My 'Papa' the late Alfred Padilla Yazzie Sr.

Alfred Padilla Yazzie Sr. at Chaco Canyon wash, NM
Photo credit Venaya Yazzie 2016
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When I was born my maternal grandfather, who would legally adopted me, slept outside in the pickup at the Shiprock Indian Hospital. After midnight on September 26 I entered this world. My grandmother ran outside of the hospital to carry the news to my 'papa' that I was born.

This is the best story I have ever heard. As an adult I still love to hear my grandmother tell it to me.

All day today I felt my late 'papa's' presence strong - so I share this expression as a way of paying respect to a great man.

This man was a great person. He was a strong soul who worked hard to provide a good life for his wife and children, and too for me. I am so grateful for him for loving me, and for taking me into his arms and caring for me as his own 'daughter' when my mother was not able to do so. Since that early morning in the old Shiprock IHS, I imagine  he looked at me through the glass wall, my life has been anything but usual.

As I grew I watched my 'papa' and admired him for his work ethic, and too for his caring way in which he always helped his extended family any way he could. This man was a great singer of traditional Navajo songs, and he had the most beautyful voice! I had the blessing to hear him sing his songs, and now wish I could hear them again...

Oh how I miss this man in my life. He was my strong tower when I was weak and weary from this crazy world. For I knew he was there at his home he built on the southside of town, always willing to be a rock for me to lean on.

I captured this photo of him about ten years ago when I took him back 'home' to the place where he grew up, the area of Chaco wash in New Mexico. The old stone home his father built was still there and it was there in the 21st century that he told me many stories of his childhood. Papa was born in 1927 there at the Chaco homestead and he had many brothers and two sisters. This image is about his happiness to see this home again after many years and in the background is the spring run off of Chaco wash. My 'papa' was a Navajo of the water clan of people, called To'ahedleeni, or 'waters flow together' clan, he was from a strong line of desert dwellers.

Its been three years since he left this earth, and I miss him the same as I did the day he passed. But, his legacy of goodness to the fellow man lives on in me.

RIP Alfred Padilla Yazzie Sr.