It's a big thing to go somewhere and do something with your father or one of your older brothers no matter what the reason is. The best part about going to the event is the drive to and from, that's where you get to talk and have cool conversations.
With my oldest brother, it was always about girls and what to look out for.
"When you get your first one," he would begin, "get a condom but make the girl put it on you." I didn't even know what a condom was! From his description, I assumed it was a hat. With my father, it was always about being a man and working hard. He wanted me to start boxing and then do bodybuilding once I got older. As far as a job went, my father said I was on my own. One day my father wanted to take me to the Pali lookout and he decided that maybe it would be a good idea to take the scenic route via the Nu'uanu pali drive. Somewhere just past the hairpin turn my dad pulled his 1964 Dodge Dart over to the right side of the road. Up ahead of us was an old Hawaiian woman dressed in a full-length white mu'umu'u. The bottom hem of her dress skirted the ground but collected no dirt or stray leaves. Even with her back facing us I could see that she had a flower lei on her head and around her neck. My father sat there with his hands tightly clenched on the steering wheel and a look of dread on his face. He put his feet on the gas and slowly pulled back on to the road. We drove past the old Hawaiian woman and as I glanced out of my passenger's side window at her, I couldn't help but notice how tall she was. Her face was wrinkled but she didn't look old and aged. She looked me in the eye as we passed and she smiled slightly. Just then my father pulled over again and stopped the car and put it in gear. He told me to stay where I was as he got out. I turned around in my chair and saw him walk up to the woman. The two of them seemed to have a conversation; he looks at her and she finally looks up at him and smiles. She places the open palm of her hand on his cheek and she nods and shoes him off.
My father was crying when he came back to the car but I didn't ask him anything about what happened. We went to the Pali lookout after that but even then words were not exchanged between the two of us. Until the day he passed away, he never talked about what transpired between himself and the old Hawaiian woman. Not until I ran into my uncle Phillip in Hilo town where I saw him in the same line as myself, waiting to by Rainbow Bread.
My uncle Phillip said that when he and my father were little boys growing up in Wainaku, they were walking on a path to a nearby river in order to go swimming. On the way, they both came upon an old Hawaiian woman dressed in a white Mu'umu'u with a lei around her neck and on her head. As was the way of things back then, they offered her some of the sandwiches they'd made to take along with them. The old Hawaiian woman politely refused but told them to not be in so much of a rush to get to their favorite swimming spot. They thanked her and were on their way heeding the old woman's advice. Arriving a short time later they began to strip down to their particulars. As they prepared themselves to walk into the calm serene water, they suddenly heard a thundering sound coupled with the sound a crackling and creaking. Before they knew it, a massive wall of water appeared out of nowhere and completely inundated their swimming spot. It was a flash flood. They realized later that had they not stopped to offer their food to the old Hawaiian woman, they would have never received her caution to take their time. They would have been swept away in the massive flood and been killed.
My uncle Phillip said that my father called him on the same day that we saw the old Hawaiian woman walking along the Nu'uanu Pali Drive. "Your father wasn't afraid so much, he was more ashamed that he had nothing to offer the old woman and so he got out of the car to talk to her, to see if she remembered him. Indeed, she did and she even asked him where I was? He told her that he had you waiting in the car and he asked her that if anything, that she would take him and spare you? The old Hawaiian woman assured your father that he had nothing to worry about. The fact that he even bothered to stop and ask for forgiveness even though there was none to be had, was enough for her. She allowed him to go."
"Who was that woman?" I asked my uncle under my breath.
"Pele," uncle Phillip wore a deadly serious look on his face when he said that. "It was Pele."
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