Who am I?

Who am I is a question most of us ask ourselves at one time or another. The short version for me is I am a mom. That for me is my greatest accomplishment and my biggest fear.

Being "mom" is a difficult and challenging task in today's society. I'm a planner, but all my plans went asunder a bit over a year ago. I found myself single with no job and no education, alone with three teenaged girls. I went looking for a job that could support us. I found one in a place I never imagined I'd work, a casino! I had no idea what the job even was! I took it anyway and prayed for the best. I spent the first week in what I believed at the time to be a sort of training.

However, there was no training for my actual job besides a class designed to help you identify money laundering. As an honest person I couldn't believe the length people would go through for some paper. The rest was cultural things for the tribe that I came to be employed by. I was truly fascinated by the tribe and their history. I love history as a whole but I was faced with I tribe I knew nothing about. I absorbed all I could and later I found that my family many generations ago had a lot to do with this tribe and even that my great grandmother "seven generations" back was a tribe member of the Chickasaw.

I was always told that we had native blood but I was told we were Cherokee. I was asked many times in my life if I was native, I always said no simply because there was no proof. I had no documentation or anything to stand by such a claim. I still do not.

Even without "proof" I embrace the tribe I work with as it were my own. The Nation is a part of who I am and I'm proud to be a part of such a great enterprise. I no longer work on the drop team. I am now a cashier with the Nation and I hope some day to be a more integral part of the Nation. They govern themselves and do a decent job of it. Even though I am not a documented Chickasaw I am treated fairly.

With the vast changes in my life and my children's lives we are thriving. We make every day an adventure. We have learned so many things and will continue to learn so that we may grow and be everything we imagine ourselves to be.