Joseph M. Marshall III - Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance

OTHER BOOKS BY JOSEPH M. MARSHALL III

Soldiers Falling into Camp: The Battles at the Rosebud

and the Little Big Horn (co-author)

Winter of the Holy Iron

On Behalf of the Wolf and the First Peoples

The Dance House: Stories from Redbud

The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for Living

The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History

How Not to Catch Fish: And Other Adventures of Iktomi

Walking with Grandfather: The Wisdom of Lakota Elders

The Art of Perserverance

Joseph M. Marshall III

STERLING ETHOS

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STERLING and the distinctive Sterling logo are registered trademarks of

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Published by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016

2006 by Joseph M. Marshall III

Distributed in Canada by Sterling Publishing

c/o Canadian Manda Group, 165 Dufferin Street

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6K 3H6

Distributed in the United Kingdom by GMC Distribution Services

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Distributed in Australia by Capricorn Link (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

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Sterling ISBN 978-1-4027-3607-0 (hardcover)

Sterling ISBN 978-1-4027-6618-3 (paperback)

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Book design by Carol Petro

To the memory of

Dru Sjodin

19812003

and

Jancita Eagle Deer

19511975

and

To all of the strong-spirited people

who endured Hurricane Katrina

and are teaching the rest of us how to

keep going.

CONTENTS

A young man asked his grandfather why life had to be so difficult sometimes. This was the old mans reply.

Grandfather says this:In life there is sadness as well as joy, losing as well as winning, falling as well as standing, hunger as well as plenty, badness as well as goodness. I do not say this to make you despair, but to teach you reality. Life is a journey sometimes walked in light, sometimes in shadow.

Grandfather says this:You did not ask to be born, but you are here. You have weaknesses as well as strengths. You have both because in life there is two of everything. Within you is the will to win, as well as the willingness to lose. Within you is the heart to feel compassion as well as the smallness to be arrogant. Within you is the way to face life as well as the fear to turn away from it.

Grandfather says this:Life can give you strength. Strength can come from facing the storms of life, from knowing loss, feeling sadness and heartache, from falling into the depths of grief. You must stand up in the storm. You must face the wind and the cold and the darkness. When the storm blows hard you must stand firm, for it is not trying to knock you down, it is really trying to teach you to be strong.

Grandfather says this:Being strong means taking one more step toward the top of the hill, no matter how weary you may be. It means letting the tears flow through the grief. It means to keep looking for the answer, though the darkness of despair is all around you. Being strong means to cling to hope for one more heartbeat, one more sunrise. Each step, no matter how difficult, is one more step closer to the top of the hill. To keep hope alive for one more heartbeat at a time leads to the light of the next sunrise, and the promise of a new day.

Grandfather says this:The weakest step toward the top of the hill, toward sunrise, toward hope, is stronger than the fiercest storm.

Grandfather says this:Keep going.

PROLOGUE

Afew years ago a young man named Jeremy learned that his father, Jeremy Sr., had cancer. The doctors warned the younger Jeremy and his family that the disease had not been detected in its early stages. Nevertheless, as people often do in the face of obvious hopelessness, the young man and his family prayed for a miracle.

The doctors, for their part, did the best they could. But the surgery and subsequent treatment only seemed to exacerbate an already difficult situation. Jeremy helplessly watched as his fathers condition deteriorated swiftly and he wasted away. The miracle his family desperately hoped for didnt come.

On a cool spring night Jeremys father departed on his journey to the spirit world. And, in the months that followed, the young man was beset by a swirl of grief, confusion, and anger. Questions and issues about life and death overwhelmed him.

As a teacher of history, Jeremy spent his time and energy, for nine months of the year, on students, lesson plans, reading and correcting papers, and an apathetic principal more concerned with policy and dotting is and crossing ts than in replacing woefully outdated textbooks. Jeremy relished the summers when he could play softball and read books he didnt have the time for during the school year.

As a teacher he was experienced enough to write lesson plans and endure the mountains of paperwork, and was mostly successful in engaging students invariably turned off by history. And he somehow looked forward to crossing intellectual swords with the principal, to face the challenge of the mans obstinacy and narrow-mindedness.

But as a young man he had already learned that life and death were realities for which there were no easy answers. Jeremy knew only one thing for certain: He had not lived long enough to find the right answers.

So he reached out to the one person in his life who always seemed to have an answer.

To his friends he was known as Old Hawk, but to his family he was simply Grandpa. Old Hawk was well past eighty. He had never traveled more than four hundred miles in any direction from where hed been born. But that mattered little, because, as Old Hawk knew well, life itself was the greatest journey.

Old Hawk knew that the roads traveled in this life imparted lessons that experientially, emotionally, and spiritually were greater than the number of hills climbed, or the borders crossed. They were greater than the turns made, or the horizons waiting ahead. He knew that the most important and enduring lessons come from the difficult roads, those that twist and turn, are narrow and dark, and filled with challenges and obstacles. Roads easily traveled offer no travail and, therefore, no sense of achievement, because anything easily attained offers little value in return.

Old Hawk had no formal education to speak of and though he knew a little English, he preferred the familiarity of his native tongue. His hair was gray and his face weathered from sun and storm. The rich brown hue of his skin was testament to his native heritage. His hands were still strong, though bent and scarred from a lifetime of hard work. In his life Old Hawk had plowed and planted, was a trainer of horses, a hunter, and a builder of houses. He had lost count of the thousands of postholes he had dug to build fences, and likewise the number of posts he had placed in the Earth. He had known disappointment, heartache, sadness, and loss as well as the satisfaction of a job well done and the resolve of clinging to his beliefs and principles in the face of temptation and ridicule. In many, many ways he was like most men, most people. But to Jeremy, Old Hawk was his grandfather and, therefore, like no other.