Guest Blog From Jackie – Introduction

Ani has invited me to post something on his blog. It has taken me awhile to figure out how to do this, what to say, what to talk about. I am very proud of Ani for going ahead and putting this blog out there. It takes a lot of courage to tell the world one’s story, especially when you know that the reception could very well be negative. I give Ani a lot of credit for doing this.

As Ani says, we have had a somewhat confusing relationship over the last 27 years. It doesn’t fit neatly into any one category. It has always been “friend”, but it has also always been something “more than friend”. It has gone very deep for both of us. It has spanned the generations of his family and mine, of how his family has come to live on a reservation that my family clearly benefits from and what our awareness of that fact means to us on a daily basis. It spans all of the ages and stages between us, from infancy through adulthood, and enriches our understandings of our own make-up as we see some amazing similarities in temperament and values reflected in how we each reacted to things at all of these ages. Knowing Ani has taught me more about my own family, my own history, my own personality than any other relationship I’ve had. Knowing Ani has brought me a steadfast friend. Knowing Ani has enriched my life and made me a better person.

As Ani embarks on this journey to describe himself to the world and in so doing describe himself to himself, I wish him well. I will attempt to bring another perspective to his travels, at times a very different perspective. And we will just let that be what it is without arguing about what’s right or what’s wrong. Every person naturally sees life from a different perspective and there is great richness and wisdom in acknowledging that truth and learning to benefit from it. However, since this is Ani’s blog, anything that I have written here will have been first cleared by him. I encourage him to disagree and to share his own perspective on anything I talk about.