U huk witas hluucsma, Gloria

Tuesday was pretty weird, anyway.  It started with Community Policing, even though it wasn't *supposed* to start with Community Policing, because some people didn't show, and some were late.  And then I had to race back to do the podcast, which ended up being about Community Policing.  And, because of the way things developed, I ended up doing *my* side of Stamp solo (in the freezing cold), and potting *two* speeders doing 75 kmph just on the speedboard alone.  (I took statistics on 737 cars within about an hour.)

So I was already pretty tired when it was time for language class.

We are working, in language class, on basic introductions.  Not just saying your name, but, in the style of the First Nations, identifying where you are from, and who your relations are.  (I'm not sure that, like the Welsh bards of old, we will need to go back nine generations.  However, I already know that we will need to go breadth-first, and extend to a wide family circle.)

But all of that is still to come.  We are, very slowly, working still in pretty immediate circumstances.  We have, previously, covered mother and father.  Today we were working more on where you are from.  We had covered that previously, but this was a bit of a repeat.

And then they decided to throw in something new.  Your spouse.

The thing is, when they had covered parents, they hadn't really stressed the difference between "u huk wa," if your relative is living, and "u huk witas," if your relative is dead.

And then there was the fact that most of those in attendance were women, and had a "chakup," or husband (all of them still living).  And the only other guy had a "hluucsma," or wife--who was still living.  So I had to figure out "u huk witas hluucsma, Gloria" all by myself.

I have had three years to get used to the fact that Gloria is dead.  I have, for over three years, identified myself as a grieving widower.  I don't hide the fact.  So how and why is it that figuring out, in class, how to say that in the Nuu-chah-nulth language is so emotionally fraught?

I assume that O'Connor would say that I am using different neural pathways.  Not even necessarily storing the new vocabulary and syntax of the language, but using the parts of the brain necessary to do the analysis necessary to build coherent sentences in a new language.  But that seems a facile explanation in regard to the strength of this reaction.  And it wasn't just a grief burst, either.  It was some massive impact on all cognitive functions, that seemed to make *any* kind of thinking a real effort.  I think I lost pretty much all the other vocabulary we were taught in the lesson.  I'm pretty sure I've forgotten how to say where I'm from.  (I still remember "wikaah chachimhiy.")

(The fact that I am in a really *deep* depression, at the moment, and that *everything* is an enormous effort, possibly didn't help.)

Part of my reaction may have been because I did all of that work, in the midst of some significant emotional turmoil, and, basically, nobody cared.  (I mean, why should they?)  Maybe it was because the situation demonstrated, once again, that I was entirely alone.  (So far, anybody to whom I have told this hasn't cared.)

It was really weird.

And you still wonder why I wish I was dead?