All my life I was taught to believe in signs from the Great Spirit. My mother would always tell me that the hawk that flew above my car as I drove down the interstate was a sign of good luck. She said to listen to the Ancestors who whispered knowledge into my mostly deaf ears.

For the longest time I never believed in what my mother said. When she asked me to join her in her Medicine Wheels and sacred circles I'd refuse and walk away into my perception of reality. I'd leave her to her magic tricks and fancy words. I'd let her pray for guidance and give thanks for the both of us.

I gave up smoking the beautiful wooden pipe that had been hand carved by a dead relative. A relative I couldn't rightly remember. I couldn't even say if I ever met them.

I gave up on offering my fortunes back to Mother Earth, but my mother would offer some of hers on my behalf.

I gave up on trying to gain a vision of wisdom from what source needed to wizen me up at any given time. I forgot the stories of the Standing People and the Rock People. I'd forgotten that they gave me strength when I held so much doubt in my mind.

I left all of it behind. I turned my back to it.

It was hard to believe anymore. It meant little to believe in tales that were not supported by the science I immersed myself into. Even though I could never fully believe in the science either because it never answered all of my questions.

I broke apart my own foundation and unwittingly let go of the strength that was fueled by that foundation. I let it go because? I could no longer believe in ancient tales of old. I had to grow up and turn into an adult with my fancy gadgets that can accomplish tasks I never need them to do.

I fell into the mainstream void, in a fake modern way of life.

My mom would still call and remind me to give my thanks. She would call and ask me to join her in the sacred circle.

She knew how important foundation could be. She believed in her visions and signs and said she was worried.

I ignored her.

Without foundation, I found life, love, and employment which are the most important things that make up this modern life.

I had the greatest love of my life. She was part of my soul and what we had wasn't perfect, but what we had was real. It was love at first sight. It was fireworks and rainbows. It was everything I never knew I could have and could get without bothering to pay respect to my ancestors.

And now, I wish I had done differently. I wish I had paid attention to my mother's ramblings about signs and I wish I had learned what the carving on my family's sacred pipe meant.

We were celebrating our second anniversary, my lover and I. We had talked of having a family. We both wanted kids. She said she wanted a boy because she had always wanted to raise a strong man.

I said I wanted a little girl. I told her I'd be a great role model because I'm an educated, confident, minority woman who chose who I was going to be in this world. I dictated to it what I was going to have out of life. I could teach that to our daughter. I could teach her to ignore the images in the media and the voices of people who don't care about much except profit.

She smiled as I went on and rambled about the world and injustice. She smiled indulgently and let me get carried away with my words. She only asked me to calm down when I could no longer articulate any word without stuttering.

We were out that night celebrating our lives and our futures.

I was happy. I was so happy.

Then what my mind told me would never happen to me actually happened. I don't think the accident was anyone's fault. The weather was bad and the traffic lights had stopped working.

So now I'm here. I'm here waiting for a miracle. I'm waiting to be able to look up at my mom instead of down at her and my broken body, while my love sits helpless in the corner of the room.

I'm ready now to stop listening to my mother praying for my life. She's been good to all you God types. She honors the moon, the Mother, the Father, the Great Spirit. She's done everything she was supposed to. Why punish her by punishing me?

I remember when I was a young girl and my mother took me to the mountains. With friends we sat around a fire and they spoke in a language I couldn't understand. They did their rituals which were so terribly foreign to me. They were different and they were fun, and with them I believed.

Years later I remember sitting in my home with my mother, doing the last circle I would ever do. I remember a vision of a man made of stone coming to me from a mountain. I was not afraid of him. His presence was comforting.

He looked down at me and said, "You can let go. It's okay to let it go."

I had no idea what he meant. I had nothing to let go. I had nothing I was holding onto.

"What do you mean?" I asked him. "Let go of what?"

He lifted his massive arm and suddenly a dirt road appeared in front of me. "Go," he said, "walk your path and cross the river."

It was only a severe hallucination, what could it hurt going down a road to a river? My body was safe from harm.

So I went down to the river and I crossed it. On the other side was an old woman beading. She was making a bracelet. It was beautiful.

She looked up at me for a short moment then continued her beading. She wasn't going to initiate conversation.

There was a convenient rock resting beside her and I took a seat.

"I don't have the patience for that," I said.

"You have no patience at all," she replied. "You have no patience for life, for love, for family. You want to run to the end of the trail before you realize there was ever a beginning."

What could I say to that? It's hard to argue with a vision. Visions can be stubborn representations of the truth.

"You get so busy chasing life you forget to stop and feel it. You forget to hold onto the things that mean anything to you. As a matter of fact," she threw down her beadwork and started waving her arm wildly, "go away. Go back to running."

Then just like that, I broke out of my daze and started crying. I cried in my mother's arms for what seemed like forever, and when I had stopped crying I vowed that this whole thing was a waste of my time.

I guess now I don't have anything but time.

Okay, so I have the will to live. I have the want to live. I have reasons to live. I don't know what else I need.

"You should let go," I recognize that voice. "It's okay to let it go."

Still I don't know what the rock is speaking about. "I don't know what there is to let go of!" I yell back. "I don't have any control here. I don't have any say."

"It's okay to let it go." The voice says again and I'm more convinced than ever that none of this can be real. It wouldn't be fair if this was really happening to me now.

I can hear the voices around me again. My mother is still praying calling on my Ancestors to guide me back to her. My lover is praying as well, to her own god. I've got all kinds of higher powers being called to for my benefit.

"Help me," I beg whatever it is that has been telling me things. "Please."

My breathing is drowning out the sounds of the prayers that are surrounding me. The soft beeping of the machines is starting to talk to me in a language I'm beginning to understand.

The first beep is telling me I'm still alive.

The second is telling me I'm still alive.

The third is telling me I'm still alive.

"It's okay to let it go."

The fourth is telling me I'm still alive.

"You want to run to the end of the trail before you realize there was ever a beginning."

Beep five. I'm still here.

"No patience for life."

The sixth beep comes and I no longer can hear my mother's prayers and can no longer feel my lover's hand resting on my own.

"Now look at you. You're still running."

I'm feeling a little dizzy and somehow I'm starting to feel a little faint. It's like I'm falling down. It's getting hard to breath and I'm desperately hoping that I just get one more chance to hear the stupid beep that will tell me that I'm still alive.

"This is your trail."

The beep comes for the seventh time but it's nothing like any of the others. There's lights flashing and I can feel movement all around me.

"Give me it back!" I yell and there's so many things going on now. "Don't take it all away!"

My reality is getting blurry and for the first time I'm starting to feel alone. The vision I'm looking down on is fading. My mother and my lover and my body disappear. There's no longer a hospital room and no longer any beeps.

It's only me now. It's only my voice in my head and only my labored breaths, and suddenly I understand what the Rock was telling me all those years ago.

It's okay to give up my control. It's okay to have my Faith even if it does set me apart from other people around me. It's okay for me to believe in the Standing People and the Rock People and my Mother Earth and my Father Sky.

It's okay to believe in the signs that the animals around me show to me.

It's okay to not have control of everything, which means that all this that is happening now is okay too.

The Spirits of the East, the spirits of the North the West and South, I welcome you. All that is above, and below and all that is in between, I welcome you.