He Promised His Grandfather

He Promised his Grandfather

Eighteen-year old Fred promised his grandfather that he would do this. The promise he made was to keep the fire going all night, from roughly eight o’clock at night to six o’clock in the morning. 

 Now part of his mind was wishing that he had not done so. The sky was totally dark, and he had seen enough scary movies that he worried that his often active imagination might run a little wild on him, with vampires, trolls and the like appearing out of nowhere. And it was a cold winter’s night. The flame of the fire he had started and was now working to keep going with the stack of wood that he had brought with him, was the only source of light and heat. It was not enough to see clearly around him very far, or to make him feel significantly warm, no matter how close he got to the fire.

Fred would feel completely alone if he wasn’t sitting beside his grandfather’s grave. His grandfather had been buried there less than a week ago, and Fred had already visited the place several times. It had become a sacred site for him. He could honestly say that he felt his grandfather’s presence there.

There was another promise too, not so scary or tough to fulfill, but still a little strange. Fred had initially been tempted to break this one.  His grandfather would never know.  Placed to his right was a sheet of paper, stuffed into a well-worn leather bag that the old man had given him. His grandfather had handed it to him when he told him about the vigil. Fred had nodded his head when his grandfather had said to him that he should not read the writing until the nightlong vigil was over. He was glad that his grandfather trusted him to do that. He would not break this promise either. It was a sacred trust

He wondered what was in the writing. Grandfather told him it carried a very important message that he was earning the right to read through his completion of the vigil . He said that it related to his mother in particular, and that he had promised her not to tell the story that the notebook contained. But once he was dead, he said that he figured he did not have to keep the secret any longer, promises made in life, should not last after death. He told his grandson that it was important for his grandson to read this document, as it could change his life for the better.

The last thing his grandfather said to him was “You might start seeing unusual things throughout the night. Pay attention to what you see, as they might teach you something about the vigil.” This Fred did not completely understand, but just nodded his head.

Visions

It was not too long before Fred started  ‘seeing things’ as he expressed through words in his mind what he was experiencing. The flames spiraled up, taking on what looked to Fred as lively images of people dancing. And once he thought that he saw antlers of flame on the head of one of the dancers . He had to close his eyes after that one – worried about what might be next. The dancing figures disappeared once he reopened his eyes. 

But those were not the only images that he would see. A long time passed, and then he saw in the shadows of the flames a dark-haired girl with her head down, like she didn’t want him to see her face. He closed his eyes to get rid of this vision, but when he opened them up again, the shadow girl had grown to a woman who turned around and vanished into the night.

For the rest of the night, he just saw the flames and their shadows as just that. They were simply his nocturnal campanions.

The Morning Sun Rises

He managed to stay awake throughout the night. His fear that if he fell asleep he might lean into the fire, helped him do that. Now, he could not believe that the night was ending. The sun seemed to be congratulating him on his being able to complete the night’s vigil. The first thing he did when the light was bright enough for him to be able to read written words, was to open up the leather bag, and see what the message he had earned had to say:

“Dear Grandson:

If you are reading this, I feel confident in saying that you have just made it through the night’s burning fire vigil. Congratuations! You have become the man that I have long believed that you could be.

I am going to tell you a story concerning your mother, one that she did not want to tell you. She was born a Plains Cree, and was raised in her culture in a reserve in Saskatchewan, although much of that culture was taken away from her when she was forced to go to a particularly brutal residential school far from her home.

More of her heritage was taken away from her when she was a young woman. When she met your father, my charming son, she felt instantly in love. It was not long before he proposed to her, and they got married. The one down side to this marriage was that she lost her Indian status. She no longer had the rights she had been born with, and her people had earned. This included being permitted to live on the reserve of her childhood years. This had a powerful negative effect on her, so much so that she did not want to tell you about the Indigenous part of your heritage. She had been discriminated against by the Indian Act, and insulted by people who knew that she was Indigenous. She did not want the latter to happen to you.

She knew that I wanted you to be told, but she made me promise never to inform you. I promised to keep that agreement “until the day that I die”.  She did not know what I meant by those words.  She probably just thought that it was an old man’s way of talking.  When you are reading this, that date has obviously been reached. I encourage you to contact the person that I have listed below, to learn about your Indigenous family. He is an uncle that you did not know that you had. I contacted him, and I know he will tell you much that I feel you should learn about your mother’s family and their history. He is aware that you will have earned the right to this knowledge through a vigil by fire through the night.

Be gentle when you tell your mother what you now know. One of the few words in Plains Cree that I learned from your uncle was “nikawiy’, which means ‘my mother’. Greet her with that word.

When he went home, his mother asked him where he had been over the night. Usually he told her beforehand. This time he had just slipped away without a word. He answered her question by saying, “I have been learning an important lesson.” After a few seconds silence he said “nikawiy”. She hugged him in reply. And so began a long overdue conversation.