A yes to a request

I’m still trying to catch up with all the mail that arrived while we were away in Western New York.

There are many wonderful and moving letters. One of them, though, touched me.

It was a letter from a Native American who wants to play me.

John Irons is an Iroquois. A Seneca, to be exact – a tribe, that coincidentally, once dominated Western New York.

He now lives in Billings Montana.

He has been asked to play me at the Christmas Party and for the children’s ward in the hospital where he is a nurse.

“My people have a tradition,” he wrote. “A storyteller seeks permission to tell a story he learned form another storyteller. This is especially true when he is telling a story from another people.

“So in that tradition, I ask permission to play you, and to tell your story. I will tell the true story, and some of the stories that have grown about you.”

He also told me of his life. He is in his 50s, a Vietnam veteran who drifted for a time into drink and drugs. He then found nursing. He also rediscovered his own roots. And he rediscovered his Catholic faith.

A resurrection of sorts.

I was touched by his story, and his humbleness in asking permission to play me.

I have already written him back.

Of course he may play me. He may tell my stories. He may help to create more stories about me.

I would be honored.