My people

  "Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all."

As my eyes opened, the smell of over 20 leis filled the air. I opened up my eyes and closed them again quickly, only to re-open just to see if it was really real. I was really here, in hawaii, and my mom really did pick me up at the airport the night before.

I sat up and walked around the room holding each lei and taking in every ounce of its aroma. The most beautiful aromas I had ever inhaled and i can almost smell them still, as I type this, 5 years later.

I walked outside onto our balcony, the wind blew in my hair as I stepped out onto the deck and looked out onto the ocean. Diamond Head in the distance I remember watching a turtle in the waves floating his way out into the deep blue sea.

I was home. There was no question about it. For the first time in my life there was an ease inside my body, a comfort, an inner peace, yes, I was home. I was with my people. I could finally rest after all these years.

The night before I had arrived to the island of Oahu for the first time in my life. As I unboarded the plane w/ my boyfriend we were greeted by a man holding a sign with my name on it. I remember him telling me that I had a LOT of people waiting for me through the doors he was walking me too. Then he asked me, is it true, you're meeting your mother for the first time? Just by my tear filled eyes, he knew, it was true. I stopped, and used the restroom, tried pulling myself together but it was impossible. We continued on and just as we got onto the escalator he told me that through the doors at the bottom was my family.

As I walked through the doors more than 20 people greeted me with ballons and leis, pictures and then there she was, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen still even to this day. My mother. She reached her arms out to me and embraced me and we hugged and cried for so long. I can still smell her perfume and if i close my eyes long enough, i can feel her arms wrapped around me.

The next 10 days were some of the best 10 days of my entire life. We made each minute special, each minute a chance to make up for the 21 years we lived apart. We spent my birthday together on the beach eating salmon on bagels with capers to the sunrise over diamond head. We drove around the island and she gave me a tour of her favorite places. Her husband at the time and for most of my entire life was a professional surfer, he took me to the best surfing spots and pointed out all of his favorite places. They would point to places that reminded them of me throughout the years, places they would go and think about me, places they'd looked forward to taking me when i found them and now, here we were at those places. It was SO healing.

I cannot explain the peace that came over my entire being the day I arrived and finally held my mother but it is still with me today.