{"id":163,"date":"2009-02-01T11:46:19","date_gmt":"2009-02-01T18:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/2009\/02\/01\/163\/"},"modified":"2009-02-01T11:46:19","modified_gmt":"2009-02-01T18:46:19","slug":"ma-ma-loa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/2009\/02\/01\/163\/","title":{"rendered":"Ma Ma Loa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nCurrent mood:\u00a0\u00a0inspired
\nCategory:<\/strong> Writing and Poetry<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nIt’s my turn to blog at Seven Wicked Writers today. This is what I posted:
\nI rarely blog about my books and I never post excerpts in blogs, especially shared blogs. I put a lot of thought and effort into each and every blog, but since I am once again preparing to head to Hawaii in a few days, I felt it was important to talk about my new book Ma Ma Loa<\/em><\/strong> which was published by eXtasy Books today.
\nNo, I am not going to post an excerpt and violate my own rules\u2026but I do want to mention what inspired\u00a0 the idea. It\u2019s one which has stayed with me since my visit to Hawaii last\u00a0Spring when I went to the old Chinese cemetery in the Manoa Valley\u00a0on the outskirts of Honolulu. I was very depressed. One of my best friends had lost a painful battle with cancer. My beloved cat of fifteen years had also passed and my latest relationship\u00a0was in trouble.\u00a0I was feeling overwhelmed. I have no idea why I drove to the cemetery since I\u2019d never been into it and whenever I went past it, I got chicken skin (goosebumps).
\nBut I sat in my overheated rental car, pondering my next life move when I saw this procession of very old Chinese men and women emerging from brand new, shiny cars with brightly colored paper and plastic sacks full of\u2026who knew what and the writer in me just had to find out.
\nBeing a white guy, I thought I might have trouble blending in\u2026but they didn\u2019t seem\u00a0surprised that a volunteer had shown\u00a0up. I am a big\u00a0volunteer in life.\u00a0I give a lot of my time to an animal rescue group, my local library and a homeless shelter. This particular gig though was one which particularly intrigued me.
\nThese old men and women were there to clean the graves of the Baby Section. I cannot describe the mingled sensation of\u00a0loss and hope as they cleaned off the offerings left on graves\u00a0– some over\u00a0200 years old. These were not their ancestors, but\u00a0the graves of children otherwise forgotten on the island. They were the offspring of plantation workers brought\u00a0to the islands\u00a0under horrendous conditions, longterm contracts and a lot of local hostility.
\nThe\u00a0ring leader of the volunteers was an 82 year old woman with one tooth left\u00a0in her head and an abundance of energry that would exhaust Serena Williams. Her name was Marianne.
\nShe told me they came to tend the children once a month. They bring them flowers and candies.\u00a0I was not allowed to set food inside the cemetery until I left a candy at the gates. I swear I heard the ghosts of those children as I stepped forward. And I sensed their excitement. I have always been attracted to the dead since my mother died when\u00a0I was six. I suppose now I think of it, since I cannot visit her grave in Sydney, Australia, I am drawn to cemeteries as a way of connecting with her.
\nThis experience though was something else\u2026the Chinese men and women insisted that taking care of the dead is essential, since they watch over us. They left red papers and cloths on many of the graves, fruit, rice cakes,\u00a0bao\u2026and for the children, tons and tons of candy.
\nMarianne, liuke most who have suffered loss, knew I was hurting. She came over and placed her hand on my chest. \u201cYou will see. You will grow another heart,\u201d she said.
\nAnd she was right. I went back to Manoa at Christmastime and found a few of the old folk still there, attending Marianne\u2019s funeral. It broke my heart to know she died, but I felt it was no mistake I\u2019d arrived on this day\u2026her send-off to the hereafter. I like to think all her children were waiting for her, to reward her with playtime and laughter for never forgetting them.
\nNext weekend, I will go back and let her know she inspired Ma Ma Loa.<\/em><\/strong> That she lives on. And that her humble, unique way of giving back\u00a0has inspired a light in me.
\nAloha oe,
\nA.J.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\nCurrently\u00a0listening:
\nReviens<\/font><\/strong><\/a>
\nBy\u00a0Garou
\nRelease date:\u00a02004-05-10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Current mood:\u00a0\u00a0inspired Category: Writing and Poetry It’s my turn to blog at Seven Wicked Writers today. This is what I posted: I rarely blog about my books and I never post excerpts in blogs, especially shared blogs. I put a lot of thought and effort into each and every blog, but since I am once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latestnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ajllewellyn.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}