Where are our ancestors. They wish to be remembered, if only in stories

Where are they? Last night as I tried to sleep images kept going through my mind. A man on horseback, a boy fishing, a girl catching trout in the stream by her hands, all flashed through my mind in an instant. Warriors from long ago, men and women in today’s battle uniforms, warriors all; it doesn’t matter the year of the century, a warrior is a warrior.

I saw my native ancestors. I saw our ancestors yours and mine. I saw them as they lived a long ago. I saw these images until I thought my head would explode, and then I would wake up wondering what it all meant. This happened a number of times during the night. When I woke up in the morning, the images still fresh in my head, I still didn’t know what they meant. Thinking about him all day till bedtime and I still had not arrived at an answer.

As I lay down to sleep I heard a voice plan as day, “Where are they?” it was then I knew the answer. Where were our relatives? We stopped looking for them. We stopped talking about them. We have forgotten them. Just because we’ve forgotten does not mean they did not exist.

The images I saw showed me who they were, how they lived, and how they dressed. I do not know their names, but I know this; their images were given to me to tell their stories. They desired to live in our memory even if we don’t have their names. They want somebody to remember them. I don’t know if I have enough time in my life to write a story about each of them, or to include them in the stories I am writing. But they wanted me to remember them. They wanted me to tell you, to remember them.

So when you sit in your comfortable chair tonight watching television or reading the paper or doing a puzzle: stop and think for a moment, where are they? Let your mind think about all the stories you were told about your ancestors. Pay out full vowels and look at the people on the pages try to remember anything about their life. Tell your children about them, play your friends about them. Let them live on in your memory.

Where are they? They are in you, part of your DNA. Just relax and let them speak to you. You may be amazed by what you learn.