Dear Aunty Deva,

Aunty, you know, usually when I am remembering someone who has passed on I do it in the way I learned while working at Joseph's House: I build a little altar with fresh flowers and a lit candle. But on the day you left us I had no flowers and I couldn't find the candle I usually use for these moments. So instead, I began playing music from The Brothers Cazimero. All night I listened to their songs and that felt right. I pictured Roland being there to greet you with all those who loved and went ahead of you. The aumakua got to welcome you home.

Aunty Deva, when I got the text that you were gone my body went into shock slowly and effectively until I found myself on my knees, palms to the 'aina, head to the floor. Crying. Aunty, I am so sad to see you go. I know the cancer was exhausting. I know you did everything you could to overcome it. I know you are at rest now. And I am grieving my loss even as I thank Ke Akua for all you mean to me.

Aunty, thank you for showing me by example the importance of being a life-long learner. The hours you spent in class with all your students studying the Hawaiian language with us, you always the first one to ask questions, the first to say you did not know but would love to learn. Aunty, you were curious and humble, always seeking knowledge from others even keiki. Thank you for teaching me about Pele and Hi'iakaikapoliopele, Kalākaua and Liliuokalani. You normalized my own search for answers.

Aunty Deva, thank you for hula, the dance and the hālau. I met you when I was 10 years old, before Kaleinani o ke Kukui was the influential Polynesian arts community that it is now. My family had just moved to Washington from Kentucky and you understood what that was like because of your years in Tennessee. You welcomed us with open arms, each of us, even me with my spinal cord injury that I could hide in other parts of my life. Not in hula. When I danced it was obvious that my body was different from my hula sisters. As the hālau grew and I became a teenager, more and more aware of how people stare when someone is different, stare but do not ask for clarity, I began to pull away from hula.

You never pulled away from me, though. Dancing for you was always like being hugged. You never made me feel that I was less of a dancer than my able-bodied hula sisters or that I was more special than anyone else. In those crucial formative years when girls are so often told false and damaging things about themselves and their bodies, you breathed life into me. You treated me like a whole person. You paid attention to me. You instructed me on life and dance like a mother, with love and honesty. You encouraged me to pursue my dreams even when it meant I would no longer be as active in the hālau. You showed me how to be grateful for what my body -- yes, even my fragile, broken body -- could do. You taught me that I was strong and smart. And that my smile and my mind, not my hips or my butt, were the most beautiful parts of my body.

Aunty Deva, you were the first person I ever saw play the ipu heke. You taught me how to sync my heart beat to its rhythms. Thank you for leaving this way to continue loving you.

Aunty, thank you for the years of training. The hours you spent teaching me the steps that come together to form a hula. The days spent in workshops, the late night trips to Walmart to buy fabric to sew pa'us, the times you hopped up from your spot in the front of the class to straighten my feet, my hips, my hands. Aunty, thank you for being patient with me even though my ka'os were always off beat. Why that step is so hard for me I will never understand!

You taught us hula in living rooms, backyards, parks and schools - and by doing so taught me that dreams are worth pursuing, no matter how impossible they may seem to others to reach. Look at the legacy you left us. I am honored to be one of your haumana.

Aunty, from you I learned to practice how I would perform, to sew hundreds of sequins by hand onto a costume, to pay attention to my hula family around me until all of us were dancing, breathing, beating as one. You taught me to greet everyone in the room with a kiss because that is part of the hula, too. That when the Kumu or Tutu asks you to dance, you dance - even if you don't know the mele and have to make the whole thing up. That you always oli for permission before you enter a space. That before it is entertainment, hula is an art form of resistance, the way Hawaiian people reclaim and preserve their culture and history despite generations of oppression and colonialization. Aunty, you taught me to use my body and heritage as my strongest, truest gift and protest.

Aunty Deva, thank you for loving my mother as your sister. She laughed hardest when she was with you. You created a village for her here in the Pacific Northwest in place of the one she left behind in the islands. Thank you because when you asked her to dance, I got to sit at your feet and watch her in awe. Is there any dancer more captivating than my mother? Thank you for showing me at a young age where my radiance comes from.

Thank you for loving my siblings as if they were your own children. You met them as babies and never forgot how precious they are. My sister blossomed under your care into a confident young woman. My brother was always most comfortable with you.

Aunty Deva, thank you for loving me. The last time I saw you was at my bridal shower. What a blessing to get to honi you, eat mochi together, tell you about my life. Aunty, it meant everything to me that you blessed not only my marriage but my work as well. You asked about my practice the same way you used to ask me what books I was reading as a child. You leaned in, listened intently and then nodded.

"Yes," you said, "this is what your whole life has prepared you for. Keep going."

Aunty, you would have been so proud of the hula I danced at my wedding. For the first time in 17 years, I danced as if I was not ashamed of my body. Even my ka'os were on beat! I followed the process you taught me: I researched the mele, translating it, looking up who and where it was created to honor. I choreographed it the way you taught me, verse by verse, feet first. And although the MC at the reception said the hula was for my husband, it was equally for you.

Aunty Deva, I love you. When I see you again we will dance with no sore knees, no achy backs, no heartaches. Until then, I will pass on everything you taught me. I will tell stories about you. Aunty, I will make you proud.

E ho'omaha me ka maluhia, Deva Leinani Aiko Yamashiro. A hui hou, Aunty.

Dear Community,

The Jesuit Volunteer Corps is grounded on four values: spirituality, community, simple living, and social justice. Each value is essential to JVC's mission and no one principle is more important than another. They are all interrelated. A year ago, when I was sitting in my JVC Orientation being introduced to these values that would "ruin" my life, a presenter said that the pillar of community would be the hardest to continue to live out once my service year was done.

It has been a little over a month since I left D.C. and my service year. I see what that presenter meant about the challenge of remaining in community, but I find myself disagreeing with him anyway.
Everything in the past month has been about community.

On the morning I left D.C., I hugged my housemates, who I had created a community with unlike any I had ever known. As I walked through airport security, I could not imagine living life without them. I landed in the West Coast a few hours later (traveling through time zones is rough) just in time to join my family at the annual Hawai'ian cultural festival run by the halau hula that I have danced in since elementary school. From community to community.

A week later, I hopped on a plane to LAX. I sat with two older women who listened in eager anticipation as I told them why I was flying to California. They gave me excited pieces of advice on where to go, what to do, and their own favorite memories. The time passed quickly and we all left the plane with smiles. Community.

At baggage claim, I found myself wrapped in the arms of my older cousin, Mile (pronounced "Me-lay"). It had been nine years since we had seen each other and she was visiting the US for the first time from Australia. Hours later, we were with our older cousin Triva and finally together, our trio began a three-week road trip that covered Las Vegas, San Diego, Portland, and countless places in between. Along the way we collected friends who made the trip unforgettable. For the first time in months, I got to speak my first language, Samoan, freely at any time. I was people who knew everything about me, who I didn't have to explain my cultural and ethnic background to. My cousins got me, and through laughter and love, they eased away the heaviness of my D.C. goodbyes. They were my community.

 Now, I'm home and instead of feeling an absence of community, I am aware of how many communities I am blessed to have. It is true, maintaining my relationship with my D.C. communities are harder. I miss coming home every night to my six housemates. It is bittersweet to see pictures from Joseph's House and not be there to celebrate with my community. Being away from D.C. during the 50th anniversary on the March on Washington was awful. But, thanks to modern technology, those communities are only a phone call, a Facebook message, a Skype chat, a live 24-hour news stream away. There are planes and trains and cars to reach that home.

And back in this home, I have my family, West Coast culture, college friends, service communities. They are different communities, but they are still my communities. Both teach me that it is not distance that challenges intimacy, but the intentional effort that you must put into it to maintain closeness. Relationship takes a lot of work. It is hard, yet I know that I need community. I'll put the work in.

Dear Amy and Anand

It had been a full day, this last day. I had woken up that morning in semi-darkness after a night of blessed rest. For weeks, I had not been sleeping well. The DC heat certainly played a part in my insomnia, but most of my restlessness was from anxiety, racing thoughts, and shock. After a year of being certain that I would remain in DC, that I belonged no where nearly as much as I belonged to this city, I had abruptly and jarringly realized that what I really needed was to go home. The decision was the right one, yet as I laid in bed that morning, I couldn't help but feel like a failure. Maybe if I stay in bed, I won't actually have to say goodbye to Joseph's House, I thought. Maybe no one will notice if I just don't show up. Maybe if I close my eyes and sleep a little bit longer, I will wake up and be strong enough to stay . . .

I turned my Pandora onto shuffle and got ready for work at Joseph's House one more time. I took deep breaths, encouraging myself to be fully present to this precious last day. I began to relax and hum along to the music. And then it came on: Bill Wither's "Lean on Me," the Joseph's House anthem. My Krista cohort sang a rendition of the song right before I began my service year, and then weeks later I heard it played for the first time at a resident memorial. It has played 17 times since then. As I walked out the door, "Seasons of Love" from the musical RENT began: 525, 600 minutes, 525, 000 moments so dear, 525, 600 minutes, how do you measure, measure a year? I shook my head and laughed. I can't even make this stuff up. This is so my life.

As my last day at Joseph's House was winding to an end, I sat in the living room. I have always admired how the light in the living room seems to capture the feeling of the whole house. On memorial afternoons, the living room is soft and quiet, like the candles we light to honor someone's spirit. During breakfast, when the dining room across the hall is overflowing with laughter, food, and conversation, the living room practically shines as the morning sun fills every corner with light. For me, as if to reflect the ending of my time at Joseph's House, the light looked like dusk. It was only 4 pm, yet it looked as if the sun was setting in the room. There were shadows and the feeling of calm permeated the air. It had been a day of blessings being lavished upon me, and as I sat on a comfy couch, I was overwhelmed by how loved I am.

To my right sat Amy, her hand holding mine, my head upon her shoulder. It was a posture that we have sat in since the beginning of our time together, as natural as the deep breathing that we had to learn how to do. On my left sat Anand, one hand holding coffee in his favorite mug (that I had made sure to wash for him), the other hand draped lightly across my shoulder. Anand's last day had been weeks before, but he had returned for mine. That was natural, too. We sat there as the shadows deepened, laughing, talking, with no space in between us.

Each year Joseph's House has 4 year-long volunteers from different sending organizations, but this year it was just us. Amy from Discipleship Year (founded by the church that helped start Joseph's House), Anand from AmeriCorp's Washington AIDS Partnership. Amy is always spear-heading a new project or activity. She is selfless and always asks the deeper questions. Anand always knows how to put people at ease. He sees the truth in situations and is able to bring things into a fresh perspective. Individually, each of us are great, but together, we have been pretty fantastic. From the beginning, they have been my dearest friends. No one else quite understands what it means to be a young, full-time volunteer at Joseph's House right now except for them. Anand and I experienced our first death at the house together, Amy and I our first last breath. We learned how to cook with Crisco and how to parallel park the house van together. We got lost in DC and took cookies to the firefighters together. We have changed diapers together, gotten frustrated together, cried together (okay, fine, I did most of the crying), celebrated together. When I think of my time at Joseph's House, I cannot think of it without Amy and Anand.

Somehow, we just fit one another. No drama, no competition, no resentment. We apologized quickly if we hurt one another. We humbly asked for help when we needed the others. We loved without needing to know everything. We just wanted to be together. Amy and I would get tea after dates to tell each other everything. Anand would come over to my house just to check in. The three of us went to a kite festival, happy hours, dinners, and West Virginia just to be with one another. We even have our own dance move. We recognized the unique nature of our relationship and were intentional about fostering it.

And now, it seemed fitting that I was ending my time at Joseph's House in the living room, leaning on them. Months earlier in that room, we had done an activity in which each of us took turns embodying the mind, body, or spirit of the others. That is when the space disappeared between us. We know each other uncannily well, and I know it is because at one time Amy, Anand, and I were literally one.

Dearest Amy and Anand, thank you for knowing all of me so intimately and yet still choosing to call me your beloved. Thanks for knowing when to say something and knowing when to hold me. Thanks for the hours in the kitchen, and the days by bedsides. For the good times we wanted to live in forever, and the hard times when we didn't think we could get through. We made it, and I know I could not have gotten through my dark times without both of you coming alongside me and believing for me that I would be okay, until I could believe it for myself. I consider it one of the highest honors of my life being able to be your friend. Both of you are incredible healers, with souls that challenge, enrich, and better everyone you touch. Every day, your shining examples pushed me to a more compassionate, hard-working, loving version of myself. I am a better person because I was a part of you two. Many bows to who are, who you will become, and who you will always be.

With all my mind, body, and spirit,

I love you.

How to Say Goodbye

Yesterday was the goodbye lunch for the three year-long volunteers at Joseph's House. Amy, Anand, and I (or the "Bad News Bears" as we affectionately have called ourselves at times) sat in the midst of our staff members as we were honored with hopes, gifts, memories, and in true J. House fashion, incredible food. I always knew this time was coming. I always knew this experience was never mine to keep living forever. Yet as I rested in the love and pride surrounding me and my two friends (also known as the "little littles" apparently) I couldn't help but wonder, when did this end?

My friend Tyler, whose blog is on the list on the left, had an idea to write letters at the end of his service year to those who had impacted him. I would also like to do this. Perhaps it might be a sweet way to help me say goodbye. I am not leaving Washington, D.C., in August, but I am leaving an important chapter in my life and though this has been a year of goodbyes, this one is particularly difficult. How do you say goodbye to the best year of your life? This is a way.

According to the Sorting Hat

I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be brave. I realized recently that I really admire people who are courageous. This year, I find myself strongly drawn to individuals who boldly speak opinions, who stand up for the marginalized in spite of potential backlash, who refuse to let themselves be held back by fear. There is something irresistible about them. I can't seem to get enough of it.

At one point early in my freshman year at Gonzaga, many of the girls in my hall decided to get "sorted." As a product of the Harry Potter generation, each of us had been swept into the magic of Hogwarts and so we set out to avoid our papers and instead find out which of the wizarding houses we belonged in. Like many Harry Potter fans, I wanted to be in Gryffindor. Brave people are cool. I would settle for Ravenclaw since I also self-identified as smart. Imagine my horror when on-line test after on-line test sorted me as a Hufflepuff. Who wanted to known as being nice? My dramatic, teenage self took my placement as a sign that college would not go well for me.

Fast forward four years, and college had gone very well. Hufflepuffs are known for their primary trait of kindness as well as their hard-working natures, loyalty to the well-being of others, and honesty. Come to find out, though people may want to be Gryffindors, they want to be friends with Hufflepuffs. By the time I graduated, I completely embraced my Hufflepuff identity - I have a shirt and scarf to prove it. In an ironic repeat of history, my housemates also wanted to get sorted when we moved to DC. This time, I proudly took the Pottermore test (the most authentic test any Muggle can take) knowing that I would be a Hufflepuff.

The Sorting Hat did a curious thing, though. It made me a Gryffindor. I have never viewed myself as brave, and I still don't. But the sorting has made me pay attention to those around me who are brave. 

My housemates and I were at a bonfire last week with a bunch of people most of us did not know. Comments started being made that me uncomfortable. Comments that perpetuate stereotypes and violence. Little, seemingly innocuous statements that many people say but that I haven't heard in a while because of the people I am around this year: "that's so gay," "he's being such a girl." I didn't say anything and neither did any of my housemates though we are all aware of the impact of those words.

None of us said anything until someone sitting next to us made a comment about homeless people running around because they're crazy and then laughed. My whole body got warm. I could pretend to not hear the previous comments, but I knew something had to be said about this one. I knew if something was not said it would trivialize and disrespect the truth of my experience with everyone I love who has been, is, or will be homeless because of mental illness. I stared into the fire saddened by the ignorance of the words and scrambled to find my own words. My housemate Kaitlyn, who was also sorted into Gryffindor against her wishes (she wanted to be a Ravenclaw) and who works as a case manager for people who are homeless, didn't seem to hesitate with her words. She looked straight at the stranger and said, "You're an asshole."

Could she have handled that better? Of course. But as I listened to Kaitlyn explain what her experience has been with people who are homeless, many of whom do suffer from mental illness, I felt so much pride. In fact, I have never been more proud of any of my housemates. Why? Because Kaitlyn was brave. She heard something that was wrong and hurtful and she refused to be silent. She was in a position of vulnerability and yet still chose to stand up for those who are even more vulnerable. 

Audre Lorde, an amazing Black, woman, warrior poet, said that "when I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid." This is truth. In Harry Potter, Gryffindors were only at their best when they dared to stand up for others. In my life, I see a similar thing. At Joseph's House the vision is a radical one: everyone has
infinite worth. Belief in that truth is more important than my fear of disease, poverty, and death. Belief in the importance of service makes it less and less important whether I am afraid. The Bible says that perfect love drives out fear. How often have I confused fear for anger, confusion, or doubt? Too often, let me tell you. Love is the anti-thesis of fear. Love is what enables people to keep fighting  for their lives, for the lives of those they care about. Love is what makes it more and more important that I be brave. 

A Good Death

Scott, one of the directors of Joseph's House, sent this New York Times article to everyone on staff and it is too beautiful not to pass on. The writer notes that the story is "not a tragic death or a famous death, just a good one, the kind that might happen to any of us if we are lucky." These are the kind of deaths I get to be a part of at Joseph's House. Not tragic or famous but good, human, and full of the dignity everyone deserves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/opinion/sunday/a-good-death.html?src=twrhp

A Good Friday Reflection

Ethan was an artist, but by the time he came to us at Joseph's House he was ready to relinquish that part of his past. He refused to create and had in fact gotten rid of most of his work. At his memorial, his best friend, another artist, told us that Ethan had been the Michaelangelo of our time. His work was ethereal, romantic, stunning. And gone. The art is gone. No one knew why and Ethan would not speak of it.

It was early on in my time at Joseph's House and I was still trying to get to know everyone. Ethan and I got into a conversation about his art and a little bit about why he had stopped. He asked if I was an artist and I laughingly said no, but confessed that I was a writer. I hadn't voluntarily written anything of worth in a long time, though. I had stopped and wasn't sure if I would start again. I blamed it on writer's block and he nodded. "I understand that feeling," he said.

A few weeks later, I was giving him his afternoon pills. By then, we we were quiet friends and we had not revisited the art conversation. Everyone pushed him to draw, and I just wanted to be with him. I turned to leave and he called me back in the room.

"You should keep writing," he said. "You are too young to stop."

He got quiet and I saw him grow pensive.

"You may lose part of yourself if you stop."

I think that Ethan knew that while writer's block may have genuinely played a part in my decision, a bigger factor was fear. I had always enjoyed writing until I got to college and English professor after English professor rattled my confidence. I still journaled, but that was private. I did not want to offer my true self through writing to anyone else. Not when it could be rejected and taken a part. I would be like Emily Dickinson and my writing could be discovered after my death. But Emily died in part because of her depression. So Ethan encouraged me instead to be what he for some reason was not able to be. And today as I remember his death, and the death of my Savior, I am grateful for everyone who has quietly, gently listened to my fears and then pushed me to be brave.

In honor of the promise I made Ethan to keep writing, here is the first poem I wrote after that quiet conversation. It is based on an experience with another incredible Joseph's House resident and is still untitled, so if you have a title suggestion,  please feel free to let me know. It is a work in progress, but I think Ethan would like it.

I was scared of you --

no, not of you, but the death you were entering,

the death filling the room and touching me in ways I had never experienced --

but I had been taught to fear you, 

fear your sickness, 

fear what you could do to me.

I knew how to fear,

how to distance your mortality from mine,

so when I sat with you 

I automatically did that.

I told myself 

that I was scared of you.

It took all my courage to reach for your hand,

expecting you to push me away,

to lash out in anger and resentment.

But you took my hand, 

you took my spirit,

and you held it in a grace of tenderness that I knew,

knew in a way that was deep and intimate and old.

My hand, my spirit, knew you.

We had touched before.

I knew you.

And when I looked down,

when I gathered enough strength from you 

to see the truth that I already knew,

I saw why.

The brown of my skin flowed seamlessly 

into the brown of yours,

the color ebbing and rising from your skin to meet the subtle shades of gold and pink in mine 

that I can never seem to match when I look for makeup.

I had never met my brown in anyone else,

not in my mother, not in my father, 

not in Africa or the Pacific or any of the states I have been.

Only in you. 

Only in you.

And the longer you held me,

the more I remembered.

I remembered how we were once unified through the drumbeats of communal living,

with the rhythm of sunsets and sunrises 

as our shared breath.

I remembered you teaching me how to live for myself 

and for others,

for our people and for the earth,

for our ancestors and for the children that were never born.

I remembered you holding me as our home became our nightmare,

as other browns that did not match ours 

overlooked how special it is, 

how rare and holy it is, 

to hold in your hand a spirit that is the same.

You held my hand until the very last moment,

until we were chained,

until we were beaten,

until we were forced, yanked, pulled screaming and aching 

a part.

And still my brown longed for the feel of yours,

in the cargo of ships flowing with blood.

In waters that could not wash away the memory of brutality.

In town squares where the color of my skin made me an object.

Don't they know that our brown is priceless?

Don't they know that there is no value large enough to pay for the shade of my skin that is not replicated anywhere else in Creation 

but in your arms?

I tried to remember you.

I fought to remember.

I burned houses, murdered "masters."

I ran and poisoned. 

No one else matched my brown 

and slowly my brown changed until 

I did not even recognize it.

A foreign climate made me lighter.

Rapes and oppression made me darker. 

I began to fear that you would not recognize me 

and I grew ashamed.

Ashamed of the lies that stole 

my dignity, my innocence, 

my beauty, my strength.

But I still fought to remember you, 

to regain that which was ours.

I labored under sharecroppers. 

I established schools. 

I rode in the front of the bus.

I marched for non-violent revolution.

I watched crosses burn in my yard.

I missed you.

I fought and fought until 

I forgot why I was fighting.

That it was all out of my soul's desperate longing for you.

For my perfect match.

I left the ghettos hoping to find you.

I got an education trying to learn where you were.

I returned to Africa to search for you.

But it is hard to find someone when you don't even remember that you are looking for him,

when all your life "Black" has been ugly and inferior 

and your spirit revolts at that lie but doesn't know that someone's brown matches yours so beautifully 

that once more

you get the rivers again,

you get the singing again,

you get the dancing and the joy and the companionship that sustains even across continents, oceans, plantations, projects, 

and generations

and generations

and generations of violence.

Only you matched me.

Only you.

And in that room, at your bedside,

your brown reminded my brown of its identity.

Your brown remembered.

We were reunited.

We were finally reunited.

But the next day when I came,

I found that once again they had taken you from me. 

They killed you with their diseases.

They said that you were not human enough to save.

They used you and discarded you,

not seeing, or perhaps seeing but not caring,

how special it is,

how rare and holy it is, 

to hold in your hand a spirit that is the same.

Haven't we done enough penance for our crimes?

Haven't we suffered enough?

Don't they know that our brown is priceless?

Don't they know that there is no value large enough to pay for the shade of my skin that is not replicated anywhere else in Creation but in your arms?