I feel rather sheepish coming to you this late in my life with an overdue book. OK, not overdue, stolen. A book I stole from the library 47 years ago when I was in eighth grade. My husband and I are cleaning house, setting my affairs in order. Today we started going through my books—I have a ton of them—and the race is on. Doctors tell me I have maybe two months left to live with pancreatic cancer.
One of the books I pulled from the shelf today was Wolf Brother by Jim Kjelgaard. I smiled when I found it, set it aside. I want to return it to you with my apologies.
Kjelgaard’s novel spoke to me back when I was a gay boy who did not then know he was gay. A goody two shoes, good church boy who worked in the library’s AV section, helping set up audio visual equipment for various classrooms. A bookish lad, shy, withdrawn, introverted, teased. Teased for what? For being gay, awkward, naive, stupid, foolish. For being a prick, a prig. A boy who identified with the main character in Wolf Brother.
It’s the story of an Apache youth who returns to his people after years in a white man’s boarding school. He gets caught up with a band of his people who refuse to remain confined to the reservation, choose to pursue freedom against overwhelming odds. The Apache are branded as cutthroat savages, hunted mercilessly. The boy earns the name Wolf Brother when he befriends a lonesome wolf cub and vice versa. This unlikely pair play an important role in the novel, come to each other’s rescue, are able to escape, eventually help carry hope back to the tribe. Wolf Brother serves as an example of how to make it through.
What spoke to me in this tale? Perhaps it was echoes of a boy who is on the outside, whose world is falling apart, who must find his way through tribulation and trial, anger and prejudice, make a way for himself and a life for those he loves.
Throughout my life is not Wolf who has been my totem, my spirit animal guide, but Bear. Bear came to me in a recurring dream throughout childhood. Time and time again he chased me around and around and around the garage at our house on Highway Two. It was always the same dream: me, running pell mell in terror, the bear hot on my heels. I would wake up sweating, panting, scared.
The dream came back to me after I'd come out as a gay man in mid life. Had left a wife and three small children, was living by myself in a ratty apartment in a building soon to be condemned by the city. Sleep was hard in those days. Eating was hard. Putting a life together was hard. Then Bear showed up to terrorize my night dreams.
I was angry, but had the wherewithal to say, I cannot go on like this. I will not. The next time this dream happens, I'm going to turn and face the bear. The dream came again with Bear chasing me around my parent's garage. As I ran through the pine trees I could feel its hot breath on my neck, slap of pine tree needles in my face.
I turned to face the bear, plunged my hands deep into its fur, yanked its face up towards mine. (My skin still gets goose pimples when I think of this.) I looked that animal straight in the eyes. It was me I was looking at. I was the bear. I was running from myself.
I realized I had always been running from myself.
I swore then to walk alongside Bear, rely on his power, strength, courage, wisdom. He has reappeared to me since. Never again in the dream chasing me. But whether in waking life or in the liminal world of sleep, I pay attention when Bear shows up.
After coming out I met and married a man whose animal totem Wolf is different than mine. Yet he understood and embraced the concept of an animal spirit guide. We share many similarities. Dave grew up on a farm in rural northwest Ohio; I grew up on a hobby farm in rural northwest Indiana. We share core values: simplicity, integrity, compassion. Value the unseen as much as the seen. Live without TV, cell phone and until recently internet connection. He's retired now after a long stint as chaplain with hospice. (I signed up for hospice yesterday.)
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