By Lucas Maas
I didn’t believe in spirits until I was visited by one. It was my Marine Corps brother and roommate, Robert. It seemed like it was only months before that when I was at his wedding on Oahu and like every day in Hawaii, it was a breathtaking day with warm air and clear skies. The sea mist lingered upon the wind, helping cool the hot sands beneath us.
In native Hawaiian culture, an Aumakua is a protective and guiding spirit, usually the spirit of a deceased ancestor or loved one, who comes back to watch over those they’ve left behind. They communicate to their living protectorates through dreams, walking between astral planes to ensure safety and internal peace, reminding them that they are never alone.
On the beach that day, the lighthouse loomed over us, and I helped him straighten out the ribbons on his dress blues.
“Thanks for coming, bro,” he told me.
“Ah,” I threw my head back, “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Look at you!” I patted my hands on his shoulders as if he were wearing shoulder pads for his first football game, taking a second to brush them off as well. “You’ve come a long way, man. You were there for me during my marriage, and I plan on doing the same for you.” I added.“With better results, I hope,” he countered, and we both chuckled.
Better results.
Shortly after rejoining us on deployment, Tevi and Robert had their problems. Her solution to the problems they were having was to openly date another Marine and post about it on social media with her new item holding Robert’s newborn son. When we got back from deployment five months later and loved ones approached the returning Marines with flowers, hugs, kisses, and reassurances, Robert was met by the shadows of the life he had left five months prior. He and I traveled alone to his house to settle back into some semblance of normalcy. Normalcy is not what we would find. Nothing remained in the house but a love seat, an air mattress, and Robert’s civilian clothes. Tevi had even taken the shower curtains.
Two nights later when I would come home to Robert hanging from a stanchion in the living room, the only other item in the house was a bottle of Sailor Jerry I had bought us the night before. It lay at his feet, as empty as the human vessel that hung next to it. With partially closed, empty eyes glancing at a swollen, purple tongue, he faced me with a swinging sense of defeat that would never leave me. I thought that would be the last time I ever saw Robert.
But I was wrong.
* * *
I was standing on the balcony of a two-story beach house, the white, wicker patio furniture, complete with deep blue cushions that were weathered and lived-in. I could hear the seagulls down on the beach, taste the ocean mist linger on the wind, and smell the vast blue skies, streaked with thin white clouds over the ephemeral dunes. It wasn’t the warmth of the sun or the coolness of the breeze that I felt but a hand, gently placed on my shoulder. I wasn’t alone. When I met his light brown eyes, the only words I could mutter were, “You son of a bitch.”
Robert flashed a sly grin and slightly looked away as if embarrassed. I wanted to feel anger, to vomit my pain and my grief all over him but I could not will myself to do it. His hand slid off my shoulder and it nonchalantly swung by his side as he approached the railing of the balcony, leaning on it effortlessly with his California swagger before looking back up at me. Before I could speak again, he seized the initiative,
“I just want to let you know that I’m okay, man.”
Lava rock grew in my throat and my face screwed around the formation of tears that were mustering in my eyes. I believed him, although my mind began to obfuscate with the tyranny of questions. All I could muster was a choking, “thanks, man.” I believed that he was truly there standing before me—no longer bearing the crosses of what he did in mortality but the relief of newfound immortality. He had become my Aumakua. And he visited me to serve his purpose—sewing a wound with the stitchings of acceptance, each thread holding together the skin of my grief and the alleviation of my greatest fears—It was not my fault.
I stood by him and looked out toward the unknown sea that lay just before my curiosity. “It’s time to leave, bro,” Robert assured, his hand resting on my shoulder again, full of flesh and life, no longer purple, pale, cold.
There was nothing I could do to save this square-jawed Californian father, husband, friend, Marine. But in his erasure of self, he was able to save me through the medium of dreams, assuring me that his mortal pain no longer plagues his consciousness, that in his departure he knew it would wound me greatly but his empathy for my loss compelled him to transcend planes of existence to assure his battle buddy that, yes, brother, I am doing just fine.