(Excerpt from beginning of story)

PROLOGUE

I first got a sense of myself at about age 4 or 5.

It is a late summer afternoon and I am standing on the front porch of our house, waving goodbye. The porch is a square space made of stucco with a grey wood floor attached to the bungalow. The porch is always empty, not even a swing. My family is in our car. My Dad is driving and Mom is sitting next to him. I can see my brother and sister in the back seat of the car as it leaves the driveway. My brother, looking out the back window of the car, waves to me. It is not an enthusiastic wave of the hand, rather more of an acknowledgement. No one seems happy. My mother, sitting next to Dad, seems hidden. I sense she is stiff and uncaring, her eyes looking forward.

As the car pulls away and drives off down the street I turn and go inside. I am left with the babysitter. I feel hurt and punished. I am not allowed to go with them because I have done something naughty. I am not crying but there is a marble in my throat that refuses to roll.

Mother makes it clear in my baby book that I had a temper. Maybe I am made to stay home because I argued with my brother. I adore my brother and was always happy when he played with me. I remember we played together with my dolls. I had the big doll named Betsy. She was half my size she was so big. Her head had painted hair and she had a smile and dimples. My brother played with a smaller doll named Lucy. She had a real feeling body with real hair, red and curly and was dressed in a fluffy blue dress. I guess I ruined it by getting bossy and telling my brother he shouldn’t put the baby to bed. He disagreed with me and put Lucy to bed anyway. I remember being angry with him. He refused to play with me any longer and walks away.

Mother makes me sit down in front of the record player and listen to a record called “Manners”. I hate this record and cover my ears in protest. I feel punished , naughty. My brother walks past me sitting on the floor and laughs at me. A knot in my stomach forms like a coiled snake about to attack.

As I remember this time I wonder if there is anger buried in my 4 year old heart. Or maybe the little girl that was me just feels left out and not good enough.

It becomes clear to me years later that whenever someone would make me feel less than or cut off, that feeling of being pushed aside and left out presented itself. A small light illuminates the child waving goodbye to her brother. The light also encircles the child listening to the record. The child becomes more vivid and reachable. I can tentatively reach out and touch the child, who turns and with tears in her eyes says, “I’m not angry, I am afraid”.

I always hug the child and say, “so am I, but I will take care of you”.

Certainly that is how I felt years later when my marriage had ended, the airplanes had gone and I found myself stranded in Hawaii.

Part I: 1983

The yard is neat and trim, a sprinkler circulating water like a merry go round. This is a place that offers respite and great contentment. I have now been here a year.

This Alahaki Street backyard is a true wonder. To my left I can see the banana tree in front of a side fence. The fence runs along a canal is adorned with a gorgeous passion fruit vine, sweating with life. In the far left corner a strand of bamboo adds mystery and romance, knocking around in the wind like an Asian god. Fronting the bamboo, and dominant in the yards, is the royal mango tree. On this particular late afternoon, the tree is pregnant with fruit, colored golden green and a bright bluish rose. The tree offers her fruit from branches that hang low, well within reach.

Following my gaze along the back fence I find the lime tree and next to it a plumeria tree. Next in view is an abundant orange tree, literally the sweetest of all and the crown jewel of the yard, It swells and bends in December, just in time to fill hanging holiday stockings. This fruit tree is know and sought out by every child surrounding my new little house. They knock on my front door and ask so nicely if they can pick an orange. “Of course” I always answer.

Finally, tucked in the right hand corner of the yard is a true treasure. Beginning in May my heart stops as I watch for the first specks of white. As they grow bigger, I eagerly pluck the precious blossoms of gardenia. Each sweet smelling gentle flower says I love you and then quickly dies.

Another plumeria and banana tree round out the edges of this most incredible yard which has witnessed great migrations of turtles and ducks?

In the pacific, where the climate seems like an endless sameness, there are seasons. The flowers and mangos bloom in May and the mango leaves fall in October. Life has ebb and flow the same as anywhere and all is reborn again.

I can clock the year by my Alahaki yard. And just to be able to pluck the flowers and fruit from this little yard I feel rich indeed. Finally I can relax and move forward and take that fearful child with me.

Part II: 1968 – 1982

Chapter 1: Denver

He talked so fast I could barely understand what he was saying. He was much too taken with himself. He was amusing though. Most of all he was a friend of my brother. He had come all the way to Colorado to see me. He had called long distance to tell her that he would be stopping over in Denver on his return from Samoa. He lived in Washington D.C.

“Can you meet me at the airport? “, he wanted to know.

“Why not meet him?” I thought. My brother spoke highly of him. I was curious.

“How will I know what you look like?” he asked me.

“I’ll be wearing a green coat”, I answered. “And you?”

“A tan coat”, he replied.

I easily spotted the tan coat and was pleasantly surprised at the contents. I had assumed that George was much older. He was older, square chinned with dark thick hair and thin lips. But he certainly seemed an acceptable age and kind of cute. He bounded off the plane.

“Let’s drive up to the mountains. It’s been a long time since I have seen the Rockies”, was the first thing he said. They drove her black Volkswagen up to a small town more in the foothills than the mountains. “My uncle worked on the Union Pacific Railroad and one summer, when I was sixteen, I spent the summer with him. He got me a job and I traveled the railroad throughout the Colorado Mountains”, he explained.

“What did you like about it”, I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I was able to get away from family and explore a new part of the world”, he replied. “I grew up in outside of Chicago. There were six of us kids. I was the second after my sister and then they just kept coming, two brothers, another sister and then the youngest, Danny. After Danny was born things just sort of fell apart. I’ll never forget Mom rousing me from sleep one night. She was pretty upset. She made me get in the car with her and we drove around the city looking for my dad. She seemed to know the places to look and we found him. He was at the apartment of his secretary. It was a pretty big deal for a 10 yr old.”

“What did she do?” I asked.

“Well the next morning she gathered us all around and told us never to speak about Dad again. As far as we are concerned he is dead.”

Aghast all I could say was, “Really?”

“Yeah”, he replied. “And we never did talk about him. We never saw him again. It was forbidden. Danny was only about 2”

We drove back down to the city, bought an ice cream cone and ended up in City Park sitting on the grass, chatting. All the while George was nonstop talking. He was witty and entertaining. He had traveled extensively and had experienced some very unique situations.

“How did you end up in Samoa of all places”? She was curious.

“Actually I traveled there after the 1964 election. I had just given my all to the Barry Goldwater campaign. I was drained. My mother owned a travel agency in Chicago at the time. I asked her to get me a ticket to the southernmost point in America. That’s Pago Pago”, he explained.

Arriving in Pago on a Pan American jet from Honolulu, George decided to take a trip into town. He told the following story.

“I thought the plane stayed on the ground for the day and then returned to Honolulu later that night. I figured I had a whole day to explore. Turns out the plane only landed for a couple of hours and then did a quick turnaround back to Honolulu. I was stranded there for a week”, he laughed.

“What did you do?” I asked, not believing that he didn’t know ahead of time that Pan Am only flew to Pago once a week. But it made a good story and an even better story about what happened in that week.

Stuck on the island for the week, George heard about a guy that had been thrown in jail by the then territorial governor, John Hayden. Hayden, a self confident, hyperactive administrator, described as frequently shooting from the hip, was from Seattle serving for the last four years.  Later I always referred to this story as George arriving in Pago, riding his white horse into town just in time to help Jake out. Jake King was the poor guy in jail. In the Rainmaker bar on a breezy South Pacific evening, Jake got into a heated discussion about John Hayden. Jake of course was adamant that Hayden was probably the worse administrator in the history of government. He landed in the Pago jail. George was able to get him released only to tangle with Hayden later over unpaid income taxes. But that’s another story. And many airplanes later.

Chapter 2: Washington D.C.

I couldn’t wait to drive away from Denver. Nothing was happening in the city in those days. I had interviewed for a teaching job and secured a position at Belt Junior High in Montgomery County,  north of Washington D.C.,  teaching 9th grade Geography.

I drove from Colorado to DC in my little black Volkswagen in the summer of 1967. It was a very big deal. As I pulled out of the driveway, my brother stopped me. “Here”, he smiled, “just in case you run across any trouble”. He handed me a belly club! I tucked it into the glove compartment and left my childhood behind. The trip was all mapped out for me by Triple A. This was before GPS. I had this nifty little packet with progressive maps and notes which I followed along the entire route. I remember thinking as I traveled further and further East how the buildings got increasingly older and older. It was an uneventful trip.

I initially lived with a gal I had met in Denver. We shared an apartment in Arlington Virginia.   Washington was a fun city for young people. I eventually moved to Georgetown, traded in the Volkswagen for a little yellow MG convertible and started to date George exclusively.

I remember one morning, while I was getting dressed for work, there were bits and pieces of a story on the radio. I wasn’t paying too much attention. I heard the name Kennedy and thought to myself, “Why are they talking about the assassination. It was 5 years ago!!” It became clear as I listened closer that this was a report on another Kennedy assassination. Bobby Kennedy had been shot in a hotel in Los Angeles. Two months previous Martin Luther King had been shot in Memphis, Tennessee and we endured the reaction in the streets of northwest Washington DC.

“My god,” I remember thinking, “how much more can we take.”

During those six days of rioting,  I was initially able to cross the Potomac River into the city using the Key Bridge from Rosslyn. By then George and I were dating. He lived near Capitol Hill very close to Union Station and I would drive into the city to see him.

We drove through the city and were in awe, “This is truly something to see,” George exclaimed, “we are seeing tanks on the streets of the capitol of the United States”. It was a sight I would never forget. There in front of us were heavily armored vehicles on Massachusetts Avenue. I remember the soldiers wore white gloves!

By the weekend the bridges were closed into the city. I could not get into the city and George could not get over to Arlington for the whole weekend. On Saturday I talked to George by phone and asked what he had done the night before.

I was dumbfounded when he said, “Well, I decided to see what was going on so I walked along 14th street.”

“George!” I exclaimed. “You are a white guy and you just decided to stroll down 14th street in the middle of a riot.”

“Yeah”, he answered. “It was a little tense but no one seemed to notice me.” This, I was learning,  was a typical George thing to do. As his good friends Tom and John would say, “Leave it to George”, they said.  “Smart guy but just barrels forward without thinking”. Eventually a cop picked him up and drove him out of the area and back to his car. This was all before the airplanes.

A year later I watched as the United States landed the first men on the moon. I sat on the living room floor of my friend Mary’s house in Foggy Bottom. We were enthralled with the event before us on a blurry television screen. This was before computers and CNN.

Chapter 3: The First Machine

I remember the first moment alone in the airplane. It was a sweet little single engine Piper Cherokee 6 and the feeling was magnificent.

“Charlie, this is Bravo 150. Leaving ILS 19. Over & out.” I checked the radio dial and clicked the radio to mute the sound.

“Roger, Bravo 150. Have a good trip”, replied the tower. I wondered if they knew I was a maiden pilot on her first solo flight.

I checked my altimeter and trim. My stomach was flipping and I struggled to keep the fear from bubbling to the brim. Instead I grinned and muttered, “I cannot believe I am doing this.” The thought of being in this machine, alone, in the air almost made me sick to my stomach. “I won’t think about it”, I resolved and immediately turned my attention to my map.

I had studied this map tirelessly for the past five days and knew my next VOR station. I had to concentrate on the time. This enabled me to track my crossing the VOR and confirm the visual checkpoints. VOR to VOR, checking checkpoints I maneuvered the course over the Virginia countryside until I was back in view of the airport with the landing strip below me. “Gulp, I gotta get this baby down in one piece, “I muttered.

Completing the base leg and turning into the direction of the landing I slowly decreased my altitude until I was lined up and ready to take her in. Slowly drawing back on the throttle the speed decreased and soon I was over the pavement and dropped down onto land pulling back hard to come to a stop before the hard ground ran out.

Years later I walked slowly down the old runway, remembering. I smiled, thinking, “I was good that day. What a terrific feeling bringing that airplane back all by myself!” I glanced up as I passed the old brink building, broken windows and graffiti marring the memory.

But my smile broadened as I recalled walking into office after landing.

“Hey, Paulette! Ya did it. And you even kept your wings straight”, yelled Lacy.

I could still see Sonny, my instructor, standing there grinning. Before I knew what was happening someone came up from behind, grabbed my shirt tail, cutting a big round U. Tradition for a new pilot was getting in by your shirttail! Luckily it was not an expensive shirt!

Chapter 4: To Have and To Hold

I was getting antsy. After 2 years of “dating” the relationship wasn’t moving forward. Not really intending to move it in any direction, I decided I had had enough of Washington. I wanted to move on. I started exploring teaching positions in Australia.

“Hey, look at this George”, I proceeded. “Here are responses to my inquiries about teaching positions in New South Wales and Victoria.”

“What? Where?” he asked, surprised. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m getting bogged down at school”, I replied. “I am thinking I need to shake off some boredom and Australia sounds like an adventure. I’m thinking I want an adventure.”

“You haven’t mentioned this before”, he said. “I didn’t realize that you were thinking of doing anything different. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, I guess I am telling you now.” He became very quiet and we didn’t mention the subject again.

A couple of weeks later we drove to the Shenandoah National Park to hike. We stopped along a ridge overlooking the Shenandoah Valley. It was a spectacular spot. We sat on a rocky outcrop watching the sun move along the far ridges, dancing in between the clouds. As the shadows crossed the mountains the colors turned from green to a bluish gray.

“Paulette”, he said. “I’ve been thinking. Would you consider a life in the South Pacific an adventure?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well if we got married I would give up the office in DC and move my practice to Pago. I have plenty of work to do there and I only come back to DC because I have never had a reason to leave. Now maybe I do.”

I said yes on that rocky outcrop and my life took one of those changes in direction that create a part of one’s history. I danced down the mountain. I was very happy but as I looked back to George I felt there was a sense of dread in his demeanor. He didn't seem to be dancing with me.

Chapter 4: Samoa for the First Time

Chapter 5: Aua

CPT 10: Banished

When Celia got home, she sat in her kitchen staring out the window feeling dumbfounded. She sensed a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that comes with the realization that something very bad had just happened.

Hey little guy! I miss you so much. On our last day together we rode your new bikes…remember? It was July 2nd. I was on Mom’s bike and you rode alongside me on yours, up and down a couple of streets. You looked good on that bike! I wonder if you have mastered the gear changing challenge. You are so adept I am sure you can get up and down hills now without a problem.

Laura always complimented her mother, Celia, on her devoted relationship with Jack. She often thanked Celia for being there to fill in with his care, saying that it enriched his life.

Today is Grand Parent’s Day at school!! I am heartbroken that I am not there with you. Hopefully your Grandparents Morrison are able to be with you. If so maybe that took some sting out of my not being there and surely it was fun for all of you. I would have loved to have picked you up early from extended day and taken you to the art museum where they have a wonderful exhibit on the Star Wars Costumes.

She had not wanted to go to their house that Saturday morning. Laura said John, Celia’s son-in-law, wanted to talk to Celia about her finances. Although Celia had never asked, Laura had offered to contribute to her expenses.

Celia had begged Laura, “Please, don’t make me talk to John”.

“It’s alright Mom”, Laura assured her. “He just wants to talk to you about your long term plans.”

When Celia arrived at their house, she was perplexed that Jack, her grandson, was in his bedroom with the door closed. He always came running to the front door or was on the steps waiting to greet her. Celia went to his room, opened the door and found him on his bed with his iPad.

He took off the head phones with a smile, “Hi Grandma!”

“Hi Jack, what are you watching?”

“Zootopia!” he said.

When I finish talking to Mom & Dad maybe we can go up to the garden”, she said. Celia had a plot at the community gardens and over the years Jack had learned and watched as he helped her plant her vegetables and flowers.

Celia returned to the living room and John, agitated, started talking. Celia, Laura and John had a triangular relationship. Whenever John was upset about something having to do with Celia he always communicated his distress to Laura. Laura would then communicate the issue with Celia. It was difficult for Celia. She felt John was abusive and narcissistic. But she never said a word. This time, however, he did all the talking.

Remember after the bike ride we drove up to my garden. You planted some carrots and picked a new tomato. Then you wanted some ice cream. Unfortunately we couldn’t find an ice cream store open at 11:00 a.m.! So I took you home. You jumped out of the car and ran inside….probably to get back to the movie Zootopia. We loved that movie…remember we went to see it together for the first time?

“I have lost sleep worrying.” John exclaimed, “Your finances affect all of us. We have hired an elder care attorney to mediate a plan.” He then gave Celia an ultimatum, “Meeting with this attorney is not negotiable,” he declared.

At that point Celia turned to her daughter who was looking down, fiddling with the hem of her blouse, hoping she would get some support. Instead, her daughter answered “It’s not negotiable Mom. You have to agree to meet with the attorney.” Celia was not sure what was meant by having a plan. She was not allowed to ask any questions or comment.

I wanted to talk to you before you left for camp with Noah. Not long ago we promised that we would never leave without saying goodbye. I wish you could find my phone number so you could call me. You are old enough to use the phone in the kitchen. Remember we practiced calling the number one afternoon while you were here. You used the phone upstairs and I was on my cell phone downstairs. We wrote my number down on a piece of paper and put it in your pocket. I also imagine that some time you will start out and walk the streets to my house. Remember we played a game and I had you direct me as I drove the car to my house. You showed which sidewalks to walk and streets to cross to get to my house. It would take a little time but maybe as you get bigger you can ride your bike and surprise me. I like to imagine you running around the corner of the fence to my back door. You would tell me all about camp, if you took golf lessons this summer and how you like 2nd grade.

The week before Laura had been on board to look at Celia’s finances. She had wanted to help. She said to Celia, “I want to talk to John about all this.”

Celia reminded her, “You need to make it clear that I have not asked for anything from you.” Celia had always managed financially and planned to continue to do so.

It was after Laura talked to John that Celia was summoned to their house. From that moment nothing was the same. Celia no longer recognized the person who was her daughter.

Every year at this time we go to my garden and you pick out your pumpkin. It sits on the porchat your house but the chipmunks always chomp away and destroy it. This year I left a pumpkin on the porch for you. Around the neck of the pumpkin was a card full of hugs and kisses and another envelope with some glue-on Halloween decorations. I wonder if you got it?

John continued, “So now you are 72 and evidently you expect us to pay for your retirement?” John continued. “You are going to wipe us out!” he fumed.

Celia had never made such a statement and in fact was still working. The comment descended so rapidly that the air came out of the room, the walls closing in on her. John was feeling his lack of control. Celia could not find any words to respond.

Tonight I will put a sack of your carrots on the front porch. They are BIG and you did a great job planting the seeds. I hope you get them. Do you like carrots? I miss taking you to the garden. I am starting to put it to bed for the winter. I could sure use your help.

Their approach was not a more caring “Mom, we have concerns. We’ve been thinking maybe an attorney could help. What do you think?” Celia was not allowed to comment nor answer any questions. Rather she was only given an ultimatum to meet with an attorney.

I am so sad. Today I found the carrots in the trash can behind your house. I wonder why?

Celia nodded vaguely, got up, and went to Jack’s room to fetch him to go to the garden.

I took my last bike ride of the season. It is traditional for me to ride in the late afternoon along the canal. It’s such a beautiful ride with the sun low in the sky and shinning on the gold and red leaves. I so wanted to put your bike in the car with mine and take you with me. It is an easy ride and I just know you would love it.

A meeting with the attorney was never scheduled. There was never any explanation as to why the subject was dropped. Celia made several attempts to communicate with Laura but all were rejected.

Today is Thanksgiving. I missed having you for a sleep over last night. We are always together the night before Thanksgiving so Mommy can get ready for the BIG dinner. We always watch a movie and eat pizza!! In the morning we watch another movie (remember “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?”). I won’t be at dinner with you this year. I wonder, where do you think I am?

Celia took a Christmas gift for Jack and a note to Laura to their house.

It is snowing…the first snow of the season. Do you have your ski gear? I wish we could have another wonderful day skiing together like we did last winter. I taught you how to make pizza slice turns. And I promised you that this year we would go to the top of the mountain. I want to show you how magnificent it is to be on top and look at all the surrounding mountain peaks.

Celia rang the doorbell this time. No one answered. She left the package for Jack and note for Laura at the door. The note read, “I am asking that for whatever fears you and John have, please let me have the chance to talk to you. Not talking only weighs heavily and does not allow for a conclusion to any concerns nor any forward motion. We have always been close. I remember a little girl taking my hand and skipping with me into daily adventures, excited and happy to be close to her Mom. We mustn’t lose that Laura. It’s time now for us to be part of Jack’s adventures together.

It is your birthday today! You are 8 years old….wow. I wonder if you are having a party at school and party at home this year with just a few of your friends. I left your birthday package on the doorstep for you tonight. I so hope you get it so you know that I love you very much. I am truly sorry Jack that I can’t give you a hug today.

Then a handwritten letter came in the mail.

“Mom,

“Throughout my life your interests are and have always been centered on yourself. I am disappointed in you, your selfishness and lack of love for me. I need space to process the grief I feel for the lack of the mother I have always longed for and the mother I do not, and have never had. I am my own person. I am strong and separate from you. Right now, I cannot love my life with you in it. Please leave me be.”

I just looked at the church calendar for religion class. I wonder if you are still going on Wednesday afternoons. I miss picking you up from school, sitting in the school lobby to have your snack and then dashing over to church to get you there on time. I wonder if you like going a little better this year. I never could figure out what you do in the class. You would never really talk about it and never gave me much information when I would ask questions. I don’t see when First Communion is…I wonder if you have to wait another year!! 

It was evident to Celia that John had finally achieved the control he sought. Nattering and bullying, always berserk over anything out of his control, Laura was able to find a way to silence John’s noise. Writing a harsh letter justified her banishment of Celia and ended the triangulated relationship.

I wish you a very Happy New Year darling boy. It has now been 6 months since I have seen you. My heart continues to break. You must know that I love you every way a human heart can.”

Celia lived another 18 years. She never spoke with Laura again. But Jack eventually made his own decisions and finally came around the fence to Celia’s back door and gave her a final chapter.

Celia had not wanted to go to their house that Saturday morning. Laura said John wanted to talk to her about her finances.

“I have lost sleep worrying about this.” He exclaimed, “I want a plan. This is something that affects all of us and we have hired an elder care attorney. Her expertise is mediation and she will help mediate a plan.”

John gave Celia an ultimatum, “Meeting with this attorney is not negotiable,” he declared.

At that point Celia turned to her daughter who was looking down, fiddling with the hem of her blouse, hoping she would get some support. Instead, Laura answered “It’s not negotiable Mom. You have to agree to meet with the attorney.”

Celia was never sure what they wanted to plan. She assumed that this proposed mediation was in regard to resources for her future care. She assumed that John, ever the neurotic, was concerned she would have to come live with them. Laura had been on board to look at her finances. She had wanted to help, mentioning especially Celia’s long term care policy. For the last couple of years Celia’s son wanted to buy Celia’s home and establish a life estate

Celia was never asked what she wanted. She told them she was willing to talk but not with an attorney.

When Celia got home, she sat in her kitchen staring out the window drinking a cup of coffee, dumfounded. She sensed a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that comes with the realization that something very bad had just happened.

The meeting was never scheduled and there were no more conversation. Laura would not respond to Celia’s pleas for communication.

At Christmas Celia wrote a note to Laura, “I am asking that for whatever fears or anger you have, please let me have the chance to talk to you. Not talking only weighs heavily and does not allow for a conclusion to any concerns nor any forward motion” read the note.

Then a letter came.

Mom, it read.

“Throughout my life your interests are and have always been centered on yourself. I am disappointed in you, your selfishness and lack of love for me. I need space to process the grief I feel for the lack of the mother I have always longed for and the mother I do not, and have never had. I am my own person. I am strong and separate from you. Right now, I cannot love my life with you in it. Please leave me be.”

Celia never spoke with her daughter again.  

The crack runs down my face to my chin.

One side is who I think I am

The other side is scarred, burned and tossed away.

She splits me from the person I know as myself.

Her words take away half of me and dumps that part into the fire.

She says she is whole and loving and strong.

She declares she is separate from me

She yanks part of my life away.

She writes.

I am not the mother she longed for. I am self centered and selfish.

Since she was a child only my interests came first.

She continues the harsh assessment.

Because of her disappointment in me and my lack of love for her

She cannot love her life with me in it.

I wonder at this disappointment.

Is this the child who once took my hand into her daily adventures?

Or is this her own reflection in these written words?

In the descending silence and pouring tears

I remember the little girl

Happy and excited to be with her Mom

Sharing her adventures through life.

Now there are no adventures or excitement

This person that I thought I knew is a stranger. Is it her or is it me?

Brilliant whispers, “Look off in the bush, there is a small group of the Cape Buffalo”.   Someone else remarks, “Look further to the right, in that very dense bush, a lone buffalo is grazing”.

Eight lions also watch the buffalo.  These lions, full of magnificence and freedom surround us, oblivious to our existence. A single lion, a male, is looking very alert in the direction of the lone buffalo. He moves to the front of the truck, continuing to watch in the direction of the single buffalo, his mane and lean body shine in the glow of the soon setting sun.  Unexpectedly, less than a football field away, a sudden rush of dulled brown color, with a loud, deep clamor, crashes through the bush into the clearing, the lone buffalo bellowing a panicked and high pitched scream. The eight lions are upon the buffalo, surrounding, mounting and biting at the victims’ heels. The buffalo lows in terror.

Watching as the lions circle and lunge, with the females jumping on the back of the buffalo trying to bring it down, we are aware of the buffalo's moan and sorrowful bellowing. Brilliant keeps saying, softly, “The buffalo, he is crying”. As the sun finally sets, the lions succeed in pulling the buffalo to the ground. They are feeding even before he is down or dead. He moans and cries while they hold him, gouging his side with their teeth.

Again Brilliant whispers, “Listen, the buffalo is crying”.

Months later as I watch the nightly news, the broadcaster sits in front of a world map. Appropriately it is a map of the night traversing the world. Clusters of city lights are arranged around the heavily populated areas on the different continents. I never noticed the map before the trip. But now I am aware of the continent behind the news anchor’s left shoulder. It is completely dark except for a small strip of light running along the eastern edge of the coast.  I marvel that this dark land is Africa, sitting so starkly silent behind the commentator.  Flying over this entire continent, as I made my way to South Africa, I was aware of the immensity of the land below as well as the barren terrain, a gigantic wilderness that beckons intrigue.   If there any villages, settlements or roads, and surely there must have been, I did not see them.

Africa beckons to me still. I wonder about Brilliant, driving new visitors to the bones to tell our story, there in a part of Africa that still experiences nature in a most primitive form. And while those bones of Manyeleti grow whiter, the strife and conflict among the people in other parts of the world continues unabated. As the young lions continue to flawlessly exercise their natural instincts, the people continue to perfect their acts against civilized existence.

This is my story about that perfection.  It began across the globe from Africa and many years ago. 

So strident is the screaming in my head and so deafening the breaking of my heart into a million pieces that I gasp for relief.  After every hour I live through, the next two are spent weeping.  The screaming, the falling pieces hitting my stomach bottom and the tears rolling off my cheeks are heard by the walls that surround me.  Other times those wall hear nothing.  I am staring at them silently.

We have reached an impasse, she and I.  Flummoxed by her patronizing and condescending approach and the husband she allowed to deliver it, I can't find the words to respond to the demands.  She, on the other hand, has drawn a line in the sand and knows I won't cross over.  We have given ourselves space before but never has the space been so deep and dark.  This time these is a seismic shift, loud enough for the walls to shutter.

I don't know how to deal with such an odd circumstance.  The misdirected communication descended so rapidly the air came out of the room andthe walls collapsed like broken bookends.

I weep because I remember a little girl taking my hand and skipping into her adventures, excited and happy to be close to her Mom.  Now, suddenly, we can't speak.

Talks to me walls, tell me what to do.  I need to stop the noise.