Two years ago my daughter Spring Storm, asked me to make a buckskin shirt for her. She said she wanted dark leather, long fringe with tin cones on it and she wanted bead work with images of lightning bolts and coyotes. I promised that I would make the shirt for her.
Then I completely forgot about my promise and luckily for me, she also forgot about it.
One morning I was drinking a cup of coffee when there was a flash of lightning outside of my window followed by a crack of thunder. The lightning reminded me of the promise I made to my daughter.
Well, surely she’d forgotten about it and she couldn’t expect me to make the shirt for her. I was too old, my eyes weren’t as good as they used to be, it would cost too much, it would take too long and how often would she even wear it?
I knew none of those things mattered, what mattered and the only thing that mattered was that I’d made my daughter a promise and I hadn’t kept it.
That day I bought buckskin, beads and all the supplies I needed. I worked on it every day for two months. The shirt cost three times more than I expected, it was ten times more work than I’d expected. I made designs of coyotes and lightning bolts and I spent a lot of time pulling off beads and starting over because just “good enough” wasn’t “good enough” it had to be my best. It was possible this was the last thing like this I would make for my daughter, this would be her keepsake, something to show her heritage, an heirloom to be passed down.
I hadn’t told her I was making it, it was going to be a surprise. I started having doubts, maybe it wasn’t good enough, maybe it wasn’t what she’d wanted, maybe I’d waited too long.
She had friends visiting her the day I brought it to her. I told her I’d made something for her and then I pulled it out of the bag and held it up.
Any doubts I had vanished. She gasped, speechless and burst into tears. She was completely surprised. She threw her arms around me crushing the shirt between us.
“I can’t believe it! It’s beautiful! I never dreamed you would make this for me!”
Her friends gathered around looking at the bead work and the tin cones and real coyote teeth and real coyote claws decorating the shirt. They were saying it was “Beautiful, awesome, an heirloom.”
Spring Storm pulled on the shirt and it fit perfectly. She looked beautiful and I felt proud. I knew I’d done the best I could do and I’d kept my promise. Neither of us would forget this moment, it was priceless.
Keeping a promise is a big deal, it doesn’t matter if it is a small promise like meeting someone for coffee and being on time or if it is a big promise like promising to love someone, promising to take care of someone, promising to do your job. I promise. It’s an oath, a vow, it’s giving your word and keeping it no matter how hard, no matter the cost.
My daughter and I have always been close but I think making this shirt for her made us even closer. It is a symbol of her history, her ancestry, and it is a symbol that if I make her a promise, I will keep it.
There is an old saying that if you break a promise, you break something inside of the person you let down. That is powerful. It isn’t that you disappointed someone, or that you inconvenienced them, if you think that breaking your word breaks something inside of the person you’d given your word to it suddenly seems brutal, hurtful, cruel. We shouldn’t make promises we don’t intend to keep. Oh of course, things can happen, accidents, illness, bad weather, unexpected things get in our way, circumstances change and breaking a promise under those conditions is understandable and forgivable.
But if I’d only kept one promise in my entire life, I’m glad I kept the one I made to my daughter. Every time I remember the surprise and sheer joy on her face it makes my heart dance.
This week I promised I’d make her a beaded bracelet.
I’m working on it now.
Crying Wind is the author of Crying Wind and
My Searching Heart, When the Stars Danced, and Thunder in Our Hearts, Lightning in Our Veins. All her books are available from Indian Life.
