[For little Elza]

Last weekend, I finally moved from our house in Tucson. I got a chance to talk to my friends who have been house-sitting for me. They said that they were freaked out in the house alone because there were things moving around and doors closing when they were there. They experienced these things both in the house and separately in the house.

It made me sad to hear this. I am superstitious, I am also Lakota Sioux, and spirituality is a real thing in my culture. Spirits to us to exist and people who are passed can still, in our cultural thought and philosophy, come back and visit places they have been.

I was sad, and maybe still am sad, to think that Elza would go to the house without me. I prayed very hard before I left and burned some sage and cedar for her and asked God to make sure that she knew that her family was not in that house. I wanted her to know, and still want her to know, that her home is not here on earth, not in that house, but that it is good to come and visit me or her sisters or dad. But not return to a house where her family is no longer.

There is a sadness to leaving that house behind. I was pregnant with Elza there and she was supposed to go home to that house. I grieved my first year of loss for her in that house. All of her things were ready for her in that house but she never got to come home. I cried to leave that house behind, but I just hope her spirit knows and knew to come with me.