Sorry

I’ve always associated the winds of the sky with me as a little girl sitting in the back of my dad’s truck with the windows down driving on the reservation music playing on the radio. I remember hearing Hank Williams I Saw The Light play, my dad singing along. He would tell us stories about when he was just a young boy when he built his first chickee, when he used to work on my uncle Rudy’s pastor. 

“ Do you know who lives in that house, dad? ” I had asked while looking at a little brown house “ That is your uncle Joe’s house but he gave it to his daughter Marley”. 

Dad was always unique in his own way. When staying at his house for the weekend we would start off by getting one thing that dad loved so much and that was a sweet tea at Sadies alongside the mountain of snacks we would be allowed to get. We would ride back to the house that once brought me comfort and peace. Then when the suns would set dad would either make us dinner for the night or we would place an order of wings from Safari or Sadie’s, if he did make dinner me and my sister would watch tv or hide in the cabinets right next to the stove and try and scare my dad. “Boo! “ I screamed out loud and my dad made a fake scared face. ” Did I scare you dad “ “girl you’re going have to try harder than that”. “ come on out that cabinet girl and help me make some tea so I can make tea slushies” tea slushies are something that I still make now to this day. The next morning dad would always wake me and my sister up by rolling over us and calling out “steamroller” as he did so. Starting off our day by getting out of bed brushing my teeth after that I make a beeline straight to the couch to watch whatever was playing on the tv at the time. 

Sitting in the back of my dads truck just felt so natural to me as I got older and the memories that my dad shared with us just stuck with me, and as time went on so did the many memories that were made between us three just me, star and dad. Till one day all the happiness stopped when dad died going on the Reservation never feels the same even when riding with the windows down and the wind in my hair. I like to live in the memories that I hold on to like the tea slushies that I make now reminds me of when I would do it as a little girl with him . 

“ No matter how people treated you, never treat them the same way” dad would tell me a day before his 46th birthday at the time I didn’t understand what he had meant but now I do. Now I go about life differently. I’m more focused on my education than anything else. I don’t hold grudges because I hold what my dad told me to heart. Going places that dad would take us feels different. It’s never the same but in the end I make more happy memories.