(By Kevin)

When my friend and coworker of about eight years, Scott, was a teenager, his dad was a Baptist minister and missionary to the Seminole Indians in Hollywood, Florida.

The Seminoles respected him so much that they gave him a ring they had made for him, and a couple of years ago, Scott gave the ring to me.

Silver with turquoise and jadeite stones, the ring is engraved with a badger claw on either side.

At first, I thought they were bear claws, but when I pulled the ring out of my drawer back in January, I started doing a little more research and realized the paws are much longer than a bear’s. Definitely badger.

According to Native American tradition, badgers represent passion, courage, leadership, health and strength.

Scott didn’t know why the Seminoles chose to make this particular ring for his father. Since much like Catholics, Native Americans see meaning in everything they do, though, it seems likely that it was because his father represented the qualities they saw in the badger.

Looking into the ring’s significance also spurred me to ask my grandmother about my own Native American ancestry. She told me that Loudema Shelton, my grandfather’s grandmother, was a full-blooded Cherokee.

That same day, Lucas, Atticus and I spent the afternoon running through the woods around my grandmother’s house, the woods I grew up in.

I told them about the ring and the badger, and we gave each other Indian names. I knelt down and let the creek water flow over the badger ring. That creek is like a part of my soul.

That day was the last time I saw my grandmother before she went to the hospital, where I lost her forever. :(

Later, I researched the possibility of living on the Cherokee reservation and found out that, since I’m 1/16 Cherokee, I would be eligible for it with further documentation.

There’s a part of me that would love to immerse my family in that culture because of its symbolism and spirituality, much like the Truth, the Catholic Church.