The prayer I neither sought nor expected

Roy Nageak said a prayer for me tonight. That was not why I stopped by to see him. I did not seek a prayer. The thought to seek a prayer would never have occurred to me. I just dropped in to see him and Flossie because whenever I show up at their house they always make me feel at home, I knew my good friend Chie would want to see a picture of them and I wanted to hear whatever stories and history they might relate to me. So I stopped in, they fed me, and then Roy told me some good history from up here and down into the Brooks Range mountains.

I had another commitment and all too soon it was time to leave. I told them I expected to come back in late February, assuming that the surgery I was supposed to get months ago but now absolutely must have no later than early January actually happens and I recover in the three-week time period the doctor says I will. Roy offered to say a prayer for me, so I agreed. He then stood beside me, put his strong arm around me, and he said a prayer for me, one filled with great warmth and love.

I am not a religious man, but there was something special in Roy's prayer, something I felt all the way through my body and into my soul. It felt good. I left feeling all would go well and that as big and physically challenging as is the multi-year task that lies before me here in the Arctic, I will ultimately succeed.

The little one with Roy and Flossie is their grandson Ruben Roy, named both for his father and his grandfather. Dr. Chie Sakabara, originally of Japan, now a young wife and new mother, professor at the University of Oklahoma, adopted by Barrow and the North Slope and by Roy and Flossie Nageak as their daughter - this snapshot is for you.