I first met TJ when I was seven years old. I was staying with my grandparents for the summer, we were playing in the woods near the trailer when we ran into a boy a little older than us. He was visiting his aunt with his parents. His aunt lived in the trailer about half a mile farther up from us. He and I struck up a friendship. His family visited every other week to check on his aunt. She was an alcoholic, the family was doing their best to care for her and attempting to help. When he was younger, they would try to keep as much from TJ as possible, so when they would get there, he was sent to play. After we met, he would come up to our trailer and play with us. We would wonder though the woods, talking and playing. Pretending to hunt cougars and bears. After the first year, I was allowed to go stay with his family for a two to four weeks each summer. His dad taught me how to ride a horse, and a lot about livestock. His mother would teach me the old traditions. She taught me how to cook and tan leather. TJ and I would play on the ranch, help with different chores and once a month his mom would take him to the reservation to be a part of tribal learning. We would go to the library and listen to the elders tell stories, we were enrolled in classes to learn how to bead, make different items, and about cultural ceremonies. Their family was the first real exposure I had to what a positive family environment could be. I felt more at home with them, than I did with my own family.
When I was nine, I asked if I could go on a wéeykin. This is a coming-of-age ceremony for kids in the tribe. You head into the wilderness alone with no food or water. The point is to push your body to the limits of dehydration and fasting to have a hallucination. This shows your life path, who you are as a person. I had heard TJ talk about his, a lot. He would explain to me about how he would have the same vision of a wolf circling him and the ranch, guarding the family. He saw the wolf fighting other wolves, and monsters. A party was waiting for him when he came home. An enormous dinner and dancing. He told his story to everyone and received his wáay’atin totem (a small, polished rock, carved to look like a wolf). They let me go on my own. Thinking we were sneaky I left alone, and TJ joined me a four hours later. We camped out for three days, made up a story of what I “saw,” and then he left two hours ahead of me. After he left, a yearling black bear cub drug me though camp. I went home filthy and crying to a party. I changed and washed up before heading out to tell my story. I will never forget the sound of his mother’s laugh as I told the true story of what happened. An elder stood up and addressed the fact that because I broke the tradition, I found my way in a “nontraditional way.” Because I did not fast, I had no way of having visions; therefor the spirits sent me a different kind of message. He then handed me my bear totem. I was so relieved to not be in trouble I cried.
TJ was always large. At twelve, he looked sixteen. He was tall and always in great shape. Fitness was important to their family. They understood long before I was ever taught, that to keep your body safe for the physical work needed for ranching, you needed to take care of it. They would work out together all the time. We would go running together, I had no idea we were actually running for exercise until I got older. We would compete to see who could lift feed bags or bales of hay. For the longest time I thought they were all games, built into the day. They were a family that would have fun no matter what they were doing.
They all joked a lot. TJ and his dad had their boy humor when they were together, when we were in public, they were quieter, but still had their subtle jokes. Even when someone was mad, they still found a way to laugh at anything. I was more sensitive than they were, so they were gentile with me. They would redirect me with the humor rather than making fun of me or the situation.
TJ would defend me when my family was around and being rude. He would get after adults, shaming them for what they would say. Never making fun of them outright but lecture them like his mother would when he was in trouble. There was a day when my sister punched me in front of him. He grabbed her, picked her up and carried her to the other side of the house. When he put her down, she punched him. He ignored her and turned around to came over and pick me up, comforting me. When I was raped, he was on deployment, so I didn’t tell him. When he got home, I was afraid, so I never did. He was always so kind and supportive, we had our fair share of fights when we were both teenagers, but more often than not, he would cool off and be the voice of reason before I would. I could always count on him to keep me in check. He had no problem telling me when I was being stubborn or rude, but even in the bluntness, it still felt like he was being kind.
When I was eleven, TJ’s father died of cancer. My mom agreed to let me fly up for the funeral because his mom was paying. That was the first real tribal experience I was able to take part in. I had been to one or two funerals before, but this was something new. Nothing was quiet or somber. Everyone was loud and there was singing, dancing and a ton of food. Everyone stayed three days at the ranch. The entire experience was new and interesting to me. A real community event. It started with everyone coming to the ranch and cooking, setting up chairs, tents, tables, a dance floor. It progressed into a meal and a party. When the day was over everyone went to bed, and we woke up to do it again the next day. In the middle of the second day, we went up to the family cemetery and buried a box and spread ashes around it. While we were up on the hill, everyone was telling the happiest stories of him. Nothing was quiet. There was someone to hold at least one of your hands or hug you at all times. Then we all walked back down to the tents and had more food. Anytime one of us would cry someone would walk up and ask you to dance, not trying to make you stop crying necessarily, but to be a physical presence. I noticed a lot of the men were dancing with TJ’s mother, holding her up as she cried and making her laugh while she did so. After about the 4th day, there was no more crying from anyone, everyone telling happy stories and smiling. That was when everyone helped clean up the ranch and left. That was the first time I knew what it meant to be a part of a family and a community. These people had stopped their lives to come and see us though the hardest parts of our grieving. They had made sure that we felt what we needed too, but also kept perspective.
We all were close after the funeral. They would call me once a week to check in and hear how I was doing. They made sure I had at least a month every year with them. Typically, in the summer, but sometimes they would take me for Thanksgiving as well. There would always be something to learn and do. Every summer the ranch would host at least one wedding or community event. My favorites were Thanksgiving. We would get a deer or elk, then five or six others would bring theirs over to the ranch as well, and we would butcher and cook them up. TJ’s mother would have us cooking the whole week of Thanksgiving. There would be over a hundred people, everywhere, talking and laughing, telling old stories. There would be traditional dancing as well as a DJ for nontraditional dancing.
TJ graduated from high school in 2004 and joined the military with his best friend Jeremy. They went through basics together and stuck together though all assignments and ranks. In 2008, they entered into a special forces unit. The unit became close. They would all come back to the ranch on leave. I got to know the entire group. They joined the family, like I had. Basically, unofficially adopted by TJ’s mother. I would send letters and care packages to them all. They would call once a month to check in. I would still go see his mother when he was deployed. When I graduated from high school, my mother refused to invite the family. She said they were not my family, and they had no business being involved. As soon as I moved away to college TJ’s mother flew me up on the first long weekend and took me to the city and spoiled me. Taking me to a show, to a spa, shopping. She wouldn’t let me complain about my mom. Saying that she had the right as my mother to say who she wanted in her home around her children. She was always diplomatic about it. As soon as the guys came home from deployment, they flew into town and spent a week with me before heading up to the ranch.
The end of my freshmen year of college, I broke up with my high school boyfriend. When TJ called for the check in that month, he said that he had been thinking and wondered if I would be interested in trying to have a relationship. I said yes, so while he was deployed, we started that up. He would send me flowers to my classes, call every other week when possible and send me emails every day. He came home on two leaves while we were together. There was a wedding at the ranch both times. He drove me into the city on one of them for dinner at a nice restaurant and then a walk to the carousel. The other time he took me into town, and we walked the lake and talked about what we both wanted. Making a plan for the future.
It felt because we knew each other so well, the relationship was moving in fast-forward, because we had already lived together, knew the other’s quirks, families. All the normal “getting to know you,” part of the process wasn’t needed. We both knew we wanted kids, we wanted to live like his parents had. A home full of people, joy, and work. He wanted to go to college and then retire from the military after his current deployment was up. He figured it would be fun to go to college while I was still in it. Have the experience together. When he left, that was the plan.
He left in November, after Thanksgiving, and was slotted to come home, for good in April. Christmas morning, he called, I was at his mom’s house. She had the laptop on the coffee table in front of us. I was in my pajamas, with a cup of coffee, snuggled under her arm while he and Jeremy told us Merry Christmas and did dances and skits in front of the camera to make us laugh. After a while Jeremy left and TJ asked if I would marry him. I said yes. He told me that his mom was going to take me out to pick my ring later in the week and that he would redo an in-person proposal when he came home. He wanted us to get married the Saturday after Thanksgiving. His mom and I started planning a wedding. It wasn’t a lot of work since we had thrown many weddings at the ranch over the years. The one thing he had an opinion about was that he be there to pick the cake. That was the one thing we were outsourcing. His mom made me a moose hide dress for the ceremony and I bought a cheap dress for the reception. I bought all the guys new boots and flasks for a homecoming/groomsman present. The community was going to cook the food like they did for our parties. I never told my mom I was getting married. I didn’t want her to try to take over or make it unhappy. I kept putting it off.
January came, and they were out on an assignment, so I didn’t get to call him for his birthday. I sent emails and a care package. There was no contact when they were on assignments, and sometimes it would be long spells. Christmas was his last call; New Years was his last email. I was back in Boise, at work,10:37 in the evening. His mom called and left a message. I ducked into the back room to listen to it. All I could hear was sobbing, no real words. I called her back and managed to understand enough broken up sentences.
Due to the kind of assignments, they were asked to do, we were not told the circumstances of his death. The Army was unable to give us his body due to an investigation. We asked for his heart as is customary for the culture. They agreed we could have it when they were finished but not before. We waited to have a funeral.
As time went on his mother began to nag the military for his heart. The family lawyer was trying to get them to agree that if the heart was not directly involved in the investigation, why could they not send it? Give us a chance to have some closure. We had no contact with the team. All we knew is that they were back in the United States but were being kept on base until the matter was settled. We knew something was off about this.
September of that year, I took a long weekend and went up to see her. We sat on the porch having coffee, and she asked me to take TJ’s dog with me. I let her know I couldn’t have dogs where I was living. She offered to buy me a house, so I could take him. I asked why she was pushing so hard. She said she was leaving everything to me, and she couldn’t wait anymore to be with her boy. I spent the rest of the weekend trying to explain to her that she needed to stay with me, that I still needed her. She still had me and the rest of the ranch. She still had her sister to take care of. That there were plenty of reasons for her to stay. That TJ wouldn’t want her to give up. By the time I left, I thought I had talked her out of it. I left the dog with her. The next week on October 5th, I had a call from her lawyer. She had poisoned herself and the dog.
A month later, I drove out to the nearest base and picked up TJ’s heart. The Saturday after Thanksgiving I buried both their hearts and spread her ashes around them. The whole community was there, the unit, none of my family. I cried for three days. I was never alone though. I always had someone’s arms around me, someone holding my hand, someone dancing with me and making me laugh, though all the tears. Due to the nature of their work, I will not know the details of what happened for years. It won’t be declassified until 2062. I’ve been given medals, a flag, and the military’s condolences.
That was the year my eating disorder got out of control. I was triggered by the loss of my family, the people who understood, loved and protected me. They took me in as a child and made me their own. Gave me comfort and an escape from my life. To this day my mother will pretend none of them ever existed. I have learned so much by loving them and so much I wish I could do over.
The guys in TJ’s unit took some time away from the military after his death. This last year they reentered and took their old jobs back. They have been deployed since November of last year, and due to COVID and their work have no return date yet. I’ve had a much different experience with this deployment. I’ve been triggered in ways I didn’t know were triggers, and I’ve had to talk a lot of wives down during times of no communication. I feel like in a way I have somewhat taken his mother’s place as head of household. We lost the ranch in a forest fire this year; everyone is displaced. I am still the one they all call though. When they need someone to listen, give advice or to plan a party, I’m their girl.
