“Oh, I help Tupik when I can. I make sure to bring her some fish and leave it at her door. She always blows me a kiss and says, ‘Ma’na Ittura.’ I still love that woman. We both know the day will come when I must move to one of the Lands. And I come down here and make sure Pokiak is okay. I leave fish at her door too. That’s what us spirits do. We make sure our families are doing all right in this world. Try to help when we can. Sing songs to them when they are having bad days. Sleep next to them at night and rub their foreheads. Push cars and bad people out of their way. We just try to make sure that their lives here are as good as we can make them.”

“What about Eskimo Heaven? When are you going to go there?”

Ittura breaks into the biggest laugh ever. “There is no Eskimo Heaven!” His laughter grows and grows until Ittura is rolling from side to side. He has big tears falling down his chubby face and he can’t stop. I join in. He’s having fun. I want to have this same fun. Somehow, we can’t stop. I start rolling from side to side. I laugh until my ribs ache. We end up rolling into each other and eventually through our laughing tears manage to help each other sit up.

“Then tell me why we went to McDonald’s?”

“’Cause I wanted to see Pokiak. And I really do enjoy the Filet-O-Fish!”

Our laughter has cooled to a simmer.

“What do you really believe, Ittura? Is there Heaven? Is there Hell?” I have to ask. This is maybe the only time I will get to know what they believe.

“Father Peter,” Ittura looks at me. “There’s only Now. That’s what we believe. We don’t spend Now building up merit points. We spend Now helping in the ways that we can. We are a small group. We have to send love to each other. We have to be kind to everyone. But that isn’t because we are on a points system. It’s because that’s how we survive. It’s because that’s how we make it in the Now world—not the next world. It’s how we can keep our children with us. We can only send love. That’s our purpose here.”

“But you guys pray and sing and believe there is something bigger than you.”

“We do, Father Peter. We sing to our ancestors that are with us. We thank them for staying beside us. Not one of us, including you, would still be here without them. You need to start saying your prayers to them too.”

“Ittura, I went to school to learn about it all. I can’t change that part of me.”

“No, you can’t, Father Peter. You can do one thing. You can start to think about other ways and don’t think of them as wrong or less than. Just love us, Father. That’s all we want. And give back to us in gentle ways. It’s not about Our Fathers and Hail Marys—it’s about the Now.”