by G E Barr

Created on: September 04, 2009

Oma

Oma died in early 1960, a few months after my birth. She was my paternal great grandmother. Half Cherokee and half Irish. Oma was beautiful and she was extremely intelligent. She hunted better than men and she was capable of moving through the woods without being heard.

Her father was a white doctor, of Irish descent and her mother, pure Cherokee. Due to reasons which I can only surmise, Oma was thrown to the wolves young. She married a Chickasaw man. A lazy, arrogant man. Her lot in life was far below her intelligence and her life was hard. She often had to physically fight her husband, until alas, he came to see that he could not win.

Oma was a warrior. Her husband, in his ignorance, never acknowledged that, except to cease hitting her. And that he'd done to save his own life.

Oma had made her last trip to see me as a baby, not long after I was born. She held me all day long and spoke to me. That was my first hoisting on high. I was 50 when she hoisted me on high again. Never in my life had I encountered such a bizarre situation. Had someone told me beforehand that the following would occur, I would have suggested that they seek psychiatric help. You see, I do not believe in UFO's and ghosts. I don't believe in what I have not seen and touched. Heard and smelled. Tasted.

In early November, not long after I'd turned 50, I felt the need to go back to McClain county and touch the land on which I had spent my new life. It held good memories for me from my youth, but not as an adult. All I recalled as an adult was constant humiliation and scorn. Hatred.

But return I did and I watched the red sun sink behind the knotted landscape. As the massive red globe began to disappear, I turned from where I stood, between the house and the cabin. When I did, Oma stood before me. I let out a sigh of desperation and she said, "Don't be afraid". She held out her arms and hugged me.

Oma smelled like she was of my blood kin. I knew she was of me.

"Who are you?" I demanded when she released me.

"I am Oma." She said with a wonderful smile.

As tears welled from my eyes and fell down my cheeks, I listened to her as she advised me of the reason for my birth. Finally, it had been revealed to me. I can only describe it as akin to standing on a great cliff and understanding the line between earth and the heavenlies. The line between sane and insane. The line between darkness and light.

My body became more muscular and I immediately was attuned for war, when Oma brought to me a

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