Winter Counts

by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

As I pushed, I tried to remember the Indian prayers my mother used to say to me. I’d heard them so many times as a kid, it seemed urgent that I remember just one line, but nothing would come. How was it that I could remember some shitty disco song from years ago but couldn’t remember my mother’s own words? The weight of my failures—all of them—felt like a shroud wrapped around me.

everyone said that the grief would get better over time, but that hadn’t happened. What I’d discovered was that sadness is like an abandoned car left out in a field for good—it changes a little over the years, but doesn’t ever disappear. You may forget about it for a while, but it’s still there, rusting away, until you notice it again.

“Virgil, what do you do?” I hated that question. It was such a white way of looking at the world, that a person is judged by their job, not their character.

THERE IS NO WORD for goodbye in Lakota. That’s what my mother used to tell me. Sure, there were words like toksa, which meant “later,” that were used by people as a modern substitute. She’d told me that the Lakota people didn’t use a term for farewell because of the idea that we are forever connected. To say goodbye would mean the circle was broken.