Homemade Myth Pt. 1: El Gran Cañón

The Background

They all have their version of their story, a flood, millions of years of erosion, a giant snake, but I'm here to tell you how it really happened. How do I know? Well I made it happen. I made the Grand Canyon and it was all his fault.

Let me give you a backstory to help you understand what I mean. My name is Kahlo. I was 15 years old when I met Javier. We become best friends and by age 19 we had been dating for 4 years and on my 20th birthday, Javier asked me to marry him. It was bliss. I had the perfect life.

Well maybe it wasn't perfect. Javier and I had nowhere to live. Our families did not approve of our marriage because Javier didn't have a job or a house, and when we secretly married they kicked us out. Javier didn't mind he said "As long as we are together mi amor, there will be nothing that hurts me." We traveled from Mexico and we went as far north as we could. 

We found a little bit of land and we fell in love. I felt a special connection to this piece of land and I didn't know why, but I didn't want to travel any further north. This was it. This was our land. Javier and I built a house and we walked the land everyday. We found we weren't alone, there were many others. An american tribe called the Navajos had graciously told us we were on their land but after we explained our situation to them, they let us stay. We told them we'd help them in any way we could. We all become friends and worked symbiotically. Javier started a farm to provide food and shelter to some of the animals. 

Starting that farm was the beginning of the end. We enlisted some of the tribe to help us keep up the farm, in exchange for first picked foods. A boy named Atsidi was the first to want to work at the farm. He couldn't have been more than 8 years old. It soon became a game among the children, who could work the most at the farm. I never understood why they'd want to outwork each other but I never minded, the farm needed the extra help. Shortly after, almost all the children would work on the farm at once, we needed more supervisors. The chiefs daughter volunteered first.

She was barely 14 but she was mature and strong willed, Javier and I had no problem letting her help us supervise the activities on the farm. She wasn't given a name when she was born but she asked the people to call her Doba, which means peace. She lived up to her name and was able to solve almost any conflict the children could throw at her.The farm flourished and the children had more fun than ever. Javier had begun to grow an orchard when I told him the life changing news.

I had been with child. We were so excited.  I was starting a family with the man I loved and with friends I never would've thought I would have. I was living a life I loved and now it was time for me to bring life to another person. The tribe began to prepare for the baby by making clothes for the new life. After seeing the beautiful clothes they had made (Even though they didn't wear much clothing they knew we did)  I couldn't wait to dress my baby for the first time. It wasn't until a few months later that I realized this would never happen.

I woke up in the middle of the night with pain, I was hurting and I knew the baby had been a miscarriage. I was devastated. The hurt I was feeling was just too much. After two months of isolation Javier insisted we should walk the land like we used to. I agreed, I missed looking over the land. We walked our normal route but we were abruptly stopped by an edge. There was a 20' cliff that had never been there before.