I have often cried. Part of me desired the release brought by tears even as I wrote this last Sunday night. It is neither physical pain nor present grief that causes me to cry in this way. When I cry, I cry for a home that does not exist; at least not here and now. I cry for Alotau, not because Alotau is itself home. I cry because it, for me, represents the last time I truly felt at home. I cry for Alotau because I long to feel at home once more. I have moved many times since then, but I cannot leave. I cannot leave.
I have forgiven, truly forgiven, those people and the system that were involved in ripping me away. I was a tree that had sunk its roots deeper and deeper, only to be blindsided by a storm that ripped me out of the ground and left me adrift at sea. I still remember the pain and the hurt. Unfounded accusations were made against my dad and mom by someone who had our trust. We did not know about the accusations until well after the authority began acting upon them – we were not even in the country when they were first made. The cowardice displayed by our accusers still strikes me. My parents were never given a fair chance to defend themselves; they were never even able to hear the accusations from the accuser face-to-face. And, yet, my parents were viewed as guilty, and they and my family would have to move to where the authority could better gauge my parents ‘attitude towards authority’ (or something to that effect). And so I found myself being ripped from my home.
Words cannot express the emotions and thoughts that I recall when I remember leaving Alotau.
I remember lying underneath my bed, punching my mattress with the rage I felt for the injustice being done to my family and I. Punching until my hand fell to the hardwood floor in exhaustion. Many tears spilled on the floor that day; many tears spilled on the floor those last three months in Alotau. Many floors have been wet by many tears since those months.
I remember swearing that, if I ever became a leader with the kind of authority these people had, neither I nor the system I led would ever betray someone as I had been betrayed. I would remember the family. I would remember the kids. I would remember justice. I would never do otherwise. Never.
I remember the last Christmas in Alotau, when the time came to decorate the Christmas tree – an event specially regarded in our household as something the whole family took part in. I remember lying on a couch near the tree in a very cynical mood; any suggestion made to me to the effect that I take part in decorating the tree was met by me with a caustic silence or a disagreeable remark. There was to be no joy, I thought. No joy. How could there be joy when they were taking away my home? Tell me, someone, how could I pretend to be joyful when wrongdoing had forcefully separated me from my home? How?
I did enjoy decorating Christmas cookies a few weeks later. But even in the midst of laughing and icing cookies, leaving Alotau was still on my mind. I iced the word “aionai” (meaning “goodbye”) onto one of my cookies. I do not deny that I still enjoyed a lot of things – I played soccer, basketball, ran around doing mischief. But things changed when I was alone. In privacy, there was no solitude; in the quietness, I only remember one thing being on my mind. I was leaving Alotau, I was leaving my home.
Many times, withdrawn to my room where I had privacy, I would silently scream between sobs. Tell me, God, why are you letting this happen? Why? I know that you can, you will bring something good out of this. But I don’t want the good, not if it means all of this. God, I’m sick of it. How can this happen? Where are you?
Memories surface of walking around town, thinking about how I wouldn’t be around here for much longer. I finished the year in school about a month before leaving. I didn’t take enough time to say goodbye. Why should I? I was leaving anyways. They’d live their lives, I’d live mine. Plus, I didn’t really care to think about leaving Alotau when I was with my friends who I was leaving.
It was that last New Year’s eve in Alotau, a couple of weeks before leaving, that I watched the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Beautiful as the sunset was, it was a horribly unlike my leaving Alotau. My leaving was no sunset. No, it was a slap in the face, a rude awakening, a backstabbing… anything but something gradual, not to mention something beautiful. Someone had suddenly blacked out my sun, not even giving Alotau the dignity to set in my life.
I left many subtle tributes, of which the “aionai” cookie was one. Our bags were packed and we were about to leave (we never were “ready” to leave). Finally, just before exiting the terminal, I stuck the cookie in my mouth and started chewing. But I would not allow myself to finish eating it. Half of it, I spit on the tarmac; half of it, I swallowed. That cookie was symbolic: I knew that Alotau had become a part of me and would continue to be with me, and yet I also knew that Alotau stayed behind when that jet left the ground with me onboard.
The roar of the jet engines that day as we sped down the runway could not drown out the roar in my mind, in my heart, in everything I was, rebelling against leaving. O how I did not want to leave. But I left.
