Dinner with Leroy Oenga Jr. and family, part 1 of 7: When you hear the traditional Iñupiat drum, you hear the sound of the bowhead whale

On Thursday, those who read my blog met Leroy Oenga Jr. and learned how his mother refused to pull the plug on him when the doctors told her it was time, but prayed and sang hymns for him instead. Leroy invited me over for dinner with his family this afternoon. He had heard his mother, Caroline Cannon, call me, "my brother," so now he calls me "uncle" and I call him "nephew," and her, "sister." Leroy is a Dallas Cowboys fan and was catching up on the day's football scores when I arrived.

Very shortly, he pulled out a new drum Joe Sage had made for him. The skin cover came from the liver membrane of a bowhead whale landed this fall by Edward Itta and crew. When you hear Iñupiat people singing and dancing to the beat of traditional drums made in this way you literally hear the sound of the bowhead whale. 

Leroy – whose mother sang hymns to him as he lay comatose – observes his wife and young daughter

On August 16, I put up a post of Caroline Cannon of Point Hope singing at a Singspiration in Nuiqsut, with one hand raised in praise and a cross on the wall behind her. She had just related the story of how two years ago her son Leroy Oenga had been comatose in the hospital and how the doctors told her he was brain-dead and she should pull the plug. Instead, she sang the same song to him she sung that night in Nuiqsut and she prayed for him. I mentioned that I had seen her son in his comatose state and had felt so bad for the two of them, as it truly appeared hopeless. Yet he recovered.

That's Leroy on the left, observing his wife Clara and young daughter Freda earlier today at The ICC food security meeting I mentioned in my previous post. I spoke with him and he was feeling good, he seemed happy and in good spirits. I really haven't set out on a quest to document miraculous healings as it almost appears from this and my story on Joe two days ago. It just happened that these two stories both presented themselves to me in this very short time period.

Text added at 9:49 PM. The Squarespace nightmare continues - day 54 and counting.