Chapter 30 Halia
Halia
Work kept Halia busy, but she visited her family whenever she could.
Having all of her sisters together and safe brought her a deep sense of peace, and their newborn nephew was particularly precious.
She sat out on the front porch one afternoon, holding little Kaleo while his mother showered in peace. The baby stared up at her with dark, solemn eyes.
“What a lucky baby you are,” she told him softly.
“Is any baby lucky?” Zoe asked, coming to sit beside them.
“He’s loved,” Halia said simply. “He’s fed. That’s lucky enough.”
“I don’t see why anybody would bring a baby into this world.” Zoe’s words were bitter, but her tone wasn’t. She sounded sad and bemused, and Halia’s heart ached for her.
“This world’s not so bad.”
“Are you serious?” Zoe leaned back and crossed her arms. “Do you not read the news?”
“No.” Halia looked down at the tiny, perfect human in her arms. “I focus on our piece of the world and do what I can to make it better. If you focus on things that are far beyond your control, you’ll drive yourself mad.
But if you connect with this community and help people here, you can create your own peace. ”
“Aloha.” Lorenzo waved as he came up the front walk. His eyes went straight to his baby, and he held his hands out as he walked onto the lanai. “May I?”
“Of course.” Halia overrode her own reluctance and handed the baby over to his father.
“Leoncino,” he crooned, and Kaleo made a small sound in reply. Lorenzo continued speaking to him in a musical string of Italian as he walked into the house.
“He’s luckier than most,” Zoe conceded when they were gone. “But I still think it’s crazy to procreate when the world’s on fire.”
“Careful,” Halia cautioned. “People who hate humanity inevitably hate themselves.”
“I never asked to be here,” she muttered. “I’m not even sure I want to be.”
Alarm bells rang in Halia’s head – but outwardly, she stayed very calm.
“We want you here, kaikamahine.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Zoe said, and her eyes filled with tears. “I’m just so tired. I’m tired of myself. I’m tired of being the way that I am.”
“In what way?” Halia asked carefully.
“I don’t want to be angry all the time. I don’t want to hate the people who love me. But I don’t know how to move on. I don’t know how to let go of the things that have happened to me. I don’t know how to be happy.” Her voice broke on the last word.
“We have no say over the circumstances of our birth,” Halia told her niece, “and sometimes terrible things happen to us. Things that are beyond our control. But we can choose how we respond. We have full autonomy over the choices that we make as adults.”
“If I stop blaming my mom,” Zoe said very quietly, “I have to admit that there’s something wrong with me.”
“That’s good news,” Halia told her gently.
“What’s good news? That there’s something wrong with me?”
“The only thing that we have any real control over is ourselves. Our perspectives. Our thought patterns. Our reactions. So if at some point in our life we realize that we’re the problem, or that we’re creating our problems – and we almost always are, in some way or another – the good news is that we’re also the solution. ”
“That’s one way of looking at it, I guess.”
“It’s the only reasonable way of looking at it.” Halia looked her niece in the eyes. “You have to take radical responsibility for your own life.”
“I thought you were all about community.”
“They’re not mutually exclusive.”
“I don’t get it.”
“We can’t control how our community shows up for us,” Halia explained, “but we can decide how we want to show up within our community. How we want to contribute. What kind of energy we want to bring to each interaction.”
“I’m not sure I know how to control what kind of energy I bring.”
“You did well at the bookshop the other day.”
“That was easy. I knew what I was supposed to be doing.”
“So maybe that’s where you start.”
“But how?”
“Keep helping. Keep doing what you know how to do.”
“Okay.” Zoe sniffed and swiped at her nose.
“To be kinder to other people,” Halia added, “you have to start being kinder to yourself.”
She froze.
“I’m guessing that the voice in your head is pretty harsh.”
“What makes you say that?” Zoe asked.
“People who are harsh on others are generally even harder on themselves.”
“I can’t control what comes into my head.”
“You can. It takes time to carve in new neural pathways, but you can shift them with time.”
“How?”
“Every time you find yourself speaking harshly – to yourself or to others – you need to stop and redirect it. Speak to yourself the way you would speak to a small child – with unconditional kindness.
“It might feel strange at first, but eventually it becomes a habit. I’m kind to myself all the time, or near enough. I wasn’t always.”
“I guess it’s worth a try.”
“It works, Zoe. If you keep at it. Big changes might not happen overnight, but they are possible.”
“If you say so,” she said dismissively.
“You’re a grown woman,” Halia said firmly. “It’s time to take radical responsibility for your own life – and that starts with the voices in your head.”
“You make me sound like a basket case.”
“We all have voices in our heads, Zoe. It’s up to you to weed out the ones that are doing you harm and water the others.”
“Some of those voices are as sharp as cactus grass,” she said in a tiny voice.
“You’ve dealt with plenty of that.” Halia stood and patted her niece on the back. “You’re stronger than you think.”
Zoe didn’t reply.
“I’m running a carnival day this weekend for the kids at A Place of Refuge. Will you give me a hand?”
Zoe looked her in the eye. She might be mired in her own misery, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew that her aunt was telling her to look around her at people whose suffering went far beyond her own and find a way to help.
“Sure,” she said. “I’d like that.”
Halia kissed the top of her niece’s head. The short hair looked spiky, but it was as soft as the fur on a newborn puppy.
“Good. I’ll see you Saturday.”
“What time?” Zoe asked.
“I’ll be there at first light. I want to have it all set up before the kids are up for the day.”
“Okay. See you then.”
“Hey Zoe?” Halia waited for her niece to meet her eyes.
“Yeah?”
“It won’t always feel this hard. I promise.”
Zoe gave her a sad, tight smile. “Thanks.”
Halia nodded and walked away, determined to make the most of the day.