The word is "iyyikowa"

I don't really know if I'm a glass half empty or a glass half full kinda gal. It depends on how hungry I am, and if by glass, you mean plate of french fries.

It's situational, you know?

But I do tend, at least, to hope for the best in people. I know we're capable of it, that's for sure. Like me though, I think most people's generosity, kindness, their iyyikowa (if you will) is situational. Which brings me to this amazing chunk of human kindness my boyfriends mom shared with me this morning.

This photo is re-posted from a story The Guardian reported two days ago, which is just one example of the many selfless and kind acts of giving that humans all over the planet have been engaged in since the Covid-19 crisis began sweeping the planet back in December, like a giant, germ filled tsunami. I know here in Asheville, for example, BF and I regularly partake of the free food offered by Grassroots Aid Partnership, a national nonprofit that provides free, healthy, meals wherever natural disaster strikes.

But back to the photo.

This aforementioned article is unique in that it highlights a relationship that arose in 1847 when Ireland, suffering its own horrifying crisis in the form of the potato famine, received $170 in emergency relief funds from the Choctaw Nation. An act of kindness that is now being remembered 150 years later as donations to the GoFundMe set up to collect relief funds for the devastated Navajo and Hopi tribes pour in from Ireland. But I'll let you go read that story for yourself, it's a super tear jerker.

The reason I'm bringing it up though, is because we talk a lot about global community and tolerance and support and blah blah blah. When I was a kid back in Sequim Wa, we had a park dedicated to our sister city in Japan, who followed suit, and we all had a big celebration patting ourselves on the back for creating inroads of connection and relationship and respect. I'm curious if my hometown gathered as a city to provide relief for the citizens of Okuma when the Fukushima nuclear disaster hit. I'm guessing they did not.

Now Sequim, before you get your panties in a bunch, I'm not criticizing you at all. There are sister city programs all over the globe and they do create understanding and connection and all that jive. But there's something special that happens. There's something powerful that arises when we take on another's burden as our own. When we walk past a man, chilling on the side of the road half dead after a brutal robbery, put him on our donkey, take him to the inn, then pay out of pocket for his recovery (for you non Christian folk, I'm referring to the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10). One aspect of that story that often gets overlooked though, is the racial one. The man on the side of the road was Jewish and the Samaritan was...well dude, he was a Samaritan. I don't really have time to unpack all that (plus it's not necessary) but what it highlights is the story of someone from a totally different tribe, totally different culture, saying, "your suffering really doesn't have anything to do with me, but I see it, and I care." The Choctaw nation, fresh off the Trail of Tears, saw the suffering of a tribe thousands of miles away. A suffering that in no way touched them, not even a little bit.

And their hearts broke.

And they did something about it.

The Choctaw word for this act of selfless giving is "iyyikowa" and I wanna get it tattooed on my forehead (I won't, that's cultural appropriation). They had no expectation of return when they gave that money to Ireland, and in fact, were in poverty themselves when the did it. And here it is, reaping a bountiful harvest all these years later.

Not that payback is the goal, but it is the power of love. It is the powerful connection that arises when we take each other's burdens and make them our own.

When my plate of french fries is only half full and I give some to you anyway, even though I'm starving.

I'm not good at it yet. I walk past folks with signs saying "please help" all the time and do nothing. I cling to my restaurant leftovers, and find that my own generosity is directly linked to the level of overflow I am currently experiencing. And that's why this story hit me right in the feels.

My mother lives and works on the Navajo nation in Arizona as a nurse practitioner. I worry about her a lot. Though the tribe has moved her to telehealth in an effort to protect her (she's super healthy, but in her 60's), she is surrounded by the devastation her community is suffering, and doing her best to put her hand to the plow.

I am humbled. I am absolutely floored. I cannot believe what a mighty harvest that $170 seed has produced. A harvest so big, it spills out and covers even more than the Navajo people. It covers a little white lady working in the hospital, working in the community (she is actually Irish, but that's not the point). Their generosity covers my mother, when I on the other side of the country, cannot.

Thank you Ireland. I owe you one.