Arlee remembers fallen ‘warrior woman’
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
ARLEE — The air was a peaceful mix of sadness, grief, hope and love in the Arlee Community Center Saturday afternoon as friends, family and total strangers quietly walked in and out of the building, exchanging hopeful smiles and glances in an atmosphere that could only be described as one of healing.
The event was a remembrance, not a fundraiser. A gathering, not a benefit. As organizer Diana Cote observed, it was about healing, happiness and forgiveness.
But the guests of honor weren’t there.
In May 2007, Cote’s daughter Tasheena “Sheena” Craft was brutally murdered by Kelly Birmingham. He is currently serving a 100-year prison sentence for the crime. The Feb. 23 gathering marked the fifth annual gathering in Sheena’s name, and the first also honoring Matthew Howard, Sheena’s cousin and Cote’s nephew.
“This is the first event for my Matthew,” Cote said, calmly looking over her shoulder toward a wall with more than 50 pictures of Sheena and Howard. In every picture, the pair is smiling.
“In our Indian way, we call a first cousin our brother,” Cote said. “And he grew up with her, too.”
Howard died in 2011. Randy Kline said they were “best friends for a number of years. I’d see him quite a bit. He was a really good friend of mine and I can honestly say I loved him as a friend.”
Two weeks before Howard passed, Kline met up with him at a friend’s house. As Howard had no coat and it was winter, Kline offered his own. A few days later, a mutual friend told Kline that Howard was in the hospital in Missoula, and the prognosis was not good.
Two weeks later, Howard passed away of blood poisoning. He was buried in Kline’s jacket.
“The world is a lesser place without Matt in it,” Kline said. “But it feels good to see people coming out here for him. It tells me that he touched a lot of people’s lives.”
Cote said the idea behind the event was to honor her daughter and nephew while promoting healing.
“My daughter was murdered,” she said. “Brutally, visciously murdered, and it shouldn’t have happened. We, as a family, decided to remember her this way. She was a warrior woman and she died to save others.”
During the court proceedings, Cote said she’d looked into Birmingham’s past and found he’d been taught racism by his father, who had also burned him with cigarette butts. According to Cote, Birmingham was raised to be anti-Indian and anti-African-American, “raised ... to hate.”
Incredibly, she said she was able to forgive him.
“Of course I forgave him,” Cote said simply. “I was taught that way, to love everybody. I thought, ‘What can I do?’ I can forgive him and not forget. His life was rotten, but (Sheena’s) in a better place; she’s safe and she’s free.”
At this, a tear rolled down Cote’s cheek as she said, “He will never feel that way. I cried for him.”
During Birmingham’s trial, Cote said she was given the opportunity to speak to him in open court and did so, telling him she wished he’d been her baby. If he had, he would not be in the courtroom.
“He put his head down when I told him that,” Cote said. “What (Sheena) went through is worse than what a soldier would have to go through. She’s our warrior woman now.”
More than just a remembrance, the potluck was intended to send a message: In order to get along in this world, you have to love everyone equally.
While the event included a raffle and silent auction, the funds did not go to any cause, event or benefit fund. Instead, they went to help pay the gas bill for several hand-drum singers traveling from Washington, Wyoming and Canada to participate in a round dance at the potluck.
“In our culture, they’re healing us with their songs,” Cote said. “This whole community needs to be healed, so when they sing and they dance, they heal us. We dance in a circle because that’s the way life is — a circle.”
Cote said she believes her daughter leaves her pennies whenever she feels sad and misses Sheena. “Pennies from heaven,” Cote calls them.
While at the Arlee Community Center around 4 a.m. Saturday, she started missing Sheena, looked down, and found a penny. When she woke up Sunday morning, there were two on her nightstand.
For Cote, the coins represent a continuing bond between mother and daughter — a way for Sheena to say “It’s OK, mom.”
After a short poem and a prayer, Cote took a deep breath, looked up at her community, smiled, and said, “This to remember Sheena, our warrior woman.”
