Sweet Leilani – Our Mother

Sweet Lailani, Our Mother Performing Hula She Learned at the Bishop School in O’ahu in 1949[Also see links on blog about Hawaiian history and culture.]

Our mother was known as Mickey Jones when she was a teenager and “20-something”. Born in a small town in Tennessee she longed for places far and away. She loved beautiful things and wanted adventure in her life. Mom loved to sing and to dance. She was an excellent cook. As a military wife of a career Air Force pilot, Mom set up homes all across the U.S. and in Hawai’i.  I have very lovely remembrances of Mom and Dad in Hawai’i. They were very much in love. These are kid memories so fuzzy and sensory. A sweet scent of plumeria wafted from my Mother. She was happy in Hawai’i. Dad was a pilot on Hickam Air Force Base established in 1941 to protect Pearl Harbor and near by Honolulu.

Hawai’i was still recovering from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Yet the natural beauty of the islands was already transforming the tragedy to the pervasive love and ease natural to the island kingdom. Mom hummed Hawaiian songs, Dad played a lot of slack key guitar music on a phonograph. He wore colorful silk shirts; Mom wore sarongs filled with flowers. She wove flowers in our hair and we often wore leis. I remember making leis from aromatic blossoms at a picnic table under a towering banana tree with leaves like green rafts hovering above.

Mom learned traditional hula from a teacher who told stories about her ancestors who came from Polynesia. Later Mom performed more modern forms of hula for military families at bases where we were stationed around the U.S. The photo above is in Michigan at Selfridge AFB. Through our mother we carried the heart and soul of Hawai’i in our hearts. This day the stories told through the dance and chanting of traditional Hawaiian music remain with me as some vestige of a true connection with the Earth Mother. See link to the Merrie Monarch Festival and the Prince Lot Hula Festival.

[I recently found this new story and art animation about the original Hawaiians, and authentic experience in the form of old time storytelling: Voyagers – The First Hawaiians. **Highly recommended.] “The discovery of Hawaii told through the art of Herb Kawainui Kane in stunning 2.5 animation.”

I often think about my mom. She would have many struggles later in her life but in her youth and early days of rearing kids and being a wife she was a joyful person, filled with hope and love of nature. She was high-spirited. This is the mother I remember, honor and love with all my heart. She brought elegance to simple spaces, traditions to an otherwise mobile lifestyle, and always a sense of wonder about the world at large. On this Mother’s Day I honor her for what she gave me and my sisters and all who come after us….

Author: Susan Feathers

Family, friends, nature, books, writing, a good pen and journal, freedom of thought, culture, and peaceful co-relations - these are the things that occupy my mind, my heart, my time... View all posts by Susan Feathers