Compassionate Wisdom

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Compassionate Wisdom

09 September 2009

Tags: wings, faith, wisdom, dreams, stress, compassion, hope, love, roots

Posted by UluaipouOMalo

How would I refuse a plea for help from a crying soul desperate for relief? Brushing off one's influence with others to toy instead with selfish ambitions is a cover I had long used to avoid responsibility.

My cellphone rang urgently before the sun showed its face to the morning. Typically I don't pick up for numbers I don't recognize. I figure the hell with that caller. Today however, I reached for my broken flip-top, "What?"

Mistake #1: answering the phone to a number I didn't recognize. "D! Is that you?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Delia, it's your cousin Vaipalolo."
"Yeah? That what you rang to tell me?"
"You know what happened to Niko?" I switched on the table lamp next to the bed and screwed up my face to the light staying silent for what I anticipated was coming. "I need your help. Please. It's just he's my brother, you know."

Mistake #2: hearing the crack in her voice. Still I said nothing.
"Kyle, he gave me your number and said you might be able to help me. Can you please?" I stared unseeing at the wall and listened carefully. "Please! D. I only have seven hundred dollars. I went to the bank and they refused to give me a loan."

I'd had a night of restless dreams in the arms of a dark and mysterious lover then woken up to a real nightmare. I refocussed and realized my cousin was sobbing into the phone. They were hiccuppy animal cries of anguish that tore at my core.

Mistake #3: getting sucked into other people's problems. I didn't want to get involved but I heard myself offering comfort, "Don't worry cousin, I'll help you. Everything will be okay, hear?" And just like that, I was Xena the Warrior Princess to the rescue.

The morning did not go well.

Mistake #4: being agitated by the inevitable and things beyond my control.

My mother had called my office line for the fifth consecutive time in an hour and I was beginning to feel trapped, short on patience and ready to smash my window with a flying chair. I dutifully explained with violent calm that I'd made all the arrangements for her trip to the islands to attend my cousin's funeral, that accommodations and a travelling companion were taken care of, that she should lightly pack enough clothes for a week and, that I would fly over there to accompany her on the return journey home. There was a pause followed by a nervous laugh. The kind to make the hairs at the back of my neck bristle before a fight or flight. "Yeah, ok then. Uh, how much money am I going to take?" she asked.
"How much do you want to take?"
"Five thousand," came the half demand, half hopeful question in her voice. I gulped angrily for air waiting for her to spill her guts when I refused to respond, buying time. "Uh, ok. How 'bout two thousand?" The price had lowered. This time I might get off with a bargain. At least she was moving in the right direction.
"Two thousand pounds or two thousand U.S.?"
"Two thousand pounds - five hundred from each of you kids and that'll be enough." My mother always spoke of money like there was an infinite free supply on tap.

A furious roar that gathered speed started between my ears and I felt an invisible crab mallet pound away madly at my right temple. I looked down at the blotter on my desk next to the speaker phone. I'd sketched my face as a jolly nigger bank in reverse function to the original design. I had a lever protruding from my left ear that when depressed spat out coins through my mouth. Annoyed, I lanced the sketch with my pen.

My mother continued glorying in past memories. "You know, I can't forget Niko and his wife Pamela. I remember the night your father died. They came over to help. Pamela took charge of the kitchen doing all the cooking and jobs around the house, and they both stayed awake with me all night. My poor nephew. Dear, sweet Niko. He was a good man."
I cut Mum off in midstream to crash start her back to reality. "Mum," I said with forceful volume. "Nobody's got two thousand pounds to give you and no one's got two thousand dollars U.S. either."

She'd be on the fast train to apoplexy. I judged her arrival would be under sixty seconds. I knew this dance well.

Mistake #5: being an empath of advanced level for reading between the lines.

"What do you mean?" she boomed. "What about the money you and your sister said you were going to give me to take on the trip?" I heard the simmering outrage and disappointment in her voice. I also caught the accusation behind the veil, "If you were good kids, you'd give me what I ask for. Did I, never mind your father, ever drop the ball once to provide for you and give you the things you wanted? Did I go through labour pains and nursing you when I was exhausted to be treated like this? What use are you to me now?"

Mistake #6: viewing life as a romantic comedy that always scripted a happy ending.

In my mind's eye, like the scene in Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood when mother and daughter are at loggerheads on discovery of unflattering home truths, I haughtily slammed the receiver hard against the surface of my desk a few times making untreatable dents in it before perking up and answering with sunshine in my tone, "Mum, be reasonable. We're in a recession. Many people are out of work and we all have responsibilities."

But of course she could only zero in on "N, O".

"Well, maybe I shouldn't go," she pouted on the other end of the line. "I'll just wire the money to your aunt. It'll be less expensive. Besides, I'm scared in case I fall over and get sick on the plane or on the island." It was a fear she'd entertained into gigantic proportions lately. I sighed quietly and cursed inside. "What about your brother Kyle?" her voice deflated. "Have you talked to him again? There's no way he wouldn't not go to Niko's funeral because they were close. They even worked on a project together recently."

My poor mother was grasping at straws. At eighty three years old she was remarkably fit physically and mentally but, I needed to put her out of her misery fast and very gently.

I ran through the arrangements with her again. "Mum, I have confirmed tickets for you to travel with Vaipalolo to the funeral. Kyle's not going. But, I'll get you the money to take with you. Okay?" I sensed rather than heard her resigned capitulation. "I'll come by Velvet to pick you up at eight thirty tonight."

Mistake #7: counting the cost is sometimes the road to regrets. Sending my brother to attend the funeral would have cost one fifth of the price to send my mother.

"Ok, I'll be ready. Manuia lava le aso, D." Mum's voice had softened. She only ever called me that to show affection, pride or gratitude. I smiled, then clicked the phone off.

The afternoon passed in busy blurs.

It was dark by the time I arrived home at James Hall. I shoved open the kitchen door to pleasant smells of home cooking and saw my sister lounging on the dining room recliner channel surfing with the remote in one hand and munching popcorn with the other. Without looking my way, "How'd it go at work today?" she bubbled.
"Don't ask," I replied easing out of my coat. "You'll never guess who woke me up this morning?"
"Who?" The remote in her hand relaxed. I had her full attention now though with it I saw a smart aleck smirk creep into her dark almond shaped eyes. "Don't tell me one of your hot lovers stepped out of your library of romantic novels and lay naked in your office waiting to sweep you off your feet?" Her brows knitted then "Mrs. D. Lawnmower man! yeah that's it. Bet Pete was calling for you under your window too." My sister could laugh mercilessly and it was catching.
"Stop lying." I said in mock outrage. "You've always had a secret yen for your soulmate Pete. Don't send me an invitation to your wedding. Just mail me a piece of cake." I giggled, then shuddered.

Pete Fiori, who maintained our grounds was ancient enough to be our grandfather twice over but it hadn't stopped him making drunken sickening passes at me two christmases ago. Sophia had witnessed my slick sidestep exit avoiding the mistletoe tradition with Pete that left him surprised and angry, and she wasn't ever going to let me forget it, the witch! Thinking about now still gives me the willies.

"Shut up! No! It was our cousin Palolo."
"Oh? How come?" Sophia unwound herself from the chair and came to stand arms akimbo in the kitchen.
"She needs help to get to Niko's funeral. Kyle gave her my number and said I might be able to help."
"And are you?" She could be as hot tempered as her hair. Tempers according to my dad ran riot in my mother's family. "What did you think about that?" she demanded.
"Well," I trailed off, poking my nose in the refrigerator to grab a bottle of V8 juice. "You know I don't like getting involved in some of the family things, but I told her yes anyway. She cried so hard on the phone. It sounded like a person who's heart's broken and can't be mended. She was anguish personified and I couldn't refuse her," I finished quietly.
"So, it's because she cried that you're going to help her. I feel like telling her to piss off," was Sophia's cutting reply. "What's going to happen to our trip to Malaysia then?"
I swatted her head with a dish towel. "Don't be mean and stupid. Of course we're still going to Malaysia for your birthday. It's just that sometimes when people seek advice or solutions, I think it's wrong to withhold help if it's within one's means. If I have something that will save someone's life, it's important to give it. After all it's only a thing and can be easily replaced. Now, gimme some of that popcorn, hog" I growled.

I pondered my own words as we waved goodbye to my mother and cousin Vaipalolo at the airport that evening. Before the final call I'd joked with my sister and another brother about blowing our inheritance into the Pacific winds each time our mother visited the islands to embrace mirth or tragedy. It occurred to me that if anything happened to me or my siblings, my aunts would be on the first plane over here to comfort and support their sister, our mother.

Mistake #8: thinking some folks always seem to get a free ride on someone else's back.

Everything has a cost in this life including relationships, and depending on your viewpoint - kinship and leadership have this in common: to carry the burden or blessing of hope for those in the fierce grip of bleakness.

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