Frank was accorded the same respect any elder would have earned. The fact that he was different made no difference at all. The elder who performed the ceremony told us that everyone is here for a reason, everyone has a purpose. Developmental delays, seizures, gay, lesbian, short and tall, everyone is here to teach us. In many ways his childlike view of the world was naïve, but is really a reminder that we do need to see the world as fresh and new sometimes. Buying car insurance and making house payments changes us somehow. Life makes us forget to look up at the night sky and we forget to lose ourselves in bad movies and fast wrestling moves.Dr. Arne Vainio
In the Spirit of Medicine features the essays of Dr. Arne Vainio, an enrolled member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and a family practice doctor on the Fond Du Lac reservation in Cloquet.
