Lonely
Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to let you in.
Robert Frost
My dad, who spent the last 20 years of his working life after he retired from the Air Force as a family therapist, had been sitting in uncommon silence staring into space one evening just before I left for college. When he spoke, I figured he was going to give me some sage advice about my future at BYU. Instead he said, “You know, I can help people with almost any kind of problem they face–except loneliness. There is nothing I can do for lonely.” I was young, on the cusp of adventure, and I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Oddly enough, those words stuck in my mind, sending an unconscious chill through me whenever they flitted to the surface.
Dad’s next-to-last military assignment had been at the National Security Agency in Baltimore—a high stakes/high stress job, and as a reward, the powers that be at the Pentagon let him pick where he wanted to go for his final duty station. It wasn’t even a toss-up; he and my mom unanimously voted for the best food in the country and chose a second tour at Kirkland Air Force Base in Albuquerque.
By then I was a newly married college graduate. When we finally could afford a vacation to visit my parents, my dad had been called as the Bishop of the University of New Mexico Student Ward. We went to church on Sunday; one thing led to another; and we became fast friends with a stellar young couple at whose wedding my dad eventually presided. A few years and a couple of kids later, my husband and that couple connected with some folks at the Navajo Nation who wanted a restaurant/meeting center in the tribal headquarters at Crownpoint, New Mexico. (My husband had managed a Kentucky Fried Chicken for a year or two, so he had the experience they needed.)
The tribal elders built the restaurant; they hired our two husbands to run it. My husband and I brought a used mobile home (actually 3 bedrooms and 2 baths—bigger than any apartment we ever lived in), had it transported from Albuquerque, and literally dumped onto a spot of arid desert in the middle of nowhere about two miles from the restaurant the tribe had erected. (Even to this day, I have no idea if anyone actually owned the property, or if it was just within Bureau of Land Management boundaries, and nobody cared that we squatted on it.) Our friends also had a mobile home nearby, but they didn’t have any kids yet. Plus, she worked for an airline in Albuquerque, so she wasn’t on the reservation very often.
I had a twenty-month-old and a two-month-old. My husband worked an average of 12 hours a day, seven days-a-week just to keep the restaurant afloat. There were no television translators—the mountains around us were spectacular viewing, but far too formidable to justify the cost of bringing TV stations to Crownpoint. Only a single radio station reached that far—and it was in the Navajo language. I had packed with us a dozen music tapes and about 20 books—most of which I’d already read. Our single car spent most of its time running supplies for the restaurant from the nearest big town—Gallup, so I had no transportation. The closest neighbor—I could see their mobile home, but it was a considerable walk—turned out to be the local seminary teacher (he was Polynesian, his wife Anglo, and their children—each one absolutely gorgeous!), who taught weekdays in the building which served as our small chapel on Sundays.
One thing that struck me immediately was distance. Most residents of the area owned trucks—with good reason; hundreds of dirt tracks crisscrossed the reservation, and it was considered very bad manners to be driving along a muddy lane and not offer a ride to a to a lone member of the tribe–or more likely a family–who had already walked so far, no hogan was visible in the skyline and whose destination may or may not be in the direction you were headed. Instead, they would just climb in the back of the truck and ride till your path took them closer to their goal. (Even as a military child facing a new school every other year, I could never have conceived of the isolation of such a life.)
Most dwellings on the reservation were so remote, they had no access to water or electricity. Though I lived there almost 50 years ago, the lack of such basic life conveniences has finally attracted some notice from national politicians who recently passed a huge omnibus bill, one very small section of which allocated funds to help bring a small portion of America’s first citizens into the 21st century. Finally.
No phone. No friends. No TV, radio, or media of any kind. Nowhere to go. Just me and my little people–but they weren’t much for conversation–yet. Once a week we went to church. It was maybe 3/4 -mile or so on a rutted road to the chapel—which took a while pushing two kids in a stroller. It was bitter cold in the winter, muddy in the spring, scorching in the summer. A herd of cattle roamed regularly along the track. They were very good-natured about sharing the thoroughfare, but time wasn’t really an issue. Even when I was a half-hour late, I was early. I discovered something I could never have imaged in my rigidly structured youth—Navajos did not follow military time.
But I went to church every week because there, at least, I wasn’t alone. Those good people didn’t blink when a young white girl and her two crying children interrupted Sacrament meeting. The mothers welcomed me. They were patient; they smiled; they held my children. Most only spoke a few words of English; it was enough to make me feel welcome. And safe.
Once the Relief Society sponsored a Branch dinner. I was very proud of the jello salad I had made to contribute. Dinner was scheduled at 6. The main course finally arrived about 7, but the silverware didn’t come till 9. By then, my children were done, so I had already left. The Relief Society president brought the uneaten salad back to my trailer. Turns out Navajos weren’t fond of jello. I remember bursting into tears. But there was no phone service on most of the reservation, and even if there had been, long distance charges for the comfort of my mother’s voice would have cost of fortune.
Less than a year later, my husband almost died of pneumonia from exhaustion and overwork. He collapsed at the restaurant with a spiking fever of 104°. The local BIA hospital only treated Native Americans, no matter how life-threatening the conditions were. In our little VW I raced my husband to an Albuquerque hospital 120 miles away–my two-year-old in the back seat playing, my husband holding the baby on his lap. Unfortunately, he kept passing out, and I’d have to nudge him awake before the baby rolled onto the floor.
The local Baptist missionary had called ahead (by ham radio) to my parents so they could meet me at the emergency room and take my children to their house. It was two weeks of intensive care before my husband was well enough to leave the hospital. Late one of those long nights when my baby had been unable to sleep, as I was sitting in the rocking chair in my parents’ darkened living room, I heard my dad’s voice of long ago echo in my head. “I can help people with almost any kind of problem they face–except loneliness. There is nothing I can do for lonely.”
I understood at last. Only good people can help lonely.