ISLAND DREAM, CHAPTER 1

DREAM/Gaugau

ISLAND DREAM

 HALF A LIFETIME.

 Chapter 1

Hassie Gaugau

A good life.  A husband, who was very intelligent, an honored college graduate, earned a good salary, a nice home, two precious daughters, a two car garage and two cars to fill it.  But I wasn't happy.  Why?  The husband was unhappy, so he drank, too much.  Always worked, but a big chunk of the money was consumed by liquor.  

Also, I was the "little woman" who "earned nothing" and had a "life of luxury" but didn't appreciate it.  The love and admiration that I had gone into the marriage, at eighteen years of age with, had been dissolved by the bottle.  Another big eighteen year number was the years that we had been married.  The last three of which wouldn't have been called a marriage, we were only housemates who hardly spoke, to each other.

To escape my life of doldrums I fantasized.  I reverted, to my childhood dreams of being Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, or Nellie Forbush from SOUTH PACIFIC.  I listened to Nellie and Emile as they sang about "seeing a stranger across a crowded room."

I really had no idea about the South Pacific.  I had been to Hawaii twice and loved it, but I wanted something a little less populated and commercialized.  Out of the blue, one Sunday, in the Tulsa World, there was a Travel article that mentioned a little country, in the South Pacific, where the beaches were white and mostly vacant, many of the natives spoke English and were very friendly and nice to tourist.  Ah ha! Now I knew where I wanted to go.  Western Samoa!  But when and how? After reading and rereading the piece, I cut it out, folded it carefully and tucked it away for reading when I needed a lift.

One day as I danced across the kitchen while "I'M GONNA WASH THAT MAN RIGHT OUT OF MY HAIR" played on our stereo, the phone rang.  "Hello," I continued to dance as I listened to my sister.  But stopped short when I heard her say, "Floy's gone!"

"What? What do you mean, Floy's gone?"

Floy was our mother's name and although I called her Mother, my sister always spoke of her as though she was just an acquaintance, by calling her, Floy.

"Go to Carol's house," she enunciated with volume.  "Go next door, I'll call you there to explain."

I bolted out the door and flew into Carol's house without even knocking.  Falling to the floor I gasp, as the phone rang.  "Mother is dead!" I shouted as Carol looked at me and then at the demanding phone.  "That's Frances, she told me to come here, answer it please!"

After she hung up the phone Carol knelt beside me and gathered me into her arms.  I clung to her as we swayed back and forth.  Sobs racked my body as I tried to come to grips with this horrible nightmare.

Mother, my rock, my dear friend, my confidante, this just couldn't be!  

Slowly, I calmed a little as I shuddered and gasped for air.  Carol brought me to my feet and began to organize EVERYTHING.   Picking up the girls from school, notifying my husband, at work, and phone calls to my family and friends who were, in the area.  

"We have to get you on the road," she pulled me aside, after John got home.  "Frances said that they would wait for you to get there before they made the arrangements.  Are you going to be all right now?"

"I have to be."  I looked into her eyes where I found strength and motivation to do what I had to.

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After the funeral, I sent John and the girls home while I stayed and tried to make things a little better for daddy, but I knew that I had to follow, the girls needed me.

After I returned to our house, I went through all of the motions of running a home, but my mind wasn't there.  My thoughts continued to bring up a terrifying fact.  Mother had died at only sixty eight years of age.  I was thirty four.  If I lived to be her age, then half my life was OVER and what did I have to show for it or to look forward to?  My wonderful daughters would be grown soon, they would leave home for college, marriage, start a life of their own and I would be left with WHAT?  A husband who drank himself to sleep, every night, in his recliner, nothing to look forward to, no one to love or to be loved by.  I may as well be dead now!  Why put it off for thirty four more years?

MY BEAUTIFUL MOTHER AND HER FAVORITE ROSE.

THE PEACE ROSE.  IT SO SYMBOLIZED HER.