Celeste's Journal

I do not shock easily.  Too many hard things have happened in my life to open my eyes to the ugliest things in the world.  Today I was shocked.

I started to cry when Blake was here.  I told him how hard it was for me to sew for Lucille Bond when she is so rude, and unkind to me.  Each and every time she comes in my shop she works very hard to make me feel slimy, and dirty.

Blake hugged me tight.  Then he said, "Lucille was very good friends with Ardis, my first wife.  Ardis lived with Lucille and Willard all that hard year while she was trying to decide whether to stay in Calkington or to go back to the Midwest to look for her husband Tom.  He had left to fight in the Union Army." 

"After Ardis died, Lucille changed.  She took Ardis' death very hard.   She grieved hard, and strongly."

"When I married Sarah, Lucille wouldn't come to the wedding.  She hates Native American's.  Her great grandparents were massacred back East by Native Americans.  As much as Lucille loved Ardis she hated Sarah."

"Sarah came home from town crying really hard one day.  She told me that Lucille passed her on the boardwalk.  Sarah smiled and said hello.  Lucille spit right in her face.  She told Sarah that I had lost my mind from my grief after Ardis' death.  That would be the only reason why I would marry 'Indian trash,' like Sarah."

I was stunned when Blake told me that.  I think he was trying to make me feel better about Lucille's hatefulness towards me.  It just made me even sorrier for Sarah.  From Blake's description Sarah was an amazing woman.  I have actually been inspired by her example of being gracious, loving, and generous, ESPECIALLY when people in town treated her so hatefully.

When I go in town with Jamie I keep him close to me.l  I wouldn't be surprised if Lucille spit on him.  He is half Native American.  Blake tells me that Jamie looks so much his Mama that it's amazing.  I can see that, but I can also see Blake's impress there.  Jamie has the same dimples that Blake has.  Jamie is beautiful.  Every feature is perfect, even.  His skin is just a shade darker than mine a beautiful light gold.

We went to Portland last summer.  People actually stopped me on the street to tell me what a beautiful son that I had.  Then they would narrow their eyes and look from him to me as if to say, "Wait, he doesn't look like you.  He must look like his Father?"

Nobody ever tells Eric how handsome he is.  Eric's features do not make him handsome in the traditional way.  Yet his heart makes him beyond beautiful.  He is strong, loving, and very bright.

I feel as though I know Ardis and Sarah through their boys.  Blake has told me that Ardis was always happy.  Even when she lost all of her family she still kept living in a positive manner.  Sarah was "The Leader of The People."  She was strong, powerful, and yet sensitive, and deeply spiritual.  I feel that I would have loved either of them had life allowed me to meet them.

I'm so grateful that Blake trusts me with the mothering of his sons.  I cherish these boys.  I would die to protect them without thought.  Instead I will do my best to keep living, and give those boys all of the living that I can.