Mr. Salsich
English 9
Anna Holt
November 12th, 2008

The Gift to Us All:
A Response to an Essay


A person may see and do and accomplish countless things during their time on this planet. However what are sights and actions and successes without the air that we breathe? How is life possible without the earth beneath our feet? For some, earth is simply a place, obvious and ignored. For other, earth is the sanctuary (FAST), the beautiful phenomenon that allows us to exist, the sole reason for happiness.
(TS)The Way to Rainy Mountain, an essay written by N. Scott Momaday, speaks to an old woman’s place in nature. (SD)As the author discusses the life of the deceased, a recurring theme gracefully makes its way into the sentences. (CM)Time after time, the appreciation of the environment is described, but not directly stated, as if its importance in this woman’s life was so evident that one needn't mention it at all. (CM)“[She] had a reverence for the sun,” a particular respect for the warmth that was given to her, a conscious admiration for the greatest and most powerful aspect of nature, hanging above like a sentinel (FAST). (SD)For this woman, nature was a constant. (CM)It was the one thing that remained the same, inevitable, unwaveringly consistent. (CM)It seems that her future was often undefined, but when she looked upon the plains of Oklahoma to see before her “a single knoll” or “great green and yellow grasshoppers,” she knew she was home. (SD)At the end of this essay, the author speaks about their grandmother’s final hours. (CM)She is described as nearly naked, praying, as if she was giving herself up to death, for it too is a part of nature.(CM) “Her long, black hair, always drawn and braided in the day, lay upon her shoulders and upon her breasts like a shawl,” and she seemed to greet the end of her life with a certain serenity (FAST), chanting solid prayers as she uttered her last breaths. (CS)Perhaps more than anything, this woman was at peace with the natural gifts of the world.
The grandmother that I read about today is dead and gone now. She is buried somewhere, far beneath the earth’s surface. She is entirely oblivious to the current state of the world, but she knows that a mountain in the Midwestern United States still stands tall. She knows that the birds still greet us each morning and that snow still caps the most severe areas of the world. She knows of the endless planes and the “billowing clouds” and the brilliants sunsets that bless this planet. She knows that nature is the one thing that will never die.