“At the turn of the century, when I was eighteen, I immersed myself in what I had missed in my early years: I traveled to Oahu and the other islands. I socialized as much as was allowed in those days, and gossiped with the other girls. But eventually, such things lost their meaning to me. I had always felt different from other people, as if I were only a visitor to this world. I had always believed this sense of not belonging was due to my illnesses. But even now I felt like a stranger even among my friends. They enjoyed noisy social gatherings and talking of things that held little meaning for me. I preferred sitting out in the moonlight among the trees and stars,” she said, gesturing with her walking stick up toward the towering kukui trees above and around us.
“I thought that maybe all those years confined to bed, in solitude, and all my reading had made me thoughtful about other things, bigger issues. But later it seemed as if I had some kind of foreknowledge, as if I had always known or sensed things others did not see. I began to spend more time alone. When I was nineteen, my father died suddenly. Soon after, my mother’s eyesight failed and she suffered a number of ills beyond my powers to alleviate.
“When Papa Kahili returned to Molokai after a decade studying with an African shaman, I asked him to help my mother. By this time he was very old, and his service work in Africa, facing starvation, dysentery, and a host of other afflictions, had taken its toll on him. He told me that Spirit was calling my mother, and that she would soon be free of her painful body—and that he would follow.
“He spoke with my mother and counseled her and, one week after his return, she died quietly in her sleep. After that, I was alone, and I spent every day helping Papa Kahili. Gathering my courage, I asked him if he would teach me the kahuna ways; I told him I felt this was my destiny.
“He was so moved by my announcement that Papa began to cry, because he had seen something within me, but he had to wait for me to ask. So, he adopted me into his family, and into the kahuna tradition.
“Papa Kahili soon departed for the spirit world, but his presence has remained with me always.
“I carried on in his place, helping people he had served; I took special training as a midwife as well. After seeing my parents die, I wanted to welcome more life into the world. In this way, I could participate in the miracle of birth, even if the babies weren’t my own.
“Then, in the early 1900s, while in my mid-twenties, I was sent an invitation by an unusual man to meet with a gathering of masters from various spiritual traditions. I felt a deep thrill and inner confirmation. So, despite my fear of leaving my island home, I made the long journey westward across the Pacific by steamship. I was met by a man named Chen at a prearranged site on the coast of China, and I traveled with him to a place called the “roof of the world,” where, about a year later, I joined this gathering. It was there I later met a man about ten years my senior—the man you refer to as ‘Socrates.’”
“Where did he come from?” I asked. “What was he doing there? And what was his real name?”
“I can tell about my life. Socrates will have to tell you about his own,” she said, and would speak no more of it.
Disappointed, I walked in silence, thinking about Mama Chia’s past. Until I realized something: “Wait a minute! If you were in your twenties back then … and now it’s 1973 … then you’re … nearly ninety years old! I don’t believe it—”
“And I don’t keep track of such things,” she said. “How old would you be if you didn’t know your age? That is all that matters. In any event,” she continued, “I later traveled widely on my way back to Hawaii. I’m glad I waited until I could see with the eyes of my heart. Otherwise, I might have passed right by the school.”
“What school?” I asked, remembering Socrates’ words about a hidden school in Japan or China.
“After Chen arranged for my passage through China,” she said, “I visited Siam, now called Thailand, and parts of Indonesia—”
“What school?” I repeated.
“A hidden school—”
“How was it hidden?” I asked.
“Not really hidden, but few people could see clearly enough to find it.”
“Can you tell me more? I think it’s one reason I’m here—to learn its location.”
“Now is not the time,” she repeated. “You have to learn certain things from your own intuition, your own experience.”
We had reached the summit—the highest point for miles around.
“A good place to finish my story,” she said, surveying the rain forest far below, “to help establish where we are now, and what we are to do together. As soon as I returned home, to Molokai, in 1910, I was filled with new enthusiasm and energy, ready to call forth miracles, perhaps even heal the lepers.
“What happened next is difficult to explain from my current perspective. But from high hopes and expectations, one risks a fall. And my crises came from a single incident: Soon after beginning my work, I was called upon by a distraught young man whose infant son had suddenly taken ill. He begged me to accompany him to his small cabin. As we hurried to the road, he explained that his child had gone into convulsions, then passed out. The young father was numb with panic, and his wife was beside herself when I arrived.
“They were poor, and isolated, so no other help would be arriving anytime soon. The child was in a bad way—that much was clear.” Mama Chia stopped, sat down, and gestured for me to do the same. We sat on an outcropping of rock overlooking the valley below as she related sadly, “I still can’t explain what came over me. Despite the huna tradition of doing positive work and then stepping back in faith, I felt personally responsible for this child’s survival—as if he were the last and only child in the world. I felt I had to save him. I did everything within my knowledge and power to help that child; I exerted every last ounce of my will and energy. I prayed, I whispered to him, I called to him. But he died, just the same … .”
Even now, many decades later, Mama Chia’s eyes misted over. “The child had died in my arms. And something inside me died as well. I believed I could have saved him—should have saved him—if only I had studied harder, known more. And perhaps I was secretly grieving for myself, and for the children I would never have, for I remembered Papa Kahili’s prediction. I decided that this failure was a sign that I wasn’t meant to heal others; that I had chosen the wrong path. This thought consumed me beyond all logic, and—over the protest of those people I had helped, and in spite of the parents’ compassionate thanks for my efforts on behalf of their child—I vowed never to practice healing again. I had lost faith in myself and in Spirit.
“I moved to Oahu in 1911, just before the First World War, and started working at the bank. As time passed, I had many dreams of the home and work I had left behind. But I ignored them as mere illusions. It’s not without a certain irony, Dan, that I—trained in the huna ways—would ignore my own dreams and intuitions. It was not surprising that I developed …” she looked down and gestured toward her body, “this … roundness. I just didn’t care enough, or have reason enough, to change. I sank into a secure routine, going through the motions, wearing a smile as I exiled myself from my true life … .”
We sat quietly for a little while, until another question popped into my ever-inquiring mind: “Why was your name—when I met you on Oahu—Ruth Johnson?”
“I was getting to that,” she said. “The name ‘Ruth’ I took on as part of my ‘other existence.’ I no longer felt like the young woman named Chia. As for my last name … it was my married name.
“When least expected, one day in 1918 at the end of the war, I was leaving the Honolulu library when a book slipped from my arms. Before I could even reach down, a handsome soldier appeared from nowhere, scooped up the book, and handed it to me with a smile. He was a tall haole stationed there. His name was Bradford Johnson. We began to talk, and never stopped. We were married in 1919. I used to tell him I must have saved his life in a previous incarnation, and that he owed me one.
&nb
sp; “After his discharge from the military, he found a teaching post in Honolulu. After that, we lived for some years in a semblance of happiness, or at least a quiet satisfaction. I had a husband and a home. And with both of our jobs, we made do.
“Two years later, I learned I was pregnant. But I lost that baby, and the next. Things changed after that. We just … drifted apart. We separated amicably and Bradford moved east to the American Midwest. He wrote regularly at first, but then his letters stopped.
I stayed on in Honolulu. I missed my home island, but visiting for me was painful—a kind of grieving—so I served people in a safe, conventional way. In one sense, I fit in. But secretly I remained a world apart. Only my dream-life was rich with possibility. In the night I traveled back to the roof of the world, and met with your Socrates. We were quite close those many years ago. But he had traveled, and we had no contact for many years, until one day he found me here—I don’t know how. I was working in another bank at the time, and my joy at seeing him was mixed with a terrible shame at what I looked like, and what I had become.
“Yet his eyes showed nothing but affection and gladness to see me, and the effect—I cannot describe its full impact—was a healing as powerful as any I had ever experienced with Papa Kahili. It was the second great healing of my life, seeing myself as he saw me. I felt young again, and beautiful.
“I took a leave from the bank and we journeyed together back to my true home, here on Molokai. I introduced him to those I still knew. We spent some time together before he moved on—he had pressing business elsewhere. So I returned to Oahu, and to the life to which I had grown accustomed. Socrates wrote to me several times over the many years that followed—through the twenties, and the Great Depression, and the Second World War that struck so close to home.
“I lived from one day to the next, until I finally retired when I was seventy-five years old, in 1957. That’s when I moved back to my beloved Molokai. Somehow, returning to Molokai with Socrates—and seeing it all freshly, through his eyes—relieved me of a burden I had carried for so many years. Together, he and I began the first in a long line of new and happy memories. That is how it has been with Socrates: although he doesn’t take on the mantle of a “healer,” his presence and influence have that effect on those around him.”
“Yes,” I said, remembering …
After a few quiet moments, Mama Chia continued, “I had money saved, and I created a quiet and comfortable home. But few old friends still lived there, and many had passed on. I gardened, and I read, and I volunteered to work with children. And sometimes, when a child was ill, I said or did a few quiet, simple things to help if I could. But it frightened me, somehow, and I held back from anything more.
“Then, six years ago I received a letter from Socrates … .”
“That would be 1967,” I said.
“Yes. I had no idea how his letter had found me, or why he might be writing after all these years. But his letter, like his visit, changed my life again. I was reminded of things I had forgotten; his words strengthened me, inspired me, and gave me a purpose once again.”
I smiled, remembering. “He’s good at that. But he can also kick butt when he needs to.”
“Yes,” she said. “That, too. He’s very good at ‘kicking butt.’ And in that letter he told me about you—that you might one day seek me out. Soon after it arrived—and perhaps because of it,” she continued, “I returned to the work I was born to do, and have since practiced my work as a midwife and kahuna. I’ve since welcomed hundreds of infants into the world. And all the while, I’ve kept my inner eyes peeled for you. So you see, helping you, Dan, is in part a way to show my gratitude for Socrates’ love and healing in my own life.”
“I love happy endings,” I said.
Mama Chia stopped, and turned to me. Her smile faded as she said in a faraway voice, “I hope that when your ending comes, you will be as happy.”
I shivered as a cold wind blew in from the west.
CHAPTER 10
The Razor’s Edge
Forget about likes and dislikes; they are of no consequence.
Just do what must be done.
This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.
—George Bernard Shaw
BY THE EARLY AFTERNOON, the steep descent gave way to a gentle grade. Following the crest as we were, the rocky trail had shrunk to the width of a balance beam, with a nearly vertical drop of hundreds of feet on either side, and no margin for error. Conversation was out of the question. From the air, I thought, this ridge must look as narrow as the edge of a razor. Fighting vertigo, I forced myself to concentrate on Mama Chia, ten feet in front of me, balancing like a mountain goat as she continued her steady, limping stride. With loose rocks, strewn along the razorback ridge, footing was treacherous, and a misstep would have been disastrous. We continued in this manner, single file, gradually descending to the east, until the path widened, and Mama Chia gestured for us to rest.
With a deep sigh, I removed the knapsack I carried and sat down next to her. Mama Chia reached inside the knapsack and took out two sandwiches. She handed me one. “Kaukau,” she said, pointing to the sandwich. “Food.”
I bit into the thick slices of bread. “Ummmm, d’licious,” I said, my mouth full. And I remarked on the courage she showed, walking along a ridge that gave me, an ex-gymnast, knots in my stomach.
“So you think I’m courageous?” she said.
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, maybe so—but that’s because I’ve had some inspiring teachers. I’ll tell you about one of them: Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a local hospital, I’d gotten to know a little girl named Liza who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her five-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, ‘Yes, I’ll do it if it will save Liza.’
“As the transfusion progressed, he lay in a bed next to his sister, and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked, with a trembling voice, ‘Will I start to die right away?’”
Mama Chia looked over at me. “Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give her all his blood.
“Yes, I’ve learned something of courage, because I’ve had inspiring teachers.”
After that we ate in silence. Then I lay down for a brief nap. As I drifted off, I thought about that story, and about her story, too. Somehow it gave me perspective about my own life and difficulties, which suddenly seemed small in comparison.
It seemed I had just drifted off when Mama Chia jarred me to wakefulness. “Time to get going; we have to get there before nightfall.”
“Are we visiting someone?”
She paused before answering. “In a manner of speaking.”
Dark clouds moved overhead, obscuring the sun, now sinking behind the trees, falling toward the horizon. We turned down off the ridge, back into the forest.
“Hurry!” she urged, quickening her pace. “It’s getting late.” We pushed across the uneven terrain. Another hour passed, and we pushed through tangled branches. The hike had taken the better part of a day, and I was ready to drop. I called ahead to Mama Chia as we descended farther. “We must have walked five or six miles today. Can we take a rest?”
“No rest yet.”
A light drizzle started, but the cover of trees over our heads kept us relatively dry.
“I still don’t understand how you can move so fast … for someone who’s so—substantial,” I said, nearly running to catch up.
“I can access a lot of energy,” she explained.
“How do you do it?” r />
“A new mother, even though she’s very tired, can get up again and again during the night, responding to the calls of a sick child.”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“That’s how I keep going with you,” she said.
She continued to set the pace; I followed, slipping occasionally on some moss-covered rocks—up and down ridges, past many small waterfalls fed from the constant runoff on this part of the island, then on through the forest for several more miles.
As we headed up over another rise, and then down, into Halawa Valley, I felt unaccountably refreshed. This feeling of vigor increased as we descended further. Finally, we came to a small clearing, protected on every side by the thick cover of trees.
Rays of sun, low on the horizon, cut through the thick foliage, creating ribbons of light through the greenery. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said.
I sat down heavily on a soft bed of leaves, only slightly damp, and dropped her backpack on the forest floor. She remained standing, next to the branch of a kukui tree, staring into space.