fe•fe ⎟feh′ feh⎟

fe•fe ⎟feh′  feh⎟

  I’m a little nervous about writing this post.  I’ve never blogged using a non -English word as the subject.  What if my translation is not correct?  What if my explanation seems meaningless to you even though it means something to me?  Oh, what to do?

The word for the day is fefe, meaning fear.  It is a Samoan word.  In our family it is used most often as part of the phrase “No fefe” and is a play on the extreme sports clothing brand “No Fear."  There are several shades of meaning for the phrase. 

“No fefe, huh?” can mean, “Man, that kid has a lot of nerve!”

Or, "Eh, no fefe" could mean “Go on. Don’t be ashamed!”

“No, fefe, ah?” could also indicate respect, as in,  “Wow, that person is fearless!”

All of us experience fefe sometime, and it is so often crippling and stifling.  I’d rather live my life with NO fefe.  Can people really do that?  Sometimes!  Here are 3 examples:

It was Spring break 2010, and our family took what will probably turn out to be a once in a lifetime trip to our hometown of Laie, Hawaii.  We arrived late at night but were up early in the morning because of the time difference.  We slept in ‘til 5:00 am which equates to 11:00 am Michigan time.  Since Mom’s house is small  and has thin walls, we knew we’d be making noise that would wake her and that we’d better step outside.  We headed straight for the beach, of course.  While there we collected shells and pieces of coral that had washed up on the shore.  The kids jumped and played in the calm waters of low tide and Charles and I showed them some caves and some tidal pools on exposed coral reef.  When we’d been gone long enough to allow Grandma a nice, slow wake up, we turned for home.  Soon after rinsing the sand off our legs and stepping inside, we received a phone call from a childhood friend of mine, a beautiful part-Hawaiian lady who had married a handsome part-Samoan childhood friend.  She wanted to bring us some real luau food—pork smoked overnight in an underground oven, breadfruit, a ton of other delicacies I can’t think of right now, and some luau bread, which was so delicious I didn’t even think of sharing it.  When she arrived, she walked through the front door, gave me a big hug and kiss and said, “Is that your little boy standing out on the edge of the highway holding a sign?”  I told her that I didn’t think so.  I was soon corrected by my another of the kids who informed me that in fact it WAS my son standing out on the very edge of the busy busy highway which runs right in front of my Mom’s house, and that he was indeed holding a sign.  As I collected my wits, I remembered that several minutes previous, George had been writing something on a piece of paper and had asked how to spell a certain word.  I couldn’t for the life of me remember what the word was.  I didn’t need to remember.  My native Hawaiian friend soon told me that the piece of paper he was holding said, “CORAL FOR SALE $1”.   

No fefe, huh!

Now, there’s information you need to have before you understand the implications of this event:

1.     My son was 5 years old at the time,

2.     He had been in Hawaii for a grand total of 15 hours.

3.     It is illegal to harvest or sell coral in Hawaii.

4.     My friend is native Hawaiian, and was bringing me a kind, loving, generous, 100% Hawaiian gift. The food was made as part of a fundraising luau for a local political candidate, and it was being offered to me for free, at her family’s expense.

5.     130 years ago, American businessmen overthrew the native Hawaiian monarchy in order to exploit the business opportunities they saw everywhere.  American businessmen have been doing it ever since, much to the anger of the native population.

It would be like trying to sell melted-off pieces of the Arctic ice cap to Eskimos, at a profit.

Oh, the nerve of that boy!  Why wasn’t he sitting in front of the TV watching a dum video like usual?  I don’t know what possessed him. It mortified me and still does, though I hope such fearless initiative (tempered by wisdom from Mom and Dad) will bless George’s life someday.

exploring the shoreline

Can you tell we just woke up?

The criminal, about to strike

Searching for. . . .

. . . .illegal loot.

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I was going to begin this next paragraph with “here’s a less-embarrassing example” but I’m not sure it is.  It depends on how “No fefe” you are!!

In October 2008 my high school class held its 20^th reunion (which is strange, since it’s only been a couple years since I graduated from high school!)  Many of us from Hawaii live on the mainland and it’s crazy-expensive to travel home, so a smaller group decided to reunite in Las Vegas.  I flew out to Utah and drove from there to Vegas with a few close friends.  There were nerves, at least for me, as we joined our classmates.  Would they remember us?  Would we be comfortable?  Would we find things to talk about with everyone?  I shouldn’t have worried.  By the end of the weekend, the warm glow of shared history won out over nerves.  In some cases, I felt closer to them than I ever had in school.  It was sweet. 

The last event of the weekend was a breakfast buffet.  We sat together in one portion of a huge dining hall that was part of a casino/hotel and laughed, offered encouragement and delayed leaving.  When it was actually, finally time for people to go, it seemed as if we would just sort of peel off, one or two at a time until everyone had left.  It felt anti-climactic and sad.  I suggested to a friend that what we should do was stand and sing our alma mater.  Do you know your high school’s alma mater?  We sang ours fearlessly and often at Kahuku High back in the day--at football and basketball games, at assemblies and pep rallies.  We would all stand and hold hands, arms lifted high in the air swaying back and forth.  It’s our signature song!  I made my suggestion quietly, afraid that it would seem silly or overly sentimental.  Luckily, my friend didn’t have the same fears and she proposed it out loud.  So, in our section of this huge dining hall in Las Vegas, with zero concern for what everyone else in the dining hall might think of this strange behavior, we stood up from our tables and stood in a circle, grabbed hands, raised them high in the air and sang.  

Deen raises her hand to suggest we all sing

                           

Yes, that means you!  

                         

Here we go.

                            

"In old Kahuku stands our alma mater;
where the salt winds blow day after day

                         

With her doors flung wide for her sons and daughters true,
while the flag of freedom proudly waves above.

                         

Hail, Kahuku, hail our alma mater!
Hail to our colors red and white!

                           

We'll cherish, love and honor thee!
All Hail, Kahuku, Hail!!!"

                         

As I’ve remembered that event, I think how amazing it was that our pride and our warm memories of childhood made us totally unconcerned about anything but each other, reunited in that sweet, shared tradition.  We had no fefe at all.  Our subsequent farewells were tearful and tender, coming on the heels of a moment I hope I’ll never forget!

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The last example. . .My friend Ellen was diagnosed with cancer last year.  In the years before her own diagnosis, she had lost her husband, her mother and a couple of brothers and sisters, some to cancer.  It had been hard.  Ellen, however, was always cheerful.  It wasn’t that she didn’t realize what was going on.  She talked a lot about the trying things in her life, how badly she was feeling, how hard it was to take care of sick relatives and how lonely it was without them.  But the feeling you ended with after talking with Ellen was that life was full of miracles and that her life—even her health--was brimming with them.  I talked to her on the phone a few weeks into her disease, after the doctor had told her that he couldn’t recommend further treatment—that it was now just a matter of time.  I expected to console her and empathize.  Instead, Ellen giggled about how her bishop had said, “Well, maybe your husband Wayne is lonely without you and he’s calling you home!”  There weren’t tears or emotional agony.  There was reality and there was, believe it or not, bubbliness.  She talked about dying as if it were a trip to the store—just a run-of-the-mill occurrence, nothing to get freaked out about.  And she didn’t have an agenda; she wasn’t trying to cheer me up.  It was just how she felt.  I loved talking to her in those last few weeks.  I was in awe of her.  I descend into emotional agony over trivial things, and feel justified about it.  Ellen couldn’t or wouldn’t or just didn’t.  No fefe.  Her daughter in law told me about the one time she broke down.  They were going somewhere in the car after Ellen had been told she was terminal.  As the daughter in law slid into the driver’s seat she looked over at Ellen in the passenger seat and noticed there were tears spilling down her cheeks.  She said to Ellen, “Do you need to be alone?”  Ellen said yes.  Her daughter in law left and returned about half an hour later to find Ellen all done crying, face clear and ready to go.  That was it.  Her life was ending and she needed just a few minutes alone to mourn. 

She will always be a hero to me; that’s how I want to live and how I want to go out—with no fefe.