Just saw an aerial photo of O'ahu and it was almost like an instant memory where my first mental picture was when my grandma's sisters came home to Hawaii Nei in 1988. They were so excited when they left Philadelphia and so broken when they returned.
Everything concerning our Hawaiian side was kapu. We couldn't ask a question and if we did, nobody alive had the answer. All we had were the few families scattered about the region, that my grandma and her siblings were connected to and an annual luau when uncles came from O'ahu to tell us stories. I was pretty young, last time I was there. I don't remember if my last time there was before or after the 1988 trip back to their roots.
My grandmother cried like a baby while her sisters talked. Her youngest sister Dorothy had no children, so she was really close to me. Aunt Dot was pretty loud to begin with, and after a few beers she only got louder. After a few beers she began to tell the stories of what happened when she came home and we all perched to catch every moment she spoke about. She began to drink, just to continue talking. As she grew louder, so did her cries. Til this day, it gives me chicken skin.
She began to tell one story, turned to my my brother and I, and began to almost scold us. After carefully censoring out the 27 F-bombs between each word, this is what she said:
"You grow the hell up and you take your ass home. You get them GD mother F'ers out of my father's country, do you hear me? You get each and every one of them off our islands. Tell them to take their big buildings and shove'em up their asses. They ruined my father's country and they destroyed my father. Are you listening to me? You better, because if I have to die and my father doesn't have his country back, and you didn't go, I will haunt you until the day you die. They killed my father inside and I watched him die. I was 8 years old and I held my father's hand until his last breath. All he wanted was to go home and he never even got to bring us back to show us where we're from and I hat them GD mother F'ers for what my family went through."
At that age, without any knowledge other than knowing that her father came from those dots on the map that rain across the sea, us kids didn't know anything but my kahea and my brother's weird ancestral stories. Who even knew where he got those stories from? But the tone in Aunt Dot's voice, the pain in her eyes, each tear, each deep breath she took, said volumes of things that words could not describe. I never forget her words, every cuss word between them and all.
In 2013 when I brought my children home, Aunt Dot's Alzheimer's and dementia were getting bad already. But we spoke almost every day and everyone around me heard our conversations because I would yell for most of the phone call, just so she could hear me. Every day she forgot I was a grown woman already, with kids, and back home in Maui - which is my family last name - her last name. Every day we would have the same beginning of a conversation, about how she was doing and how big I must have grown.
It was always the part where she asked where I live now, that choked me. I would remind her every day that I moved back home to raise my kids and keep my promise - the one from that day. Ever since that day in 1988, my brother and I made it our long term goal to set our family up with a family business in Philadelphia, so that they don't have to suffer poverty in Philadelphia while we return to Hawaii, our home. She gave us specific instructions, so we had to implement our plan while we were young, to assure that we'd still be youthful and strong when we carried out her orders. It didn't happen the way we planned and only I made it, but it is what it is and I stood... even if I stood alone.
After we got past the "how are you" parts, she would ritually ask where I live now and I would answer "Maui". Each time, her response was adorable! She would get confused, tell me she knew who she was and ask me again where I lived. Eventually, I would tell her "I live Hawaii, Aunt Dot!"
She would choke up and say the exact same thing she said that day in 1988. Then she would follow it up with ancestral knowledge and if I ever followed up by asking her what she was telling me, it was as if I interrupted her spirit and it would all go away.
She passed a little over a year ago, but I began to notice something. Every time I go to Oahu, I get that same feeling she described, as the plane begins to land. The same tears stroll down my eyes and I can still feel her pain. It is an absolutely beautiful feeling because feeling that pain is knowing she is with me, knowing all my ancestors are with me, knowing I am never alone. Tonight I was scrolling down my Instagram feed, and an aerial shot of O'ahu came up - and I felt that limp in my throat. The one that reminds me of my purpose, my cause... my deepest connection with the Masterpiece of all creation. I stand.. Even if I stand alone.
Kahala Lei Azuma Maui
copyright 2017
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