Keoni's Mele

My Uncle Jack is the finest human being I have the honor of having
as a part of my life. He is my father's brother, and since my father's
death when I was 17 (I am now closing in on 35), he has taken a
fatherly interest and concern in my sister and I. He's also a
marvelously intelligent human being, and an artist on the guitar. He
played classical, jazz, and a fair bit of really good rock and roll for
a very very long time. He studied under Nick Maniloff, if you have ever
heard of him.

About 5 years ago, Uncle Jack's wife died of pancreatic cancer which
came on suddenly and took him from us within 6 weeks of diagnosis.
Combined with this was the fact that Uncle Jack was caring for my very
infirm and elderly Gramma, as well as dealing with the fact that his
son had IV drug use induced AIDS.

It wasn't a happy time. Uncle Jack began to do two things, first, he
stopped playing guitar and taught himself the banjo. Secondly, he began
to drink. A lot.

Ten months after my Aunt died, Gramma had a bad fall and broke her hip.
She died a few days later. Uncle Jack was totally and completely
destroyed. His wife, his mother, both dead within a year of each other,
and his son living under a guaranteed death sentence. He started
drinking more. He stopped doing anything *but* drinking and working. He
was trying to drink himself to death, or drown his pain, or who knows
what, but he clearly could not cope with his life, and I couldn't help
him because he didn't want any help.

Then something happened. One night I woke from a sound sleep, terrified
for Uncle Jack, and I picked up the telephone at 3 in the morning and
called. He had drunk so much that he was in alcohol overdose. He would
not go to the hospital, no matter how I begged. Miraculously, this
didn't kill him. However, it left him with permanent nerve damage in
his hands and feet.

Having numb hands scared him sober. He started to play guitar again,
clumsily at first, but then his hands remembered what to do even though
they could barely feel the neck and the strings of the guitar. And soon
he was playing all his old stuff again, getting interested in
luthiering, starting to compose, considering teaching, looking at
having a life again instead of living like he was already dead. But he
was still wounded in his soul, bleeding in his heart. It showed in his
eyes, it showed in his voice, it showed in his playing. He needed some
magic.

And then one day he was in a music store in Berkeley, and they were
playing some music he had never heard before. Music that made him feel
calm, peaceful, hopeful. Music that made him feel whole. The music was
Honolulu City Lights by Keola Beamer, a brilliant Hawaiian slack key
guitarist. He bought the cd, and everything else he could find of slack
key, Ray Kane, George Kahumoku, Ozzie Kotani.

He began attending workshops, and he delights in telling the story of
how he was at a Ray Kane workshop and was about to go into his hotel
room when he saw Ray wandering the hall looking lost, and he asked Ray,
"Do you need any help, Uncle?" And Ray looking at him with this worried
little boy face and saying: "I've lost my Auntie, can you help me find
my Auntie?" and realizing that every man has a scared little boy hiding
someplace deep inside.

Oh, and he learned to play slack key. So beautifully. The first slack
key I ever heard came from my Uncle Jacks fingers and heart, and I fell
in love with this beautiful beautiful music of the spirit, but I never
bought any, mainly because I could listen to Uncle Jack play, instead,
and help him heal by giving him an audience.

Last year, I saw a Keola Beamer performance listed in the San Francisco
Chronicle, and I called Uncle Jack to ask if he would be my guest. He
already had tickets, both for that show and for the following night in
Santa Cruz, so instead I got tickets for myself, my daughter, and my
husband.

When Keola's wife, Moanalani took the stage and began to chant, my
heart swelled. My eight year old daughter sat transfixed for the entire
concert, and this is no small feat, as Amy has ADD and can NOT sit
still generally, particularly not silently and happily. My husband, who
loves to play guitar, although his talents are not very strong (but OH!
the joy he gets from playing!), was agape. And my uncle, ten rows ahead
of us (he must have arrived at noon to get a front row seat!), well, I
could see the glow coming off of him. After the concert we met outside
and I saw my uncle so happy, so genuinely happy and at peace after so
many years of suffering and fighting his own demons, and I began to cry
from the sheer sense of relief I felt.

That night, at that show, watching Moanalani dancing with that angelic
smile on her face, experiencing the real meaning of Aloha, my own
healing from my own life-wounds has begun.

Mahalo Nui Loa (heartfelt thanks) to the slack key musicians who
reached out through their music and brought healing to two lost and
hurt people. May these amazing people and the spirit of Aloha continue
to heal hearts and open spirits for many, many years to come.

This has been something of a preface to another story. My uncle asked
me a while back to write his story for him, but in the form of a
traditional Hawaiian folk tale. Hawaiian folk tales have many "layers"
to them, and although they appear simple, deep within they are filled
with meaning. I now give you Mele Keoni (Mele: Song, Keoni: John).
John's Song. In reading it, reflect if you will, on the things that I
talked about in this rather long preface, and the whole tale will make
sense.

---------

Mele Keoni, By John and Jenn Thomas

Not so very long ago, there was a ship. It wasn't a very large ship,
and neither was it very small. It wasn't very fancy, nor was it plain.
It was a simple wooden ship, and quite beautiful in its own right, when
the wind billowed in its sails and the sun gleamed on its polished
wooden decks. The ship's name was the S.S. Keoni.

Now, most people think that ships don't have feelings or thoughts, but
they are wrong. When a ship is loved, it comes alive in a way, and
Keoni had been loved for a very long time, so he had a heart that felt
strong emotions, and he thought about the people who loved him.

Keoni had a wonderful crew who helped to steer him through storms and
fog and sun, to continents and islands and distant lands. There were
passengers along for the ride, and they were happy and full of joy, and
for many many years, Keoni sailed along, guarding his passengers and
crew from the ocean depths, and riding the currents.

Then one day, as Keoni was sailing along with dolphins leaping and
dancing in the water around his hull, a giant gale blew up. The winds
were ferocious, like untamed tigers! The waves were terrible, and Keoni
climbed the waves and rolled on the swells, sometimes nearly capsizing.
In fear for their lives, the crew and passengers emptied the holds,
climbed into lifeboats and rowed away, leaving Keoni alone in the storm
and the fog. As the storm died down, Keoni realized that he was
completely alone and empty. And Keoni was sad.

The storm had taken everything, his crew and his passengers, and even
his cargo. A dense and cold fog surrounded the ship, and he wandered in
it, lost, cold, and lonely. Then Keoni became aware of a warmth deep in
his keel. Deep in the belly of the ship there was a single hold which
was not emptied during the storm, and it contained sailor's grog. Now,
grog can keep a belly waem, but it cannot guide a ship or give it love,
it can only make the belly warm. So, with the grog keeping his belly
warm, Keoni wandered lost and sorrowful in the fog for a long
time.

After a very long time, a beautiful songbird flew out of the fog,
landed on Keoni's bow, and burst into song. The song reached through
the fog and the sadness that engulfed Keoni, and woke him from his
daze. Slowly, a different kind of warmth filled the ship. The bird flew
down into the holds in Keoni's belly, until it reached the deepest
hold. As the bird pulled the hold door open with its beak, the grog
poured out, and seeped through some tiny cracks in the floor of the
hold, until it had all disappeared into the ocean's depths. When the
hold was empty, the little songbird flew inside, and landed here and
there before it flew up to the rafters of the ceiling, where it made
its nest, right in Keoni's heart. There it began to sing its song
again, and Keoni learned the song and sang it himself.

Other birds in the fog heard the song, and they began flying overhead,
adding their own harmonies to the song, and making the song of Keoni
and the songbird richer and more beautiful. As the song rose into the
sky the fog began to clear, and Keoni followed the singing birds and
their songs until he was totally free of the fog that had surrounded
him for so long.

The song was so beautiful that one by one, people heard it and climbed
onto Keoni's decks, filling the cabins with a new crew and new
passengers, all singing Keoni's Mele, as the ship sailed happily into
the golden sunrise.