They call me BEAR

For a long time I have struggled with the idea of telling a story: my story, then perhaps the story of my previous generations. The only problem I encounter is that I do not particularly know all the gory details in the stories of my previous generations. And the struggles I’ve known can only pale in comparison to those of my ancestors.

One part of my 9 bloodlines intrigues me the most; my Native American ancestry - that of the Yuchi people. The Yuchi were forcibly removed from their homelands near what is Ft. Benning Georgia today. They were packed up and forced on foot to re-locate to the place I now call home, OKLAHOMA (land of the Redman). In many ways I can relate, however; not on such a grand scale. So for now, all I can do is tell my story.

My father always says that I run away. I argue that point for many reasons. In my past and in my present, the only way to move on is to run from the bad memories, bad energies and bad people. So damn me, if the only way I can survive is to run. Running for me at a young age was the closest thing to intense therapy I’ve ever come to know. It allowed me to think, to be alone and to be inspired to become something more. Something great. I began to run when I was ten. At first I ran because I was a competitor, but then because I was good and then because it was a need to calm my mind and tame my heart. In the hardest of times for me, it became my only solace. And still is. 

When my stepfather had beaten my mother within an inch of her life and we moved first into a battered women’s shelter and then into a ghetto like apartment in Oklahoma City I began to understand that life was different. At the time I could not understand my mother’s family’s lack of interest in our welfare, it perplexed me to no end.

Forced and required to care for my twin half brothers at night after a full day of the 6^th grade, was less than child like. It was fucking scary. Finding my mothers hidden drugs, being at home alone, no phone, living on food stamps, not knowing when and if my mother would return home - I began to dream of another life. (Being alone was something I was not foreign to). I would fall asleep at night to three movies on loop, so it would block out the noise of sirens and car doors. I dreamed of a life, I knew was possible, even if it would cause me pain. Pain in knowing I would have to leave behind my brothers, leave them to a life and circumstance and of much difference. I could get out, I could have a chance at a childhood, at a life, to dance and run and be free from all the stress and the scary – I could be safe – I could get to be a kid. I could have a chance to dream and to become whoever I wanted to become. These ideas of childhood and dreams were told to me by my Grandma Long: my fathers mother, she encouraged me to dream, she wanted me to be free from stress and things no child should see or experience or have to deal with. In every way she saved my life.

To make a long story short (no pun intended), I had myself “removed from the home” by the department of human services at the age of 11. I was escorted via cop car to the juvenile detention center in Oklahoma City where I would spend a night in “juvenile” detention and the only time I would ever sit in a cop car. Terrifying as it all sounds, and believe me it was, I knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel. The night I spent in “juvenile” lockup was a night I will never forget. I was granted one phone call, which I made to my Grandma Long. They said, ‘do you know who you want to call’, I couldn’t dial 918-224-5669 fast enough, with purpose. After being inspected, I was allowed to take my things to the room I would be staying in for the night. As I unpacked my bag knowing I would only be staying a night, I knew that this night would be engrained in my forever. I lay awake, the beams of light from the parking lights outside creating tiny shadows of the venetian blinds on the wall.  I did not sleep that night, in anticipation for the court hearing that would occur the next day. My grandmother had driven down the night before and stayed with her Aunt Ted in Nichol’s Hills. My Grandmother Aida, along with my mother and brothers were also at the courthouse too. I cried the whole time, knowing I was going to be free of it, but that my poor brothers would never be. They could not come with me, nor could I expect my grandmother Long to take them, they were not her grandchildren. I was heart broken. Overtime, I had to severe ties with them, not out of want but out of need to draw a line between my mother and myself. It would be something they would not understand until they were older, only then could I share with them the story they were too young to remember. And then they understood why I had shut my mother out all those years ago.

My grandparents, Milford “Buddy” Lewis Long & Barbara Ann Long took me home. The only place I would ever call home and still do. When we arrived my grandmother immediately picked up the phone and called my dad; she uttered a sentence I will never forget,  ‘we got the bear’.

Music to my ears, a place that would be the only semblance to what a real household with two loving people living in harmony could be; that it was possible, and here it was. And I was in it and it was all mine! I felt like Kevin in ‘Home Alone”!

They raised me just like of their own, same rules, same morals, same values. I soaked it all in. It was for me, just live heaven but better. I had been previously deemed a “ward of the state” and eventually, they would be granted temporary custody of me then only to be passed along to my father, three years later at the age of 13 (he had been working in Washington State). I got on the courtroom stand at the age of 13 and in front of Judge April Sellers White, proclaimed that I wished to live with my dad. My mother got caught lying on the stand - She had not been attending AA meetings; she had falsified where those meeting were held, and our attorney called her bluff. All my mother did was scream and yell after the hearing, running after my father, grandmother and I. I was relieved. Finally free from her and her manipulative ways, her lies and her altered reality.  I looked at my brothers in sheer torture. They thought I didn’t love them, if only they had known how much. It would be years before those boys would get to know me -

That period in my life changed who I would become, in a good way. I would come to believe that should anyone judge me, that pity I would not take it. I let it flow off my back like the beads of water off the back of a duck. I wanted to be something more, something greater than a child that leaned on the bad as an excuse to do no good. My grandmother told me I could be whoever I wanted to become, and because she became the first person I could truly trust, I believed her – and I felt her love above all else. She had become my mother in every single sense of the word and art, providing me the kind of love a child should feel, something I had never felt from my own mother. Grandma Long, taught me that I was no better than anyone else, to be friends with everyone and never be rude or judgmental.

And because I had a secret of my own that at that time in my life could throw me into the throngs of an outcast childhood, I befriended as many people as I could. I went from a D student to the honor roll in nine weeks, quit biting my nails and excelled in dance, basketball and of course running. It was like I became a different kid all together, I morphed, shape shifted. Nature vs. Nuture. I was terrified that anyone would find out my story, that my mother was an alcohol addict and abused drugs, and didn’t care for her kids. It was all because she was too proud to admit she was wrong and would never ask for help.

I was a kid who would otherwise be a social pariah, who had spent the night in juvenile detention. To think about it now is mid blowing. After attending seven different schools in five years, it seemed as though I had found a home and some long lasting friends, many of which whom I am still friends with today. People always wondered why I lived with my grandparents; it was a story I guarded with my life, until the age of 21 when I finally shared my story with my best friend and a few college roommates. It took me a long time to come to terms with what had happened to me and how I had managed to run from it, learn from it, block it out and move on. It took me a long time to realize that I should be proud of what I had become, considering the alternatives, and so finally I was free from the pain and anger and guilt. It gave me strength, knowing that whatever happened to me in life, I could overcome.  That things could never be as bad as they were, that from here on out only good could exist. I would make sure of it. I walked at graduation for my bachelor’s degree in Psychology in of May of 2001, and after retaking a math class I hated, for a better grade, I received my diploma is December of 2001. The first college graduate in my immediate family, on both sides, it too was a feat of epic proportions. The attendance of my grandmother and grandfather Long was the most memorable and the most short, but the support they had shown me over the years never ended – and even though they are no longer here on this earth, I know they are with me EVERY single day.

Now looking back, I can be nothing but amazed, 5 generations later, I have become the person that I have. It amazes me to see my fellow natives and what they have made of themselves, us having come from such a diverse and challenging back grounds.

This is the story I which to tell, along with those of the other Yuchi people, Seminole and Osage. True stories, written and only told in person. The true accounts of our people, their struggles, their resilience, and brilliance and perseverance. The story of the Yuchi people from the 4^th generation, great great grand daughter of Ekilaine Long, Chief of the Yuchi, Harry Lewis Long -Medicine Man, Milford “Buddy” Lewis Long “ – Euchee Mission student, Army Veteran, 40 years of service at American Airlines - a white man’s assimilation success story AND my father, Donald Edward Long – man of industry, man of emotion.

The last long remains, at least within in our family, I am Andrea “Bear” Lynette Long – Loud Warrior, of the Wolf Clan.