January 21

I’ll always remember that date. We used to invite our entire building to the hockey games for a huge group activity during the hockey season. My sisters were a little shier than I was, so I was usually the one put on “call duty”- calling everyone in the building and inviting them to the game. That night we all met at our apartment to divide up into groups and carpool to the game. One guy from the building had it in his head that my invitation to the game had been a personal date invitation! Oops! I didn’t want to lose a potential fan by setting him straight, so I played along. I began to be worried when he insisted on driving my mini-group, opening the front passenger door for me and claiming a seat next to me at the game. None of that mattered the second I saw the puck hit Jaxon. Jaxon was a true freshman trying to stake his place on the first string of the hockey team. He’d gone down to block a slapshot during the last few seconds of a penalty kill. He managed to skate back to the bench, collapsing head-first into it. I spent the rest of that night surrounded by family and friends, praying that our friend would recover. He never did. The hospital pronounced him dead on arrival.

I attempted to deal with my grief by altering an English assignment about consumer “branding” into a personal obituary for my friend. Click here to view the essay. My professor, while sympathetic, was not impressed. Thankfully he allowed me to correctly complete the assignment without penalty. The essay about Jaxon is one of the most honest pieces I’ve ever written. 

The Outsider Finds Solace in the Masses

It took me a long time to appreciate growing up always on the outside. Not belonging to any particular group gave me the freedom to become whatever I wanted later in life. When I entered University in the States, I wasn’t limited by a certain identity or type of friend. I was free to pursue interests I’d never known existed. No longer did I feel embarrassed for “being Native but not looking it”. I floated easily between cultural groups- always accepted. My unique features made it difficult to place me in a single category and instead of being excluded, I found myself accepted in each of them. I found I could finally accept and feel peace with my cultural identity, rather than shame. I began to volunteer with the cultural youth groups and found a job mentoring Native American high school students in southern Utah and Arizona. I was very active in many cultural groups on campus and I had friends of every color and ethnicity imaginable.

I'd grown up playing pond hockey with my brothers and cousins. At University I had the opportunity to play organized women’s hockey. My brother also played for the men’s team. My family and I were big supporters of the hockey team and helped to grow their fan base. During my third year of college, I was living with my older and younger sister in a large apartment building.