Younger Brother (4:43)
Spoot. As a child, I was going to church there. Cherokee County. It was a traditional Cherokee church. Services were held in Cherokee and English. The bell rung that's when you knew church was beginning. You entered the church from the back. The men sit on the left side and the women sit on the right side. When I was 12, it was time for me to sit on the men's side. And though I wanted to be on the other side with mom and my grandma, it was quite a different experience as I sat there next to my grandpa listening and singing the songs. He was a strong song leader. Right outside this new church building, there used to be an older church. The building itself hasn't been there since the 1970s, but I have heard it described so many times. I can tell you what it looked like was an old one room church with a double door and the lock where you had to use a skeleton key. They didn't need anything fancy to worship God. It was basically a meeting place. What remains of it is just the foundation. It was stones picked up from the yard put together with cement. I would walk that foundation along with many of my cousins and many of my friends. Back then, at family gatherings, storytelling was always the last part of any gathering. Many of the stories that were told were skeeley stories or boogerman stories, and even some about our old church. I asked many of the elders of the church if they knew anything about the old church. I got tidbits here and there, but there weren't too many of those that even entertained the idea of the supernatural around the churchyard. But this elder man, he seemed to know just a bit more. I was in my late teens and we were at a church gathering. And this older gentleman, he was a part of my extended family, he pulled me aside. He said, I've been watching you. He said, I've been listening to the questions that you've been asking. I was waiting to find someone just like you. He began to share the story of the old church. He said, that's where we used to be. That place is still there. Even though that building is not there, that's still part of that spiritual world. Because in our world as Cherokee people, there's no separation between the spirit world and our natural world. The old legend says that you can step on those steps, that you can actually reach out and grab that door handle, that you can actually open that door and step inside. I began to laugh because the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I'm overcome with excitement. And so I asked him, I said, have you opened that door? He said, no, I just couldn't bring myself to it. He said, but I did grab the doorknob So I knew that it was possible. I asked him, can you go inside? He said, they say you can, but I can't tell you if you can come back through. He said, there's something in you that tells me that you might be able to go just a little bit further than I did. As I got a little older, I began to explore those things. And now here I am, a 20 year old, new to fatherhood, wondering about that rectangle in the ground. Somewhere around 2, 3 o'clock in the morning, a friend and I pulled into the church. It was like coming through a veil. The air was heavier. There was a mist about everything. It was a full moon. There in front of me was the old foundation, like a rectangle in the ground. Beyond the old foundation I could see the old headstones from my family cemetery in the background. As I got out of the car, I came around to the passenger side and my friend got out. And we stood there wondering what we were going to do. Is this safe? She kept reminding me that I've got a family, I've got a young son that's dependent on me. She tried to talk me out of it. She continued to remind me in our Cherokee traditions, whenever we embark in a journey such as this, the consequences can be life or death. I knew I was going to do it. My heart and my mind were in a good place. They were in a place of learning. They were in a place of study. I just want you to know if I could. She had decided that she wasn't going to do anything. She said, I'm going to be sitting right here. I'll wait on you. I'll wait on you till I get scared and then I'm out of here. But she said, I'll wait here as long as I can. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if this is going to be for real. I don't know if I'm going to take a step and fall down and bump my head. I pray for safety. I pray for an understanding because I want everything to be alright. I walked across the churchyard to the old foundation that I'd played on many times. As I began to look around, I noticed the air was different. I could see it. I see it swirling around me. I see it almost in slow motion. It kind of had that how they explain sound waves traveling, you know, how they have that warped look to them. That's the way the air looked. And in my mind I see the church, the walls of the building. I can see the Paint peeling and the cracked windows. The front step, the front door, the one that used the skeleton key. I see all of this in my mind's eye as I stood there in front of that foundation of that old church. I looked back and I waved to my friend. I smiled and I turned to face the church. I raised my foot up and I placed it where that first step would have been. And I stepped on a step. I know that I'm stepping on mid air. My mind was racing. My heart was beating so hard I could feel. I could feel it in my neck. The first step was done. I summed up the courage to lift my other foot. And I stepped on another step. I was giggling nervously. As I took another step. I knew I was standing on that landing. With confidence, I reached out and I grabbed the door handle. I could feel its firmness in my hand, that cold steel. Even though I know that when I grab that doorknob, I am grabbing midair. It gave me such an eerie feeling. I didn't know whether to giggle or cry. My heartbeat was now in my head, my throat, my arms and my legs. My entire body was a heartbeat. My mind racing, trying to tell my body to get out of there. But my stubbornness saying, go ahead, turn that doorknob. And so I turned the doorknob. All these emotions run through my mind, through my body, and begin to mix up. I feel turmoil even. Am I doing the right thing? I remember the old man telling me that as far as he could go was to grab that door handle. And then he jumped off. So I pushed that door just a little bit and it moved. Oh, my goodness, that door moved. I pushed just a little bit more, and a bright light came flooding through that crack. It was a white yellowish light, beautiful, yet very soft. And as I opened that door, I could hear somebody on the other side. Not just one, not just two, but many. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up, the goosebumps all over my arms. But I wanted to hear and I wanted to see more. And so I pushed the door open just a little bit more. My eyes are open with amazement. I can see the pews, all those old homemade pews made with sawmill lumber, one by fours. And I see the backs of people's heads. I see an older man sitting there, dressed in his overalls, his white pressed dress shirt. And I see the ladies with their calico dresses on, kerchiefs on their head. The smells of grandmas and grandpas, spearmint gum and candy. They never acknowledged me as far As I know no one knew. I opened the door. Then I hear the voices. Oh my goodness. Voices that I had not heard in a long time. I heard my family singing. I heard the voices of my aunties and uncles past. My uncle Bill, my aunt Hannah Wade, many that had already gone on. The ones that I grew up with, the ones that I knew. I could hear their distinct voices lead our Cherokee hymns. I hear my grandpa. Oh, how strong his voice was. I could hear the song. I knew that song sa. Oh, how beautiful that sounded. I knew that they weren't living. Yet here I was. I was hearing them. I wanted to be there with them. I wanted to sit in the pews with them and sing like I did when I was a child. And true, I do miss them. But I was caught in a dilemma. You see, the old man, he told me, you can step through to the other side, he said, but I don't know if you can come back. As I opened that door just a little bit more, what was I going to do? What would you do? Was I seeing the light? Because they say that once you go to the light, you can't come back. Was this relevant to death? Or was this just visiting a place and being able to come back home? I want it so bad to be there on the other side with them. But what if I couldn't go back to my son? All of a sudden, the courage that I had summed up vanished. I slammed that door and I jumped off of that landing. I landed on the ground and I rolled. I never looked back. I never looked to see even if the church building was there or if the light was still shining. When I jumped up off the ground, I ran towards the car and my friend, friend had already ran around to the driver's side. I jumped into the car while the car was rolling, I almost got left there. We drove like we had stole something. We just kind of drive in silence. Did that really just happen? We got to the creek, we pulled over, still shaking from the experience and composed ourselves, got out of the car and walked around. I walked down to the creek, splashed my faced with that cold water to wake up. She asked me, where did you go? I said, what do you mean? She said, you disappeared? I said, I disappeared? She said, yeah. When I saw you raise up your foot, that was the last time that I saw you. You smiled and you waved, and when you put that foot down, you disappeared. She said, do you realize that you've been gone almost four hours? Unbelievable. To me, it only seemed like a blink of an Eye like a few minutes had passed, maybe 10 minutes. I said, why did you wait four hours? She said, because I couldn't bear the thought that I was leaving that grounds without you. You had a son. You had family. What was I going to tell them if I came home without you? She said, I was so frightened. The next time I saw you was when you came jumping out of midair. When I ran around the car to get into the driver's side, I wasn't even worried about you. I was worried about getting out of there. Because whatever had grabbed you, I didn't want it to grab me either. We laughed about it nervously, and I told her about the experience that I had just had. She was in disbelief because she just didn't understand. We get back in the car and drive home in silence. We don't ever speak of it. I'd be lying to you if I told you I hadn't tried it again. I've tried to go back several times, but. But I was never able to step on that step again. Maybe it's because I was there for a different purpose. My heart wasn't right, my mind wasn't right. Maybe one of these days I'll hear somebody that actually stepped through and came back. If I were to ever get the chance again, I often wonder, what would I do different? I've lived a wonderful life, got wonderful family. But I believe that if given the chance, when I pushed that door open, I would step through and find my place there among the elders and sit down and sing. We gone Night Night would not. Auntie would need Lo I Ouijiga Te.
