, and we would always go to the diner in town before work because my grandpa didn’t like my grandma’s cooking. When we got home, or even on the days that I didn’t go to work with him, my siblings and I would always rush to him so that we could be the first ones to unlace his shoes for him, as he was tired from working all day, and we thought it was an honor for some reason.
The non work related memories I have of my grandfather are of him trying (despite my lack of understanding) to teach me how to play solitaire on our TV which had just gotten a Dish satellite with games on it. The other activity we often spent hours doing and which shaped my early life was watching everything and anything from a variety of genres, either from his vast VHS collection (VHS tapes are how we used to view movies and shows), or from our satellite dish whenever we had the money for it. This was in the very late 90s and early 2000s so there were DVDs that had just come out, but we couldn’t afford the new technology.
I think the reason my grandfather and I watched so much TV in our free time because he was often exhausted from working all day every day and those 4 years were the last for years of his life when he was at his lowest level of health. (For at least the last year he was battling leukemia, but I had no idea about what that was or that he had it until I was a late teen. In any case, I enjoyed the televised adventures we went on and everything he taught me while we were watching TV.
Of all of the time we spent together the one time I regret is when my grandpa was trying to teach me how to fish, but I got bored and distracted trying to catch a butterfly. That was the first and last time I remember fishing with him and I felt so guilty after he passed that I never wanted to learn how to fish again.
The Lessons:
The Lessons I learned from my grandfather and my time with and without him are not too difficult to understand, but they are valuable and they have profoundly influenced my development. I am now going to share these Lessons here.
- As long as you are trying your best to support yourself or your family, and as long as you have the basics, material goods don’t matter as much
- Treat everyone the way you want to be treated and respect and help everyone regardless of differences like Race, religion, gender, or other characteristics
- Take pride in your work and don’t give up halfway through, get the job done and work hard so you can enjoy your reward.
- Always tell your loved ones that you love them, and never go to bed angry with each other because you never know what is going to happen
- Patience is important (he didn’t directly teach me this, as patience was one of his struggles, I learned that it is importantby watching him strugglewith this)
- You can learn more in everyday life sometimes than you can sitting behind a desk and different people have different talents and strengths and weaknesses; it is important to know your own limits.
- And finally, cherish everyday you are here and capture as many memories as possible, some day only memories may be left of your time with someone.
Mental Health Blog | Fight4mylife | United States 