During my middle school years, I milked goats in the morning, went to school, then rode my horse out to the pond at Black Star Canyon when ever I could. The earth there, the location, known to be haunted by the injustices of the past is part of my psyche. As a young person, I did not know the history as I do now, and thus I have come to understand that my own history is rooted there. I started writing this story when I was reminded of that place. I got a new job teaching middle school. I had a student who was very reliable and trustworthy. He was the person who I sent to the office for supplies, he was the person who would stay after and clean up the mess the other students left behind. One day I was called to a meeting by other staff members and they said “How can you possibly send him into the halls unsupervised? Don’t you know who he is? Don’t you know his family? He is the worst student at this school and we are just waiting for him to make one more mistake to expel him.” At that moment I was reminded of my middle school years and my friends who, just because they were born into a particular family, suffered the expectations of the community or the family to behave in the same pattern as their parents. This is how I see Jay and Cecelia. They were born into families, but that is not who they were. Like my student, they needed someone to give them hope to break patterns of behavior, to progress out of the chains binding them to the injustices of the past. They found each other. It takes an earthquake. It takes a grizzly bear.
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