Looking for answers may lead to father

Page 7

Tansi, ahnee and hello. There's a color in the sky that's my favorite. It happens right before dawn and sunset perched at the edge of light and darkness. It's the deepest blue I've ever seen and it's come to represent my sense of wonder at the universe and the unfolding of this life I've been given.

For years now I've sat and stared at the evening sky and pondered this color and the feeling it stirs in me. There's only been one word in all that time that even comes close to describing this blue. Eternal. It's an eternal blue.

Approaching Father's Day I've stared at this blue for a number of nights now. You see, I never really knew my father. I was abducted and tucked away in the depths of the foster care/adoption system when I was four and he'd passed away before I finally made it home at 25. These days he's a part of that blue.

Over the years he's become more and more real for me, largely through conversations with his friends and the memories of my mother. Still, stories and reminiscences are a poor substitute for the warmth of a father's hug or the glow that comes from a shared laughter, a sincere apology or quiet moments alone together.

A few years ago I found a star in the middle of all that eternity. One tiny glimmering point of light that nestles in the heart of that big blue. I named that star the Bear Star when I first saw it because it reminded me of the father I never knew. He was the point of light I could sense but never approach. When I sit and stare away across the universe I talk to the father I never knew, tell him of my life, my hurt, confusion, joy and laughter. In a way that star and that blue have reconnected me to this mystery man who patrols my dreams.

It's ironic really. When I was reintroduced to my culture again after years of rambling from one system of belief to another, I latched onto the idea of Father Sky right away. I came to believe in the security, blessings and lessons that come from the universe much like those of us who have grown up with human fathers come to believe the security, blessings and gifts that come from them.

Talking to that star has come to simulate the conversations I've watched my friends have with their dads. There's a certain kind of magic that happens when lives overlap and the father/son, father/daughter overlap is one I've admired for years. I get that sense of magic in my life whenever I take the time to wander out at sunset and talk to Father Sky.

While I was lost in that foster care system, I had a number of people who told me in any new home I was placed in that "you can call me Dad." After being told this a few times and then being sent away again a short time later, you tend to lose any kind of faith in what the word father is supposed to mean. For me, it came to mean lies, rejection and heartache.

However, I've come to believe over the years that parenting can happen within ourselves when we become willing to look for answers to our pain. In a way, my father and the teaching that I believe would have come from him have been delivered to me through the course of learning that willingness. Talking to that star is part of the process.

I've given up wondering why life sometimes happens the way it does, just as I've given up pointing the finger of blame at systems, institutions and individuals. I know these days that life is a process based on my reactions to things. Blame and unresolved anger can only result in negative reactions and negative outcomes. I got that from teaching, from talking to that star.

When I sit there and watch that sky melt slowly into darkness, see that eternal blue emerge and the Bear Star wink into view, I reconnect myself to the process of my own growth. Like talking to my Dad. Like seeking the shelter of a parent's wisdom.

Like going home.

When Father's Day arrives I'll be out there somewhere sitting on a hillside reconnecting to the parent who was removed from my reality 33 years ago. I'll be returning to the worldof my childhood, that special place of memory that swims just underneath the world I move through these days and talking with the man who's a big

part of the man that I've become. He's waiting there, just beyond the horizon.

Until next time, Meegwetch.