PULE (Pray)

PULE

(Pray)

The photo is of my daughter, my mother, and my kid sister on my daughterʻs graduation day.

I am sitting here at this moment thinking about things, because right this moment, my mom is in the ER, and right this moment, I am thinking about my youngest who is going into high school next year and  yeah…I am sort of worried.

I cannot imagine what those people in Florida are going through.

There are a lot of young people there, and there are a lot of old people there. I am concerned for both sets of people, as both sets of people are represented in this photograph.

In fact, a whole lot is represented in this photograph.

Such as the hope of graduation from high school, which is the rite of passage into adulthood. I have watched this twice now – my oldest, Kahakuloa, and my daughter, Gracie.

Then there is Joshua. He is 13 and in middle school. He is a beautiful child with a heart of gold that lately has been broken easily. Same thing with the girl in the photograph – actually both girls, and the old girl taking the photo – me….we are all upset because my mom is very sick these days.

I do not know how to feel. All I know is that we are, the entire human race, is in mourning right now, over a whole, whole lot, and everyday we are treated to more trauma by these people who have no idea how to treat others …they just keep on taking things away from us.

So, Hawaiians….we should just do what we do, return to our souls and raise the Aloha vibration and send it out to the world.

Yeah…sisters, brothers, I know – we have enough on our minds as is but this is who we are. We are the people of Aloha, as much as we are the People of the Water, and it is our duty in this world to be there for others, even when we believe that not enough has been done for us. It is at that point when I have to ask anyone at all why it is that they would choose rights over life at all?

I mean…I realize that I do not speak for us all but I also know that I speak for a vast majority of us when I state that now is NOT the time to bug about our own crap – right now, there are 17 lives no longer with us, and there are sets of parents who are not going to be doing the thing that I was doing on the day that my daughter graduated out of high school. We, as Hawaiian parents, all look forward to the day when we get to FINALLY pile those leis on that kid, look at these children in the eyes and see them there, as they were on the day that you sent them to kindergarten.

I keep telling people that the town I live in…it is lovely and filled with beautiful souls but, it was not always like this, and I did not always feel like this. It used to be a town filled with violence of the sort that was newsworthy.

I am glad we have become a boring little town where the only thing that we are famous for anymore is what we USED TO be like.

I am fine with it. I am here to help mend the wounds of this town, and they are the same kinds of wounds that I am sure are being nursed on the other side of the country right this moment, and I am not only talking about the actual physical kind, but the kind that we are all left with.

I say it a lot – we are a nation in mourning, a collective of people who are being primed for the need for things that we do not need, and things that we do not actually want but those in high office want us to believe this. They want us to be against each other, and they want to tell us who we are and they want to always, always, always take things from us, and they are important things.

Such as a childʻs right to grow up and become an adult, and an old personʻs right to be comfortable in life at a time that they worked towards having. Not everyone, I find, has been able to do the things that I have been blessed to have been able to do with these three women in this photo.

My daughter.

My mother.

My sister.

And we have always stuck together. The four of us.

Always.

Always my mom was there to guide and lead us, and always there to remind us to pray. Then Napua was born, and suddenly there was someone for me to be a good example for.

Then Jeremy….then Gracie, and again, someone to be an example for.

So, what do you, as a parent of a child tell your kid when their Tutu Lady is sick, and the world in which they have been born into feels like all it wants to do is make you pay for being a kid, again and again, and what do you do when it is that the Tutu in your life become dependent, not only on their ohana physically, but emotionally and mentally, as well, just so that they know that now, when they are like this, we are not going to abandon them, not going to shame them…not going to make them die alone.

And then Florida happens, and suddenly when you walk outside and you see your daughter helping her grandmother – your mother – into the family car, so that she can be taken to the ER, so that her health that is not getting worse, but also not getting better, is all you can think about….

And then you think, too, about the kids on the other side of the country, and you think, too, about the kids on the other side of the ocean, and then the kids who you share a lot of time with.

And then you think to yourself that the only thing that we can do is to come together and be one unit, to forget about who we are that makes us a stand alone people and remember who we are in the grander scheme of things and the role that we have to play and have been mightily blessed with, just because we are Kanaka Maoli, and the one thing that we have to remember about who we are, no matter where we are, is truly, we are Ka Poʻe o Aloha – the People of Aloha, as much as we are Ka Poʻe o Ka Wai….The People of the Water.

It is our duty to Be the Aloha in the world, no matter what is happening in your own private world, and no matter how you feel you are being slighted for someone elseʻs tragedy – to be crass, and to have all us guys on this side of the water read the things that a whole lot of people on that side of the water have said about why it is that any one of us should care about those kids in Florida….

Because…reread this please – WE ARE THE PEOPLE OF ALOHA….

Thatʻs why….

Aloha…here on the 9th, it is spoken fluently, and wherever I Am, it is spoken always.

We must Be the Aloha we wish to see in the world, you guys….we have this opportunity to be this everyday of our lives. It is a shame that too many of us are so jaded as to the things that we are versus the things that we are not. We focus on what we are not, way too much, and so much so that a lot of us forget, almost voluntarily, that we have a duty, a Kuleana in the world, to Be the Aloha…

We need to pray for each other. We need to be there for one another, and we are too busy asking who is this much blood versus not. We are more interested in voicing things that would make people believe that we are all like that – like we are all more interested in bitching about what we do not have versus being grateful for what we DO STILL HAVE which are 17 souls who are not gone from our lives….can you count 17 people who you know personally, and in that number of people, are you sure that you could live without them in your life, and if you are not sure, then why are you turning what is your arrogance into something that it ought to not be, which is something that these morons in office on the other side of the country want you to do.

And you are doing it.

I will not be doing that shit anymore – I will not, because I cannot and never have, tried to separate us – we cannot be what you want us to be, which is a kingdom. I said it, so deal with it.

What you ought to be is what you are, which is one of those people of Aloha

Be The Aloha

You would want people to give a shit about you and yours if you had to deal with this, right?

Yeah yeah whatevahs….go…go try tell me that crap again….

You would be beside yourself if someone was as cold as MANY people have been about the thing that happened to a bunch of CHILDREN on the other side of the country…if it happened in your town….

Pray.

Thatʻs all. Just frickinʻ pray, yeah?

If you cannot pray for the people in Florida, then at least pray for your damned self, or at least pray for my mom.

Just pray

People have forgotten how to pray

So Pray

#Pule

#KaPoEOKaWai

#ThePeopleOfAloha

#RIPParkland17

#MourningKahuRox22