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| too hot for shoes... |
an adaptation of a Native American teaching, by S.L. Gilbert
My
Grandpa was part Cherokee.
We’d sit out on his old clapboard porch many hot ‘n
humid days, sipping mint tea and watching the tar bubble on the road. We were
patiently waiting for some kinda traveler to part the air.
Lulu
would eventually wag her way across the yard bringin’ the day’s collection of
ticks and burs, but rare was the passing of more than two motorized
contraptions.
Usually
a grasshopper would tempt fate and shoot like a cannon from the grass,
only to
land on that blistering blacktop.
I
didn’t know it then,
but
Grandpa’s life was unwinding with black lung.
His
breathing was getting’ as sticky as that road.
One
day, as we swayed up a breeze on the metal rocker, I told him how I was going
to put the hurt on that Huber kid come fall, for getting me kicked out of
second grade and missing Ms. Lucy’s ice cream party; I’d thrown ink on his new
Reds ball cap, cuz all the girls were thinking he was so swell after show ‘n
tell.
“What‘d
you expect to happen, tarnishing that boy for no reason?”
“That
Huber kid always got new stuff. I never got nothing new.”
Grandpa
took his thick, tobacco-stained hands and placed mine in ‘em.
“A
fight is going on inside me,” he said.
“It’s
a terrible fight. It’s between two wolves.
One
is sneaky an snarling.
Rabid
and evil.
Every
footstep he creepin' and lurking with anger, and envy.
He
howls only sorrow and regret.
He
is greedy, and self serving. He’s full of self-pity.
He’s
so very boastful yet every word is a lie.
He
poisons everyone who'll listen, with resentment.
The other Wolf is golden white;
strong and good, his face’n tail speak joy and love.
He
gives without expecting a thing.
He
is hope, and kindness. And humility.
Compassion,
truth, and the faith in his heart guide his every step.
He
don’t need to sport any new things.
You
know something else; that same fight is going on inside of you- and every person you’ll ever meet.”
I thought about it for a few
minutes; that Huber kid didn’t have any grandpa, or pappy, and he wore glasses.
I watched the grasshopper jump
again from the middle of the road towards the huckleberries.
“Grandpa, which Wolf is gonna
win?”
He
put his arm around me and said,
“That’s
up to you.
Which
ever one you feed.”
