Family confusion

So let us go back a FEW years; so I mean about 50 years or so. At 8 years old, I was the flower girl for my cousin’s (aunty Bertha ana’s) wedding. Such wonder and festive occasion. Well nothing or no one prepared me for the upcoming events after the wedding ceremony.

We returned to aunty Tila’s house for the reception and after the congrats and hoopla’s from the guest we started to eat (BIG LUAU). After all of the toast and the final course Aunty Bertha Ana took me in her OLD room so we could change our clothes. There was a woman sitting there; a woman I had never seen before (or so I thought) and she was introduced to me as “Aunty Dolly, your MOTHER”. WHAT? WHO IS THIS? IF THIS WAS MY MOTHER THAN WHO IS MAMA? Little did I know how much this would impact my life. The woman and I sat for awhile, she hugged me but we didn’t talk much. After a bit (and one doesn’t know how long a “bit” was), Aunty Bertha Ana came back to get me to join in the rest of the festivities, we danced the hula together; but I was still wondering about Aunty Dolly.

I had just about reached the point of forgetting her when a few months later (still 8 yrs old), on a summer Saturday I was sitting outside drying my hair. You seem my hair was down past my knees and we didn’t have blow dryers back then. We depended on the warmth of the sun and the coolness of the tropical breeze and it was free. Sitting there and day dreaming I was awakened by this strange dark man (I had never seen him before either (or so I thought)). He asked me, “Is your mama home?” Afraid, I RAN into the house and yelled, “mama, mama, there is a black man outside asking if you are home”. She looked past the screen door and then did something that baffled me: SHE SLAPPED MY FACE and said, “that’s no black man, that’s your daddy”. NOW WHAT, I thought and who is this?

She rushed out to greet him and in what seemed like a long long time, they stood there and hugged as if they hadn’t seen each other in lifetimes. Tears streaming down on her cheeks, mama brought the man inside and said, “baby, this is your daddy”. How can he be? I didn’t look like him and where is Aunty Dolly? If he is my daddy then why didn’t he come to see me when she came? Where has he been? Kwajaline? That’s where all my uncles went for some big government deal and they made plenty money there.

Confusion and fear set in as I pondered these questions. Now that  was to big of an issue for an 8 year old girl. Too much had been given and not enough had been shared. The events of my 8th year in this world changed my life, my thinking and my perception of things forever.

As they say, “more will be revealed later”.