Aloha GOP,
Except for growing up in Hawaii, I think I am not that different from most other people. My arrival on Earth was uneventful. I am the product of an unlikely union. My father was born in a small railroad town south of Chicago in 1930, the youngest of five freckled, hungry red-heads.
My mother was born in 1937 on tiny Tutuila island, better known to the world as American Samoa. She was my grandparents’ thirteenth and last child, as her birth was followed by my grandmother’s death. My old Papa took a second wife and went on to have more children. In total, Mom’s siblings are too many to count, seriously. But none ever went hungry on a tropical island where food literally fell at their feet.
Leaving their homes for different reasons, Mom and Dad found each other in territorial Hawaii, Waikiki specifically, and were married soon after their first date. I was born in 1959, two months after Hawaii became the last of fifty United States. Three bi-racial siblings followed my birth.
I attended the same private school from first grade through high school, a mediocre student and outstanding athlete. In the early 1960’s, our first house was situated in the heart of Honolulu’s 96816 zip code on Pueo Street, and when I was in the fifth grade, we moved around the corner onto Kilauea Avenue and settled into a bigger house with a swimming pool.
My early aspirations were unremarkable and not particular, planning only to get married some day and bear an acceptable number of children. My father put me to work the day after I graduated from high school, and I went to college for a while. Only once have I been madly and heedlessly in love – once. He marched down the aisle, I did not.
Mom and Dad divorced in 1983, and today their grandchildren number a perfect dozen, each one beautiful and incredibly exceptional in every way. My contribution to our clan is my only son, Kiata, an inconceivable conception which has been my greatest accomplishment thus far, by far.
The basic components of my uncomplicated and stable younger years are in stark contrast to where I find myself today. The stress of my current collapse moves me to write, perhaps as an outlet for my frustration, perhaps to share my experiences with others, perhaps to find justification for being unemployed, or perhaps merely to keep my mind and hands occupied. Whatever the reason, the urge is irresistible.
However, I do not adhere to the conventional rules of academia related to writing, except to be grammatically correct. Robert Louis Stevenson did not research his target audience, Martin Luther King did not develop a marketing plan, and Mahatma Gandhi was not dissuaded by his lack of credentials. Yet, their individual contributions toward the advancement of humankind are immeasurable.
Certainly, I am not in a league with these extraordinarily altruistic people. I can’t even sing or dance, or do a cartwheel. But, they are dead and I am alive. And so, when I am under the covers in the morning asking myself if I am dead, on some level it occurs to me that – on this day – even I can accomplish more than Stevenson, King and Gandhi simply by being alive!
Despite the disappointments of the day, I dig deep to keep on going. Not because I want to, but because the alternative is unthinkable. As the sun sets, I dig deep to remember my past victories - enough to keep hope alive, enough to overwhelm and shut out the defeats of the day.
I make every effort to set up opportunities for the following day and boldly list them on my empty board. I can sleep soundly because I kept my son safe, fed and loved for one more day.
When my head hits the pillow at night, and exhaustion sets in, I give thanks that I am still alive. The familiar voice of my younger self rises in me and a smile irresistibly crosses my lips. I say the words out loud, ”I am the hardest working, unemployed, minority, single-mom in the frickin’ world!” Am I dead? Not today, Mother Fuckers!
