Keoni's Mele

Uncle Jack and Auntie Cathe

I wrote this piece around 2K, about my Uncle Jack. He has been a huge influence in my life, and is one of the people I love most on this planet. He's a musician, philosopher, student of life, and he is my beloved uncle and Godfather...

My Uncle Jack is the finest human being I have the honor of having as a part of my life. He is my father's brother, and since my father's death when I was 17 (I am now closing in on 35), he has taken a fatherly interest and concern in my sister and I. He's also a marvelously intelligent human being, and an artist on the guitar. He played classical, jazz, and a fair bit of really good rock and roll for a very very long time. He studied under Nick Maniloff, if you have ever heard of him.

About 5 years ago, Uncle Jack's wife died of pancreatic cancer which came on suddenly and took him from us within 6 weeks of diagnosis. Combined with this was the fact that Uncle Jack was caring for my very infirm and elderly Gramma, as well as dealing with the fact that his son had IV drug use induced AIDS.

It wasn't a happy time. Uncle Jack began to do two things, first, he stopped playing guitar and taught himself the banjo. Secondly, he began to drink. A lot.

Ten months after my Aunt died, Gramma had a bad fall and broke her hip. She died a few days later. Uncle Jack was totally and completely destroyed. His wife, his mother, both dead within a year of each other, and his son living under a guaranteed death sentence. He started drinking more. He stopped doing anything *but* drinking and working. He was trying to drink himself to death, or drown his pain, or who knows what, but he clearly could not cope with his life, and I couldn't help him because he didn't want any help.

Then something happened. One night I woke from a sound sleep, terrified for Uncle Jack, and I picked up the telephone at 3 in the morning and called. He had drunk so much that he was in alcohol overdose. He would not go to the hospital, no matter how I begged. Miraculously, this didn't kill him. However, it left him with permanent nerve damage in his hands and feet.

Having numb hands scared him sober. He started to play guitar again, clumsily at first, but then his hands remembered what to do even though they could barely feel the neck and the strings of the guitar. And soon he was playing all his old stuff again, getting interested in luthiering, starting to compose, considering teaching, looking at having a life again instead of living like he was already dead. But he was still wounded in his soul, bleeding in his heart. It showed in his eyes, it showed in his voice, it showed in his playing. He needed some magic.

And then one day he was in a music store in Berkeley, and they were playing some music he had never heard before. Music that made him feel calm, peaceful, hopeful. Music that made him feel whole. The music was Honolulu City Lights by Keola Beamer, a brilliant Hawaiian slack key guitarist. He bought the cd, and everything else he could find of slack key, Ray Kane, George Kahumoku, Ozzie Kotani.

He began attending workshops, and he delights in telling the story of how he was at a Ray Kane workshop and was about to go into his hotel room when he saw Ray wandering the hall looking lost, and he asked Ray, "Do you need any help, Uncle?" And Ray looking at him with this worried little boy face and saying: "I've lost my Auntie, can you help me find my Auntie?" and realizing that every man has a scared little boy hiding someplace deep inside.

Oh, and he learned to play slack key. So beautifully. The first slack key I ever heard came from my Uncle Jack's fingers and heart, and I fell in love with this beautiful beautiful music of the spirit, but I never bought any, mainly because I could listen to Uncle Jack play, instead, and help him heal by giving him an audience.

Last year, I saw a Keola Beamer performance listed in the San Francisco Chronicle, and I called Uncle Jack to ask if he would be my guest. He already had tickets, both for that show and for the following night in Santa Cruz, so instead I got tickets for myself, my daughter, and my husband.

When Keola's wife, Moanalani took the stage and began to chant, my heart swelled. My eight year old daughter sat transfixed for the entire concert, and this is no small feat, as Amy has ADD and can NOT sit still generally, particularly not silently and happily. My husband, who loves to play guitar, although his talents are not very strong (but OH! the joy he gets from playing!), was agape. And my uncle, ten rows ahead of us (he must have arrived at noon to get a front row seat!), well, I could see the glow coming off of him. After the concert we met outside and I saw my uncle so happy, so genuinely happy and at peace after so many years of suffering and fighting his own demons, and I began to cry from the sheer sense of relief I felt.

That night, at that show, watching Moanalani dancing with that angelic smile on her face, experiencing the real meaning of Aloha, my own healing from my own life-wounds has begun.

Mahalo Nui Loa (heartfelt thanks) to the slack key musicians who reached out through their music and brought healing to two lost and hurt people. May these amazing people and the spirit of Aloha continue to heal hearts and open spirits for many, many years to come.

This has been something of a preface to another story. My uncle asked me a while back to write his story for him, but in the form of a traditional Hawaiian folk tale. Hawaiian folk tales have many "layers" to them, and although they appear simple, deep within they are filled with meaning. I now give you Mele Keoni (Mele: Song, Keoni: John). John's Song. In reading it, reflect if you will, on the things that I talked about in this rather long preface, and the whole tale will make sense.

Mele Keoni, By John and Jenn Thomas

Not so very long ago, there was a ship. It wasn't a very large ship, and neither was it very small. It wasn't very fancy, nor was it plain. It was a simple wooden ship, and quite beautiful in its own right, when the wind billowed in its sails and the sun gleamed on its polished wooden decks. The ship's name was the S.S. Keoni.

Now, most people think that ships don't have feelings or thoughts, but they are wrong. When a ship is loved, it comes alive in a way, and Keoni had been loved for a very long time, so he had a heart that felt strong emotions, and he thought about the people who loved him.

Keoni had a wonderful crew who helped to steer him through storms and fog and sun, to continents and islands and distant lands. There were passengers along for the ride, and they were happy and full of joy, and for many many years, Keoni sailed along, guarding his passengers and crew from the ocean depths, and riding the currents.

Then one day, as Keoni was sailing along with dolphins leaping and dancing in the water around his hull, a giant gale blew up. The winds were ferocious, like untamed tigers! The waves were terrible, and Keoni climbed the waves and rolled on the swells, sometimes nearly capsizing. In fear for their lives, the crew and passengers emptied the holds, climbed into lifeboats and rowed away, leaving Keoni alone in the storm and the fog. As the storm died down, Keoni realized that he was completely alone and empty. And Keoni was sad.

The storm had taken everything, his crew and his passengers, and even his cargo. A dense and cold fog surrounded the ship, and he wandered in it, lost, cold, and lonely. Then Keoni became aware of a warmth deep in his keel. Deep in the belly of the ship there was a single hold which was not emptied during the storm, and it contained sailor's grog. Now, grog can keep a belly warm, but it cannot guide a ship or give it love, it can only make the belly warm. So, with the grog keeping his belly warm, Keoni wandered lost and sorrowful in the fog for a long time.

After a very long time, a beautiful songbird flew out of the fog, landed on Keoni's bow, and burst into song. The song reached through the fog and the sadness that engulfed Keoni, and woke him from his daze. Slowly, a different kind of warmth filled the ship. The bird flew down into the holds in Keoni's belly, until it reached the deepest hold. As the bird pulled the hold door open with its beak, the grog poured out, and seeped through some tiny cracks in the floor of the hold, until it had all disappeared into the ocean's depths. When the hold was empty, the little songbird flew inside, and landed here and there before it flew up to the rafters of the ceiling, where it made its nest, right in Keoni's heart. There it began to sing its song again, and Keoni learned the song and sang it himself.

Other birds in the fog heard the song, and they began flying overhead, adding their own harmonies to the song, and making the song of Keoni and the songbird richer and more beautiful. As the song rose into the sky the fog began to clear, and Keoni followed the singing birds and their songs until he was totally free of the fog that had surrounded him for so long.

The song was so beautiful that one by one, people heard it and climbed onto Keoni's decks, filling the cabins with a new crew and new passengers, all singing Keoni's Mele, as the ship sailed happily into the golden sunrise.