Kapiolani Community College
Diamond Journal 2004

About The Heart
David Bright

Looking back on my life today, I see so much that I can be grateful for. I grew up in Hawaii, and that alone is something very special. Here the sun shines most of the time and your playground is the Pacific Ocean. I loved spending days playing on the beach in Waimanalo, chasing sand crabs and body surfing the fun waves that the ocean gave us to frolic in. We lived on the south side of the island of Oahu, in Hawaii Kai, a mix of middle class working folks and very wealthy white-collar people.

However, my friends and I cared about more important things in life, like the fact that Ted’s’ house in Port Lock had a big swimming pool with a slide; and that my house on Anapalau street had a yard that was more like a jungle and was great for playing war or hide and seek. We had a really cool tree that was so big it covered half the house and most of the front yard. It was a great tree for kids to play in. We built the coolest swing that would fly us across the yard on a big rope my older brother gave us; it was awesome. We had some great times up in that beautiful old tree. For a while we had a gang that rode the wild Bad Lands. We would ride around on big plastic wheels that were loud enough to wake the dead, dodging in and out of everyone’s driveway, mailmen jumping out of our way, and dogs barking. It was great! The Big Wheel was the greatest toy ever invented. We had a lot of fruit trees at my house, and we would all eat guavas, tangerines, bananas, and mangoes. Life was good for me as a kid.

If there are good times, however, there are bound to be bad times. Well, let’s say, hard times. I come from a big Hawaiian family, seven girls and five boys, and with twelve kids you have your share of hard times.

One year we did not have money to buy clothes for school, so my dad went to this charity that gave us clothes to wear. I can still remember when I tried on my red checkered plaid Scottish print pants. I was really into them, and my dad said, “Hell, those look great!” Looking back on it now, hell, they did look great. A few years later they got real trendy with the punk rockers, but that’s another story.

So came the big day, when summer ended and we went back to school. I was happy to go back, and I was all ready to hit the classroom in my new duds, that is, my used new duds. So off we went. I felt good going back to school. It was almost the same as I felt getting out for summer; even holidays can be too long sometimes.
As we were all getting ready to go to lunch, a girl I knew was showing us some things her mom had gotten her to hold school supplies in, like a Hello Kitty pencil case and stuff like that. Looking at her new things, I said, “Hey I got some new pants!” and best of all she seemed to like them. Then this boy named Jeffery, who was a real bully, came up and said, “No, they’re not. Those are old used pants, and you have to wear poor peoples clothes because you are poor.” I froze up inside, and in those few seconds, I could not remember all the love my mother and father gave me, or that I had eaten a good breakfast that morning, and that I had new slippers to wear. In that instant I had become a no good poor boy, in poor people’s clothes, standing at the great divide of the haves and have-nots.

I could not speak or hear. What I could see were only his eyes meeting mine. Out of a deep darkness I had never known before I exploded into rage. I punched him in the face, causing him to fall down over some chairs, and then he got up and ran. I chased him all the way down to the cafeteria and tried to strangle him under one of the tables. Finally some teachers and the principle dragged me away to the office, where I sat in a cold dark room by myself.

I didn’t realize that what happened on that day would greatly affect all areas of my life and would manifest itself again and again through failed relationships, violent behavior, and a very rebellious life style I found that just as I was judged for what I didn’t have, I would come to judge others for what they did have, not for who they were inside, but for how much money they had, or by the part of town they were from. As if it was their fault that they were born into a wealthy family. I fell into the trap of looking at life as a glass half empty rather than half full. That’s what my dad told me, and he was right. It would take many more years of rebellion against what I saw as an unfair world, and a failed relationship with a woman I loved very much to bring me to my knees. Yes the straw that broke the camel’s back brought a realization that thinking the way I did turned a blind eye to all the blessings that I received in life. I had a family that loved me very much, I had the beach, and I had food to eat.

Life is good, and God has been good to me, and I find the best thing I can do is try to be good to others. I find out more and more that it’s not what’s on the outside but what is on the inside that counts. Also when I start to judge a person by rich or poor, black or white, female or male, I am turning a blind eye to his or her heart and mind, and that can lead to much sadness, so I think that loving everybody equally is the best way to go. I find that when I get fed up with life and start getting angry with people that it helps to look at a baby. We were all once babies, the same, without prejudice, without pride and ego. They are pure love. Then I remember that people may live differently or have more or less than each other, but we are all human. And that I should not judge a person for what they are wearing or by how much money they have, even if they have on red plaid Scottish print pants. I think it’s all about the heart.