Archive for the ‘Samoan culture’ Category

Ok, I know… I’m sorry.  I promised this post yes­ter­day and I failed you.  Hon­estly, I didn’t have it in me to write it yes­ter­day, added with the fact that I was not home and didn’t have access to the pho­tos.  Hope­fully it is worth the wait though…

I will warn you.  This is going to be a lengthy post.  If you skip to the end (which is the best part) I under­stand, but the story behind end­ing is part of the big­ger story.

If this is your first time vis­it­ing FFP­MaMMa, then wel­come!  I’m so glad you are here and hope you make your­self at home.  I am cur­rently in the mid­dle of telling the story of MM (hubby) & me.  How we met, dated, engaged, and all the in between stuff. If you would like to catch up you can do so here:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Fast for­ward just over a year…

July 2, 2007
Walk­ing through the freezer sec­tion of the gro­cery store.  I was gath­er­ing gro­ceries for my Mon­day evening din­ner date with a friend. You know, there are moments that hap­pen in your life and you remem­ber exactly where you were when it happens.

I couldn’t under­stand him at first and I said “what”?

“He’s dead!  My brother is dead!”

“WHAT?”

I don’t remem­ber what I said next.  I just took off…the gro­ceries ended up on some floor dis­play in the store.

I remem­ber him say­ing some­thing about him wak­ing up dead.  I made sure some­one was with him so I didn’t keep him on the phone

I was about 15 min­utes from his house and in that time I made two phone calls.  Through my own gar­bled voice and with­out any infor­ma­tion I called my sis­ter and mom “please pray and I’ll call when I know more” was all that I could fum­ble out.

What do you say? What do you do?  I prayed myself while doing my best to keep my eyes on the road.  “Lord, give me words, strength and dis­cern­ment to know what MM needs”.

Thank­fully we have incred­i­ble friends who stepped in and were able to help me in know­ing what he needed.  Peo­ple came over to make food & clean the house.  MM just needed me near, know­ing I was there, hold­ing his hand and allow­ing myself to mourn as well.

Just the pre­vi­ous April I had the incred­i­ble plea­sure of vis­it­ing MM’s brother “AP” in Snow­mass, CO.  Every year Snow­mass hosts the National Dis­abled Vet­er­ans Win­ter Sport’s Clinic. An amaz­ing site to see dis­abled  men and women ski­ing down the moun­tain with vol­un­teer guides.

AP had suf­fered injuries from an IED a few years before.  Lost many of his men in the explo­sion.  After numer­ous surg­eries, his injury that crip­pled him the most was the PTSD.  Severely.  He would have hor­ri­ble dreams night as well as episodes of con­fus­ing real­ity with past sit­u­a­tions.  A sit­u­a­tion where he was not com­fort­able with his mom com­ing to visit him.  He never knew if he might cause her harm at night.

I remem­ber phone calls MM would have with him.  I would usu­ally be able to tell what was going on as MM would slip between speak­ing in Samoan and Eng­lish.  AP was usu­ally more com­fort­able speak­ing in Eng­lish as that was his day to day lan­guage and seemed to be eas­ier for him.

“he just didn’t wake up this morn­ing” MM told me.

AP was cur­rently at one of the VA hos­pi­tals in CA.  He would be admit­ted off and on depend­ing on how he was doing.  He had just been arrested due to con­fus­ing a mid­dle east­ern taxi dri­ver with the Tal­iban he had encoun­tered over­seas.  He was released to the author­ity of the VA staff for fur­ther treat­ment.  Usu­ally he would meet up with the nurses to work on his phys­i­cal ther­apy and when he neglected to show up that morn­ing they went in to check on him.  No pulse.  Once we finally received the autopsy from the coro­ner it stated that he had died from an enlarged heart.  And oddly enough, it was not until a year later it was stated he died as a casu­alty of war.

10 short days away was our upcom­ing visit to CA to visit with him again.  That trip was now sped up for us to leave only 3 days after the 2nd.  There was going to be a lot of paper­work and details to take care of.  The rest of the fam­ily was in UT.

This was going to be my plunge into the Samoan cul­ture of bur­ring the dead, as well as the US Mil­i­tary and the incred­i­ble detail of hon­or­ing fam­ily who have fallen.

I did some research before I left so that I would have some idea what to expect, but it really didn’t offer too much help.  I knew that there would be spe­cific gifts given and mon­e­tary dona­tions to cover the costs.  Yes, the mil­i­tary was cov­er­ing the bur­ial costs and all that, how­ever with the Samoan cul­ture things are a bit different.

Peo­ple come to pay their respects over about a week’s period of time.  If an appointed Chief or Elder is not present, then usu­ally the eldest male fam­ily mem­ber takes charge of all the event plan­ning and author­i­ta­tive deci­sions.  The pas­tor and church fam­ily are invited one evening to pay their respects as well as other fam­ily and friends.  Every night the house was full and meals were served.  The main gath­er­ing place in the home is cleared of most fur­ni­ture and the floor is cov­ered with “fine mats”.  The women cooked dur­ing the day while the chil­dren would serve every­one in the evening.

When peo­ple came to visit there were spe­cific gifts brought and that would usu­ally include money and a fine mat to present to the fam­ily.  Depend­ing on the fam­ily pre­sent­ing the fine mat, it would be received and pos­si­bly would be returned.  This is all out of respect.  The fam­ily in mourn­ing would keep some mats to be given as gifts.  Gifts to the pas­tor, friends and fam­ily who sac­ri­ficed time and money. When a fine mat is pre­sented as a gift it is usu­ally from a pre­vi­ous event and thus they con­tinue to be passed around.  To me this rep­re­sents the tight com­mu­nity that the Samoan peo­ple represent.

Dur­ing our time in UT, MM would bring the fam­ily together for an evening meet­ing.  Dis­cussing the next day’s activ­i­ties, who would be vis­it­ing, and a time to read scrip­ture.  The chil­dren would serve us and then come and join us.  I will be hon­est, learn­ing to sit and be served by the chil­dren was prob­a­bly my most dif­fi­cult thing to get used to.  I slowly began to under­stand that this was how tra­di­tions were passed down to the next gen­er­a­tion.  The youngest one learn­ing was about 5.  If the chil­dren were too young to help they were kept down­stairs and watched by a few of the youth.  Keep in mind that I am talk­ing about 15 kids here.  As one learned and grew, they would then help the younger ones learn.  Pretty amaz­ing really.

There is so much detail that I could include in this post, but for time’s sake as well as your eyes, I will cut it short and allow the pho­tos to tell the story…

This is a series of pic­tures prior to the funeral service

The day prior when AP was deliv­ered to the church from the street for the view­ing, there were no police block­ing the street where the hertz was parked and block­ing a lane.  AP’s death was get­ting media atten­tion. A pedes­trian, who was also a vet­eran, called into Salt Lake City mayor’s office com­plain­ing that there was no respect for a fallen sol­dier by not pro­vid­ing some­one direct­ing traf­fic.  The day of the funeral we saw 12 police motor­cy­cles parked in the mid­dle of the street and one parked behind the hertz pre­pared to direct traf­fic when he was brought out of the church and loaded back into the hertz.  Amaz­ing what one phone call can make. The 12 police motor­cy­cles also escorted 30+ vehi­cles approx­i­mately 25 miles to the bur­ial site

One chal­lenge I was assigned to was video tap­ing as much of the week as pos­si­ble.  This included the first view­ing when he was brought from CA to UT for the family…with the open cas­ket.  For me per­son­ally I have always strug­gled with an open cas­ket cer­e­mony.  To top it off hav­ing to video tape it and catch pho­tos with the fam­ily and AP was very uncom­fort­able for me.  I explained to MM that I thought this was intru­sive and he had to explain to me that this was very nor­mal.  Their way of cap­tur­ing final pic­tures & moments with their loved one.

I have lost a few loved ones.  Ones close to me.  I’m used to meals being pro­vided, con­do­lence cards received, pos­si­bly a view­ing, the funeral then a recep­tion fol­low­ing.  How­ever, hav­ing a week long morn­ing till evening of food prepa­ra­tion and vis­i­tors in and out of the house as well as 3 dif­fer­ent cer­e­monies was a lot for me to take in.  Included, most of it all was in Samoan.  I wish I could say that I am so glad to have expe­ri­enced this cul­tural oppor­tu­nity, but that is not true.  I greatly appre­ci­ated the expe­ri­ence I had, but I would take know­ing AP over that expe­ri­ence.  Since then I have vis­ited 3 other Samoan funer­als, I’m well acquainted now, thank you very much.

Now for the story you are all wait­ing for…I know you thought you had read enough, but I think you will under­stand that this expe­ri­ence played a very large role in the next event.  And who to bet­ter tell it that my own beloved MM.  He wrote this for a book a friend of mine put together for us.  The only edit­ing I have done is adjust the names.

The orig­i­nal plan was to POP the ques­tion to Leah on Thanks­giv­ing Day of 2007, if and when I receive Mike’s (Leah’s dad) approval, per­mis­sion, and blessings.  

But because God called my dear­est brother USMC SSG “AP” to come home, I had to adjust and change plans. I stop think­ing about what’s next in regards to my rela­tion­ship with Leah. Now I have to take care of busi­ness in hand.  My brother died the week before I planned to tell him about ask­ing Leah for hand in mar­riage and I wanted him to be my Best Man in my wed­ding, but unfor­tu­nately it did not happen.  

I prayed and prayed and prayed to God to use this unfor­tu­nate cir­cum­stance to reach out to my fam­ily and friends, espe­cially my daugh­ter “BH” and my nieces. In the midst of cel­e­brat­ing my brother’s life, God revealed a plan within me. 

The day after we place my brother in his rest­ing place, Sat­ur­day July 14th 2007, I asked my sis­ter  that I needed her help with my plan. I told her my orig­i­nal plan about ask­ing Leah’s hand in mar­riage and about our brother’s involve­ment. Now the chal­lenge was to go shop­ping with­out Leah. So I told Leah I need to spend some pri­vate time with my sis­ters and that we will be back, and of course it work. Sulu and Mag­gie went with me. 

Later in the evening, every­one was told to be at my Mom’s apart­ment for prayer and din­ner.   I then picked up Leah from the hotel and drove to my Mom’s apart­ment. When we got there I again told Leah that Sulu, I, and the girls (daugh­ter and nieces) have to leave to pick some stuff up and we’ll be back. I notice the dis­ap­prov­ing look and dis­ap­point­ing body lan­guage from Leah ‚but it did not change any­thing. (I was pray­ing for God’s help through out all this). (Leah’s com­ments: I was told we were going to have din­ner, but come to find out every­one else already had. Then Maea decides to men­tion that he has to run an errand TONIGHT with Sulu, so din­ner will have to wait.)  

After we picked up the ring, I called Mike and asked for his per­mis­sion and bless­ings for Leah’s hand in mar­riage. I explained that I did not want to have this con­ver­sa­tion on the phone, but since this a rare occa­sion that my fam­ily are all together in one place, I wanted to take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­nity pre­sented to me. Mike shared and expressed his emo­tions and most impor­tant to me was that he approved. 

On our way back to the apart­ment we made a stop at Starbuck’s and did not buy Leah a drink on pur­pose.  (Leah: every­one else in the car got one!) Leah was HOT with me when we got back but she did not lose her com­poser. (Leah: By now it is close to 9:00 pm and I have been WAITING PATIENTLY for Maea so we can have dinner.) 

We then gath­ered in the liv­ing room with Leah and I sit­ting on chairs while every­one else were on the floor. I then led our prayer meet­ing with the hymn “It is well” in Samoan ver­sion. After­ward, I acknowl­edge every­one for their help and how they han­dle them­selves by smil­ing and cel­e­brat­ing AP’s life.  I also acknowl­edge the sup­port , love, prayers of friends and fam­i­lies who were not with us. 

Espe­cially Leah’s par­ents & sister’s fam­ily. I then acknowl­edge Leah with all she has done for me and my fam­ily. Words can not express how grate­ful and thank­ful I am to God because of Leah. She is a bless­ing to me from God. 

In front of my mom, sis­ters, cousin and her hus­band, nieces and nephews, and my dear­est daugh­ter “BH”, I got down on my knees and ask her “Will you be my wife?” and Leah responded with tears “What did my DAD say?” …yup…that was her response…I did not tell her what DAD said but I just said, “What do you think?”  (By this time every­one was yelling…“Well, what’s your answer?”) Leah then said with con­fi­dence and tears….YES!

Yep, you read that cor­rect.  I asked what my dad said first.