CONNECTING THE DOTS

There's an interesting "convergence" of things happening right now.  Today is my Mom's birthday (she would have been 89 today), I'm writing a grant to bring grief services to Native Hawaiians and it's Valentine's Day tomorrow.   You're probably wondering how their all related, but I've come to understand that "random" things arrive in my life (and yours) that might seem "out of the blue", but given enough time and perspective, they will almost always be connected in some way.

I started a grant writing class a few weeks ago.  The person teaching the class is a wonderful soul named Carole Ishimaru, whose been writing grants for over 30 years.  She recognized that I was the only native Hawaiian in the class and suggested that I write grants to benefit that group.   So I started doing some research on the health and social status of native Hawaiians and though I knew what I would find, coming face to face with the grim statistics is pretty sobering.

As a quick summary, though we have made a lot of strides in the last 20 years, Hawaiians remain the most impoverished, most incarcerated, in the poorest health, the highest unemployed and most likely to be on public assistance of any racial group in our state.   We face that reality despite having a huge native Hawaiian (ceded land) trust (almost $400 million) that benefits our people and one of the top educational institutions (Kamehameha Schools) on the planet.  Ok, let's let that sit for minute.

My sister Charlotte sent an email out yesterday to our other seven siblings to remind us of Mom's birthday today.  Her focus is never sad but always upbeat because my Mom was that way.  But we all miss her and grieve the loss of the woman that was the "center of our universe".  After I read my sisters email, I looked at the picture of our family reunion in 2009 and it dawned on me that we're a very typical native Hawaiian family.   The kind of family that I had been reading about in my research all weekend.  Someone in our family fits in every statistical category (both good and bad) in the Native Hawaiian Data Book (OHA 2006).

The last piece of the puzzle is Valentines Day, something created by the greeting card industry to sell greeting cards, flowers and chocolates (sorry, that's the cynic in me!).  Seriously, its a great day for love and lovers and the opportunity to acknowledge the special people in your life.  But just like the Christmas holidays, some people love it and some people can barely survive it.  For those who don't have a "special person" in their lives, it's the one time of year that makes the deficiency greater than ever.  You might have a pretty happy life, but without a sweetheart, we tend to focus on what's missing.

The common thread in these stories is how we choose to view what's missing or what we've lost in our lives.  I think the cycle of poor conditions among the Hawaiians is largely due to way they view grief and loss.  My brother Larson, works at the women's correction facility in Kailua and they have a program where families can come and express their feelings directly to the inmate, who is generally a mother, sister, wife or daughter of the family.  The predominant feeling expressed is anger, but the long term affect is grief because of the loss of that connection.   When your family structure is crumbling all around you, it triggers the hopelessness and desperation that creates this "victim mentality" that keeps this vicious cycle going.

My Mom and Grandmother wouldn't have any of that.  They were native Hawaiian women who never felt "victimized" by life though they suffered untold heartache and tragedy.  They encouraged us to "holomua" to go forward despite the setbacks we face.   Now my sister Charlotte carries the torch for our generation, encouraging us to "ho'ihi" (respect) and love each other and to "make due" with whatever we have.  My Mom was a master at making a watered-down pancake sound like a gourmet meal.  "It's a crepe," she would say.

Love has it's own energy and it works in a cyclical motion.  You give it out and eventually it comes back to you.  You don't need anyone to put love out into the world, it's something that we were created to do. That's what Valentines Day is all about.

Make peace with what is not in your life.  Go forward.  Put love out into the world.  Connect the dots.

Happy Valentine's Day.