Senior Moments

There have been quite a few events for elders in the past week. We started out the annual Winter Carnival with the Dinner for our Elders. It is quite an event with a delicious meal and we are waited on by all these young people in uniforms. It really was a special event starting a fun filled Winter Carnival.

The following week MCA’s Traditional Medicine Program held their fourth annual Healing Conference and the theme for this year was Tasera’kwiniot, “Let the light come in”. Della Adams and her team are to be congratulated for the excellent conference they held. Every day had its’ highlights. Some of the things I remember are when people were wiping their tears when Star Nayea sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Then the final day people were wiping their tears away from so much laughing with Don Burnstick. Loran Thompson had people sitting at the edge of their seats when he talked about the Mohawk language especially when he used words like “Kawhagireh”(sp?) and talked about “the fire or spark within. It went along with the theme of the conference.

Tom Porter gave a good talk and he mentioned that his next book will be for children. He talked about how his mother taught him to do dishes and that she used competition to get him all fired up to want to do the dishes himself. It reminded me of a sermon presented by Father Gerry Blough about how you put all your heart and soul into doing all of the menial tasks. With dishes, you picture the face of God looking back at you from the shiny dishes. I thought about how my mother got eight kids working at their chores. We all took turns by the week. Someone would wash dishes, someone else would wipe and someone else would put the dishes away and sweep the floor. The next week we would all have another set of chores. My mother wouldn’t be there. She would be at the bingo.

I saw Pat Benedict and when I mentioned the Winter Carnival and about her and her husband being the King and Queen of the Carnival she was all smiles. The Committee made a good choice.