“Have you found hozho on the reservation?” I held my breath, hoping I hadn’t overstepped my bounds.

“Ha!” Samuel mocked, throwing his head back, “I feel closest to it when I am with my grandmother, listening to her, learning from her; but no...I have never found it there.”

“It doesn’t sound like your mom has it. How can she lecture you about something she doesn’t possess herself?” I grew indignant on his behalf.

“My mom has not had any hozho since my father died. She says she turned her back on her people when she married him, but I think she turns her back on me when she says things like that. I was six years old when he died. I remember being a family! We were happy! My dad was a good man!” Samuel’s composure cracked, and he visibly shook himself.

“Grandma Yates gave me my dad’s journals. He kept them all through high school and during his mission on the reservation. When he left home, he boxed his things up, but somehow the journals were left behind at my grandparent’s. I haven’t read them all, but what I have read makes me want to be more like him, not less! I feel like I am being ripped in half. I don’t want to see my mother anymore; I am disgusted by her. Do you know my father never drank alcohol…..ever! In his journal he said one of his friends in high school raped a girl after drinking too much. He said his friend never would have done something like that without the alcohol. It ruined both the girl’s life and his friend’s life. He decided then and there he would never touch the stuff.

“On the reservation alcohol is a huge problem. I’ve seen Gordon hit my mom so many times it makes me sick. I have fought him off of her only to have her turn on me. She wasn’t always like that. I have memories of her being gentle and happy. She has no excuse! She had my grandmother to raise her. My Grandmother Yazzie is the finest woman I know. My Grandfather Yazzie was much older than my grandmother, and he struggled with his health, putting a lot more responsibility on her shoulders, but they both loved my mother and they raised her right; my mother was their only child. My grandmother had a lot of miscarriages; they considered my mother a miracle, a gift. They taught her the traditions and language of our people. I think she turns her back on the dine’ when she hides in the bottle.”

“What does your Grandmother Yazzie tell you?”

“I really haven’t talked to her about any of this. She doesn’t speak English very well, and although she has access to a phone, she’s not comfortable using one. She has my mother make calls for her when it’s necessary, but unfortunately, with my mother in the state she is in most of the time, my grandmother stays away. My grandmother lives out on the land she was born on in her hogan. My mother lives in tribal housing with her husband and whichever of his kids that happen to be living at home.”

“But you said your grandmother told you that you would need to survive in both worlds, remember? That is why you needed a warrior spirit. Maybe for you, hozho won’t come from either place, but from a merging of both,” I offered, trying to comfort him.

Samuel looked at me then, his eyes sad, his expression conflicted. “Maybe my father’s God can help me find the answers I need. I have his bible. My mother gave it to me a long time ago, before she remarried. I told you she would read it sometimes. She believed it was true when she married my father. I don’t think she’s found any balance in trying to straddle both worlds.”

“But Samuel, you just said she was happy once, before your father died. Maybe the loss of balance came when she rejected your father’s God. She’s rejected both her traditions and her beliefs. She’s not embracing the Navajo way and shunning the other. She’s shunning them both. So she moved back to the reservation after your father died. So what? Living on a reservation doesn’t make you a Navajo.”

“What?” Samuel looked at me with something akin to shock widening his eyes and slackening his jaw. He grabbed my arm. “What did you just say? Say it again!”

“You don’t have to live on a reservation to be a Navajo?” I stammered, confused.

“You didn’t say it like that,” Samuel was shaking his head. “You said ‘living on a reservation doesn’t make you a Navajo.’”

“Right…so....?”

“So what does make a Navajo - is that what you’re saying?” It sounded more like a statement than a question

“Yeah, I guess so. What makes someone a Navajo, Samuel? What is it that defines a Navajo? Is it really where you live, the color of your skin, your moccasins, the turquoise you wear around your neck? What?”

Samuel was momentarily stumped. I was anxious to hear what his answer would be. I was a descendant of the Danes - and if someone asked me, I could tell them a little about my ancestry. But was I Danish? I’d never even been to Denmark. I didn’t speak the language. I didn’t know any Danish customs or traditions. It was just my lineage. I had a feeling being Navajo was a lot bigger than just heritage or ancestry.

Samuel struggled to answer. “Being Navajo is about blood....”

“Check,” I said smartly making a checkmark in the air. Samuel smiled and shook his head in pretend exasperation.

“Being Navajo is about language-”

“Check-”

“Being Navajo is about culture.”

“What about the culture? Can you still be a Navajo and not live in a hogan?”

“Some of the traditionalists might say no. The old medicine men don’t like some of the younger generation of hataali (medicine man) trying to modernize or change the old ways. But Grandma Yazzie says culture is teaching your children the customs, the traditions, and the stories that have been passed on through the generations. This goes back to language. If the younger generations are not taught the language, we lose the culture. There are no English translations for many of the Navajo words, they carry their own meaning. You lose the meaning, you might lose the lesson in the legend, and you lose your culture.”