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? |
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| The criminal, about to strike |
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| Searching for. . . . |
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| . . . .illegal loot. |
________________________________________________________________
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 20th
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. |
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"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!
________________________________________________________________
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.
