Life Expectancy
A very short essay
When I was in third grade on the Spokane Indian Reservation, our white teacher, Mrs. Schluter, led a little white girl into our classroom. She was a new kid. Her yellow raincoat and red rain boots were shiny. She was blonde and very pale. We Indian kids were various shades of brown. Our clothes weren’t shiny.
“Class,” said our teacher as she placed a comforting hand on that little girl’s head. “Can you please say hello to…”
I don’t recall that little girl’s name but I vividly remember that she recoiled in fear and burst into tears when we greeted her. Then she ran from the classroom. Mrs. Schluter followed her. And we never saw that little white girl again. She’d been a member of our class for less than a minute.
I often think about her.
How had she ended up as the new white kid on the rez? Was she the daughter of a white doctor or nurse at the Indian Health Service Clinic? Or the child of a white tribal cop or a white office worker in the Bureau of Indian Affairs? Or maybe the daughter of a white logger? Or maybe even the daughter of one of the other white teachers? But nearly all of those white adults lived in Spokane and commuted to the rez for work. They sent their kids to schools away from the reservation.
Over the years, I’ve asked rez classmates if they remembered that white girl. None of them ever do. But they always recall other third grade events and adventures that are gone from my memory.
So why am I the only one who remembers her? Sometimes, I think of her as a messenger. She didn’t belong on the rez because she was white. But, even at that young age, I was beginning to suspect that I didn’t belong on the rez, either. I already knew that I had questions whose answers could only be found in the white world.
My late mother used to say that I was born with a suitcase in my hand. These days, I like to tell myself that every great writer is a nomad. But I don’t know if that’s true.
I thought of that little white girl again this morning when I read a news story about a recent study conducted by the University of Washington that found the average life expectancy of Native Americans in the Western USA is 63.6 years.
63.6 is a fucking tragic number.
Our life expectancy is shorter than the average life expectancy of 90% of the world population.
My father died when he was only 63. My big sister died when she was only 27.
So maybe I vividly remember that white girl because of her fear. And, now, as I write this, I think that I’d like to find her and offer my empathy.
“It’s okay,” I would say. “All of us rez kids were afraid of everything. We were afraid of your raincoat and boots. They were defensive tools that we didn’t have.”
I would say, “It’s okay. Death was constantly playing the drum and inviting us kids to his powwow. But I’m the Indian boy who plugged his ears and escaped.”
I would say, “I’m 58 now and 63.6 isn’t far away.”
I am white and female, so I can't claim to know how you felt in that classroom, but I know something of how that little white girl may have felt. I attended 4 different schools during my third grade year. My dad was a career military man. I was the new kid in school many, many times... and while it did suck in many ways, truth is, it was a very important part of what shaped me as a person. Not an easy way to grow up, but I had it better than some. I'm turning 64 this month and I still wonder how I got to live this long. Sherman, I am glad you remember that little girl. I says a lot about the things that shaped you. Thanks for this very short essay.
I was thinking about you last night. In those wee hours when you know you should be asleep, I'm often awake thinking of the past. Last night I was thinking about how I come from a people with trauma compounded on trauma, 2000 years of massacres about every 50 years, and how there's dysfunctional coping and a lot of madness in my family. I was thinking about the Native friends I've had, about Nick the carpenter (Mi'kmaq?) who was building a nice business for himself, was handsome and fit and well-liked and had a beautiful girlfriend, went off to Standing Rock, and when he came back he was good and depressed and he died of an overdose. I was thinking about Nick's Mi'kmaq buddy Donny who was often at our house, how when Nick died he blamed himself, then disappeared and showed up a couple of years later about 80 pounds heavier but short a couple of fingers and half his teeth, doing his best to drink himself to death. I was thinking about my friend Heather (Penobscot?) who'd been sexually abused as a child and then had a string of lovers who abused her as an adult, how she'd lost her children, how her speech was so garbled and panicked I could never figure out her story, and how she's disappeared too, she converted to Judaism, went off to Portland, ME and is going to make aliyah to Israel and a new lover she's never met but is sure she'll marry, off to a war zone where she'll feel more safe. And I was thinking, trauma compounds, trauma gets passed down but it also increases logarithmically, how could these people not be dysfunctional, half of my people are dysfunctional, it's what happens when horrible things happen and no one figured out how to live with it.
At Thanksgiving, I said to my cousin Aaron, whose two brothers went mad, "There's a lot of madness in our family." He responded, "There's a lot of madness in all families." Is he right? I don't know.
I was thinking about all that and I was thinking about you, and thinking, "Sherman's doing OK. He talks about his failings but he's aware, he's mindful, he's going to do OK." Some of us survive. Some of us don't.