CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
So I let him. For the first time in many years I cried real tears.
I wept against Jahnu’s shoulder for Jonathan.
I held the grief and guilt of twenty years and let fourteen-year-old Sidney feel the loss of her brother—her hero.
I’d used that pain as my emotional scaffolding.
It shored up the walls that held me together, but they’d begun to crumble the moment I came to the Hundi village.
Jahnu kissed my temple gently and held me until we fell asleep.
A new story was emerging—I didn’t know what it was yet, but for the first time I felt like I had space to figure it out, and I had Jahnu to thank for it.
Being in his presence and sharing these intimate moments had been a sort of drug—a drug that made me forget I had a life before I came to Hundi.
In those moments, I didn’t want to remember.
I thought less and less about returning to Makia, because part of me just didn’t want to.
I thought less about Greg, and I wasn’t sure what to do with that admission, or how unaffected it left my heart.
Did that make me a wretched person? I suppose it made me human.
And as the days stretched on, I felt myself split in two, cleft down the middle, at odds with who I had been when I’d first arrived here with the Hundi, and who I was now—who I was becoming.
I knew I needed to return, and yet, a part of me didn’t even want to bring it up again.
I was just as much at war within myself as the tribes were with each other.
“‘Everything can be taken from a man but one thing,’” Jahnu read to the children from a brown, tattered book.
His students sat under the open canopy, their slate boards forgotten beside them.
“‘…the last of the human freedoms—’” he continued, “‘to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
’” He finished, closing the book. His wisdom and character pulled at the strings of my heart and I knew I loved him even if I didn’t understand how it had happened so quickly.
There were twenty or so children ranging in age from seven to eighteen.
I knew, because one of the young women in the group was M’Lea’s youngest granddaughter, Sotee.
She was eighteen, and quickly growing into a mature young woman.
She and I had spoken often during meals since she also knew some English.
Jahnu had asked me to join them in the lessons today. He sat on a box in front of the class, hands resting on his knees, dressed only in his shorts, as was usual.
“I asked miss Sid-de-nee to join us today for a special lesson,” he patted the box he sat on, indicating I should join him. Shoulder to shoulder we sat, taking in the eager, upturned faces of the children. My heart clenched with affection.
“So if your response to what happens in life is the only thing that cannot be taken, as Frankl says, let us share stories…” Jahnu continued, “stories that happen in a person’s life, or a group of people, that change them forever.
Stories that define a group or a person, and how they respond to what happens. ”
“I don’t understand,” I shook my head.
“When I was a boy, there was great earthquake in the village. Many homes were destroyed from the damage and many die from landslides caused by the quake. That was a moment in our tribe that changed us, because we began to build our homes differently, stronger, more fortified against the shaking of the earth. Do you understand, now?”
“I think so,” I said, thoughtfully.
“In many ways, it brought our tribe closer as we rebuild,” Jahnu explained. “And we came to understand that the jungle gives and takes, but we are always stronger together. The children know this story, but I wanted to know if you have a story of your people?”
“I do, actually, yes.” As images of 9-11 began to course through my memory, I told them of the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center—that I had been close to their age when it happened, at school, on a day much like today.
Most faces reflected surprise and anger.
Even Jahnu tensed beside me when I told him of the great loss of life because of a few evil men and their actions, and how, for weeks afterward, workers searched for peoples’ lost loved ones in the rubble.
“I suppose much changed for America, after that. We realized we weren’t as protected as we thought.
Safety measures became much stronger because of the experience, we became less trusting, on guard…
and more fearful of the world around us.
The evil we usually only watched from television happening in other places around the world had found its way to our home and…
and…and we declared war because of it.” I caught Jahnu’s eyes, the irony not lost on either of us.
He looked once more to the children. “Now, it will be your turn. T’ink of a time, a moment, an event that changed you—changed your life and your response to it.
” I immediately thought of my own situation being brought to Hundi against my will.
The last of the human freedoms… Jahnu had read…
to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.
My attitude, at first, had been defensive and furious. Now…what had changed?
“But you shared only a story of a group,” little Alo chimed in, his voice tinged with a whine. “Can you tell another?”
“Alo is always trying to get out of work,” Jahnu explained, nudging me on the shoulder, speaking loud enough for all to hear.
I smiled at the boy who was only eight or nine.
The group rumbled with laughter. “Very well,” he continued, “many of you know my father…and wife…Alupa” he said, halfway looking at me, “died from the same sickness. The sickness came to our tribe five years ago… you may not remember.”
“I remember,” Sotee said, raising her hand. A few of the other older children nodded somberly.
“And…again…when the fire…come…” Jahnu seemed to be holding back tears as the pauses in his story became longer and more pronounced. He blinked quickly, while his hand balled into a tight fist in his lap.
I wanted to reach out and give him the comfort he so obviously needed. He’d comforted me in my grief. I wanted to do the same, but dared not under the scrutiny of so many curious onlookers.
“My response…from all those events…is to try and live this life as well as I can. To teach you all the things I’ve learned, because life is not always promised.”
“Do you miss Talmu?” a young girl asked, sensing the grief in Jahnu’s voice.
“Very much,” Jahnu whispered. I looked at him with questioning eyes. What had he not shared with me?
“What about Miss Sid-de-nee?” Alo interrupted, obviously stalling for more time. “Tell us another story.”
“Oh, no. That’s ok…” I, too, hesitated. I’d shared the pain of my wound with Jahnu under the light of the stars and the cover of darkness, but inviting children into my pain?
“Please, Miss Sid-de-nee?” Sotee asked. Innocent eyes looked back at me, waiting. How I had already come to love these children! I couldn’t refuse them.
After a deep breath my thoughts settled around the events of my life—things which shaped me into the ‘me’ of today, and my response to those circumstances. Though, response wasn’t the word I would choose. More like react. All I had done since childhood was react to one disappointment after another.
“When I was nine, my father left us,” I began slowly.
It proved easier to share these details with Jahnu.
Now I was up against the temptation to build those insulated walls around myself before I let anyone else in.
Kids had a way of unveiling even the most carefully constructed walls with their sometimes incessant questions.
Jahnu, too, was more perceptive than I first gave him credit for.
He seemed to instinctively know the more I shared my hurts, the more they might lose their hold on me.
I wanted to do this, but I didn’t know if I could.
His warm hand encircled mine and I look at him, surprised he would show affection in front of all the children, but his touch gave me the courage I needed.
“I had an older brother…and he and I were very close growing up,” my voice picked up speed, “I looked up to him, almost like a father-figure, I suppose, because there was such a void from when mine left. But then…Jonathan, my brother, also left…he went off to school and…died in a vehicle accident…” I paused, feeling vulnerable.
The bloom of my rosacea felt hot on my neck.
Why was this so hard for me to talk about?
It struck me, then, how I had responded to all these events in my life.
I had adopted the belief that everything was up to me and I could never count on anyone but myself.
If I don’t do it who will? When had that become my mantra?
Layer after layer of disappointment, loss, and abandonment had served me a hardened shell of protection.
Did I unknowingly push Greg away too, fearful he would eventually leave me the way all the other men in my life had left?
The thought was an epiphany. I offered sex as a consolation prize to the married state because the timing never felt right, but continued to pursue the independence of my career…
until I realized how much time had passed and I still wasn’t fulfilled.
I had built my life so I wouldn’t be reliant on anyone.
Don’t be too needy…need is weakness. Don’t let anyone see your weakness.
Don’t ask too much…you won’t be able to live with the disappointment.
It’s all up to me—but had it backfired somehow?
Was this why Greg and I hadn’t moved forward? Was this why I felt so alone?