Family ties

Went to Oklahoma this week.  First time I’d been there.  It was – well, interesting.  Hot and humid.  Cicadas so loud.  Road construction everywhere.  The hotel room’s bathroom sink never drained properly.  I kept waking up at 3 a.m. every night.  My husband met his potential family for the first time.  He had been adopted as a child from Korea.  In his 60s, he did a DNA test and discovered he was also Native American and that he had living relatives.  After months of searching online which led to multiple phone calls talking to cousins and a potential brother, we made the trip so he and his brother could take a DNA test at the Choctaw Nation.   We’ll know the results this week.  I’ve listened to a multitude of family stories and the only thing I’ve concluded is anger could be genetic.  Sounds like back in the day, Oklahoma was very rugged and wild when it came to justice.  Anyway, too many stories swirling in my head.  Now that I have more names, I might try to locate old newspaper stories if I can.  But because these were Indians, the local newspapers may not have covered all of the events that happened.  Hard to say.  I took a few courses in college covering Native Americans, trail of tears, historical info — but what I heard made those classes seem so watered down.  I can remember my husband telling me a very long time ago when I was attempting to tell him how horrible the American government had treated the Native Americans something his father told him – that the Indians were a conquered people and the American government treated them fairly.  He thought his father was very wise.  At the time, I was shocked at that viewpoint.  It was one of those – what the hell – moments.  I recently reminded him what he told me then.  I bet my husband is re-thinking what his adoptive father taught him.