Walking on Eggshells: Discovering Strength and Courage Amid Chaos (3 page)

For a young, newly arrived Hawai’ian like me, Pidgin was very difficult to understand. For example, “th” sounds are replaced by “d” or “t” so
that
becomes
dat,
and
think
becomes
tink
. An “l” at the end of a word is often pronounced “o” so
people
becomes
peepo
. And an “r” after a vowel is often dropped, so
letter
becomes
letta
.

In addition, the intonation of Pidgin is much different from traditional American English. Instead of the tone of a person’s voice rising at the end of a question, for example, as it does in English, in Pidgin, it drops. I couldn’t understand most people when I got to Hawai’i, and I was soon to find that most people didn’t understand me.

When it was time for me to start school, I became very excited. I had loved kindergarten and expected more of the same at my
new school, President Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, just a few short blocks from the beach in beautiful Waikiki. I wasn’t disappointed.

For school, Tawny made sure that Barbara, Tucker, and I dressed in clean, stylish clothes and that our hair was immaculate. Not every seven-year-old gets a perm, but I did. Other than having difficulty understanding people, life in Hawai’i that year was wonderful. Dad’s bail bonds business was thriving, and we were living the dream.

On New Year’s Eve that year Dad had a special treat for us. He rented a large, luxury car and we all piled in and drove down the main drag in Waikiki. Dad put the top down and pretended like we were the main attraction in a parade. He had that big Dad grin on his face and smiled and waved at everyone we passed. He even thought to buy a boatload of candy that we threw out to people. Dad knew how to make all of us feel special.

When we first moved to Hawai’i we all lived together in a studio apartment in downtown Honolulu in a high-rise complex called the Marina Surf. For several months Dad, Tawny, Tawny’s daughter, Nikki (who was about Leland’s age), Leland, Barbara, Tucker, and I all lived in that one room. All I remember about that place was how crowded it was. I was glad that as soon as he could afford it Dad moved us to a nearby two-bedroom apartment in the Waipuna complex on Ena Road in Waikiki.

That complex was very nice and had a swimming pool on the seventh floor. I remember Dad teaching me how to do a swan dive
off the diving board there. There was also a huge koi pond on one side of the building, complete with gazebo, swans, lily pads, and frogs. The apartment manager used to pay Tucker and me a dollar for each frog we caught out of the koi pond and delivered to him. I remember getting up at six in the morning and going down to wade knee-deep through the pond in search of frogs. Tucker was a lot more successful at frog catching than I was.

Across the street from our new apartment was a seedy place called the Hostel. My dad and biological mother had been divorced for several years, but my mother had fallen on hard times and was pregnant, so Dad flew her from Colorado to Hawai’i and rented a room for her at the Hostel. It was a dirty, disgusting place then, and even today we bounty-hunt there a lot, so you can imagine the kind of people who lived there back then, but it may have been the only close place Dad could find or afford.

Visiting on weekends during this time gave me my first real memories of my mother. She would walk across the street to pick up Barbara, Tucker, and me, and the only thing Dad would say was, “Don’t let them watch
Beavis and Butt-head
.”

Beavis and Butt-head
was an animated television series on MTV that featured two degenerate teenagers. It was totally unsuitable for three elementary school-age kids to watch, but of course that show was the first one we all turned on when we got to my mother’s. I remember that she enjoyed the show as much as we did; it was a guilty pleasure for all of us.

I also remember playing in the large, covered courtyard. The
Hostel didn’t have apartments per se, just studios with a kitchenette and bathroom, so some of the residents often sat in the courtyard in front of their rooms and socialized.

A few months after my mother arrived my little brother Nick was born. Even though Nick is technically my half brother, that term was never used in our family. We never used the word “step” either—not for grown-ups, and certainly not for sisters and brothers. But with all the blending of moms and siblings, we all knew that there was only one dad.

When Nick was a few months old, he and my mother moved back to Colorado, and it was several years before I saw her, or Nick, again.

★

During this time Dad and Tawny were still having marital problems, so after I finished school that year Tawny and all of us kids moved to the island of Hawai’i, also known as the Big Island. Tawny apparently knew someone there and could also write bail bonds for Dad without having the tensions of day-to-day togetherness.

Our new home was in Kailua-Kona, on the western coast of the island. At the time Kailua-Kona was quite rural. I was looking forward to a great year at my new school, Kealakehe Elementary, but I was in for a surprise. On my first day, I realized I was the only white kid there. As far as I could tell, all of the other kids were
of Hawai’ian, Samoan, Filipino, Chinese, or Japanese descent—everything but Caucasian. Immediately I discovered I was an outsider. The other kids kept calling me “haole,” which on the surface means white person, or foreigner. The word is also derived from
hā‘ole,
meaning “no breath.” Years ago, when foreigners to the island did not know to use the
honi,
a Polynesian greeting of touching nose-to-nose and inhaling or sharing each other’s breath, some native Hawai’ians described them as breathless. The implication is not only that foreigners are aloof and ignorant of local ways, but also that they have no soul or life within. But on top of that, it was the derogatory way the word was said that made me feel so bad inside.

In Colorado I had friends of many colors, and the shade of a person’s skin was not important to me. It never had been and still isn’t. Here, however, the kids were teaching me that many people of Hawai’ian or islander descent were mean inside. It was a terrible lesson to learn. Fortunately, I have since found that is not true and have actually found native Hawai’ian and other island people to be some of the best people on the planet.

In second grade, though, I was terrified to go to school. When I walked into the building each morning I knew that during at least one point during the day one or more of my schoolmates would push me hard into the dirt. Then, at lunch, no one ever wanted to sit with me, “the white girl,” so I either sat by myself or ate outside with a teacher. I felt so alone. No matter what the activity, the other kids excluded me, and this made me sad and insecure.

At recess we sometimes had organized activities, such as King of the Hill. Instead of a fair game, though, this was more like an open invitation to my classmates to pound me into the ground. At other times I stood at the edge of the playground and watched everyone else have fun. The swings were always full with children who were shrieking with joy, while other kids paired up to play tetherball, which was the hot thing back then. If I tried to participate, kids called me names, jeered, taunted me, and sometimes even punched me. Barbara and Tucker, who were old enough to be in middle school, received regular beatings for being white, so I guess I was lucky.

To make matters worse, it wasn’t just the kids. In the classroom, my teachers, who I still had difficulty understanding, were mean to me as well. I clearly remember sitting in class one day when the teacher singled me out and put the blame on me for all the white people who stole Hawai’ian land more than a hundred years earlier. I was a seven-year-old child. I was no saint, but how could I possibly have been responsible for that? All of this combined to send me home every day in tears.

I soldiered on, however, and tried to find positive things to look forward to at school. Once we had a special day where we were going to play outside and eat traditional Hawai’ian food. I was particularly looking forward to trying
maunapua
—I wasn’t sure what it was, but I had overheard some of the other kids talking about it as it if was a big treat. I couldn’t wait to try it! I didn’t know that maunapua is Pidgin for the Hawai’ian word
mea’ono-pua’a,
or pork cake—a
warm patty of baked white bread filled with fatty pork meat. All the other kids thought it was wonderful, but it really was the most disgusting thing I had ever put into my mouth. It tasted terrible and I was so disappointed that my much-awaited treat turned out to be something I disliked that I cried and cried. My tears over the maunapua only proved to the other kids that yes, I really was weird.

At home I was able to let my feelings out fully. Tawny had always been very affectionate toward me, and I really loved her. Barbara also gave me advice, and I took a lot of solace from my dolls. As early as I can remember I loved playing with dolls. I’d dress them up for tea parties, rock their babies, and give them all the love I could. It was a nice, safe distraction from the anxious hours I spent at school.

I also loved going to church and listening to Pastor Jeremiah Hoaeae preach. While Dad rarely, if ever, went to services, he made sure all of his kids were there every Sunday morning. And even though I was far younger than the other kids, I had been on many retreats with this church’s youth group. On Sunday morning I was always the lucky girl who was trusted to change word sheets on the projection screen for the opening songs of worship. Unlike school, at church I felt accepted.

School life finally delivered me a gift, though. One day out of the blue, a large Samoan girl in my class named Emma sat down next to me and we became friends. I have no idea why she chose to sit by me, or why she reached out to befriend me, but I cannot express what her friendship meant to me. It was everything.

After Emma and I became friends she protected me from my classmates, and my fear of being beaten and ridiculed lessened. I now had a partner to play tetherball with and someone to sit with at lunch. In class, when we paired up for projects, I was no longer the last chosen or the odd person out. Instead, Emma’s eyes would meet mine, and in that secret language of togetherness we’d silently agree to work as a team. Life after Emma was so much better. I had an ally, a friend. When we moved away a year or so later I lost touch with Emma, so, girl, if you are reading this, please contact me! I’d love to reconnect with you.

At about this same time Tawny hooked up with people she shouldn’t have, and they were a bad influence on her. At this point life slowly began a descent that would take me ten years to pull out of.

The first big change this brought into my life began the day of a parent-teacher conference. The morning of the conference I made sure my school desk was tidy and all my papers were neatly aligned. Tawny was going to meet with my teacher that afternoon, and I knew how much Tawny would appreciate my clean desk. I loved Tawny and wanted her to be proud of me. But when I got home after our early dismissal, Tawny was backing out of our driveway with Nikki and all of their clothes in the car.

“Wait,” I called to her. “You
are
going to my conference, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Yes, sweetie,” Tawny replied. “I will be there.” Of course she didn’t go, and I only remember seeing her twice after that.

Leland, who was by then about twenty, picked up the slack, but it wasn’t until a week later that he called Dad to tell him that Tawny had left. The delay was due to the fact that Tawny had implied to him that her absence was going to be temporary. But after a week with no word, Leland knew that Tawny was gone for good.

★

I was too young to know what Dad’s reaction was to Tawny’s departure, but he did his best and dug in to keep things as normal for us as possible. To do that he hired a woman I’ll call Deanna as our nanny. I soon came to love Deanna as if she were another older sister.

I also quickly realized that Deanna had a thing for my dad. In fact, she was super crazy for him. Dad reciprocated, and my relationship with Deanna went, just like that, from pseudo-sister to “Mom” overnight. It happened on New Year’s Eve after a fireworks display at a neighbor’s. Dad and Deanna both got drunk, and before anyone realized what was happening they were in his bedroom. That was something else to add to my confusion about female role models.

Dad still spent most of his time in Honolulu, as the majority of his business was there. Because he was often away he probably didn’t pick up on it, but as we got to know Deanna better we saw many things that indicated she could be a little off: her intensity,
her manic laughter, her opinions that were a bit too strong. For example, she continually blasted music at beyond earsplitting levels. I also remember having a firecracker fight with her with little red firecrackers—inside the house. These were sides of her that I had not seen before. Nothing, however, prepared me for her to become unglued one day. One afternoon Deanna just went berserk. I have no idea why, but I can speculate that it was because of drug and alcohol use. I still remember her screaming, again and again and again. No words, just these loud, loud screams. I was terrified. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Fortunately, either Tucker or Barbara called the police, and Dad flew home from Honolulu to rescue us.

To get Deanna out of the house, Dad arranged for her to be sent to the States. The earliest flight he could find for her, though, was several days away. So Dad got Deanna a room at a local hotel, and a police officer drove her there. Boom, no more nanny, but I was glad. Her intensity had made it hard for all of us to feel comfortable in our own home.

Dad next moved his parents, my grandma and grandpa, to the Big Island. Dad’s dream was to bring all of his family over, and this was a big step toward that. Grandma and Grandpa had their own place near us, and we saw them just about every day. My grandma Barbara Darlene was a sweet, godly woman who had been a preacher back home on her Navajo reservation. I have many fond memories of listening to her stories and of coming home from school to her loving embrace. She created an idyllic home
environment, and the turmoil of Tawny’s split from our family and Deanna’s craziness soon faded.