“Better to light a candle than curse the darkness” -Chinese Proverb

Five months have passed and we are on our way to the tropical escape that we previously cancelled when we found out I was pregnant. We have re-booked and are on our way to Samoa! The holiday is more than just a vacation. It’s the marking of a new beginning… for recovery and moving on with things. You see, hubby and I had that dreaded conversation that I’m sure we both wanted to avoid… you know… the one that’s goes a little like… “soooo…when do you think we’ll have children?” The very thought made me shudder. Purposely trying to have children? The concept seems so foreign. Now this wasn’t part of our ‘5 year plan’… but I guess nothing this year has been. I know the longer we leave ‘it’ the harder ‘it’ will be. I already know too much… every possible negative outcome…too many statistics dancing through my head… I know that the younger you have children, the lower your risk of everything is… maybe we should have started younger?… and I know the longer I dwell, the less likely I’ll come to terms with the possibility of growing a human. So we decide, on return from our trip, we’ll conceive, regardless of how scared or sad or uncertain I am, it’s going to happen… and it’s our secret. My only clause is: if anything goes ‘wrong’ again, then that’s it… no more chances. I don’t think I’d have anything left.

Paradise

Oh, Samoa, untainted beauty… A way of life I envy. All I’ll say is, if food and pandering is what you’re after in a tropical holiday, then Samoa is not for you. Samoa won’t indulge your sense of entitlement. It won’t gratify your wealth or status. Instead, it is our privilege to step foot on their land, regardless of who you are.

One of the many Samoan Churches

It’s a place made up of villages that seemly look as if they have nothing, but really have everything. With respect for their elders, a devotion to their family unit and a pure reverence for God like no other. A culture built on the pillars of mutual respect and support. Amazing majestic churches periodically invade the landscape, which appear as a vast contradiction to the simplistic housing of the Samoans, however, speaks a testament when you realise that the villager’s themselves constructed these grand sanctuaries… a marker, a symbol, a safe haven for their whole community. I felt chills down my spine when I heard the bells or the blowing of the conche shell that indicated united prayer time each night. Hearing the assemblies of Samoans singing with perfect pitch and tone resounded in my being and made my eyes swell with tears. Being taken back by the shrines and tombs positioned at the front of each home dedicated to their dearly departed loved ones… placed there so that they will forever be seen, acknowledged and present.

A lot of this happening… nothing!

Samoa made me realise how many freedoms and luxuries we luckily possess in our ‘western’ lives, but at the same time how much we have lost. These westernised ‘norms’, that should have never been made ‘normal’. Our normal in which we live in societies of self-promotion. We spend so much time and money building our own homes, but we don’t build our communities. We have compartmentalised our families and built walls of ‘yours’ and ‘mine’. We have our own things, our own rooms, our own houses. Where our elderly grow old without dignity. Where we are taught to seek space from others. Where our departed are lying alone and are now unspeakable. When did we ever confuse independence for isolation? We’ve lost our villages…

Samoa, you have renewed me just that little bit. You helped us forget for just that little bit. You gave us something else to talk about for just that little bit… oh, and you gave me a nice tan, for just that little bit too…

Now, I’ve got my own village to build… hopefully.

“There are better things ahead than any we leave behind”- C.S. Lewis