Run, Lola, Run!!

..........in my beautiful balloon!! " I hummed it everytime I got on a plane and it was taking off! Kinda took my mind off of being afraid of flying......so, we were off to Dan's Peace Corp reunion in Hawaii!!  It was being held on the Island of Molokai.......but I didn't tell Dan till we were up in the air......that my biological father was from this island and I spent most of my life dreaming of someday going there and hopefully finding out where he was from.  The older I got the less likely it seemed I would every get to do this and like God decided all of a sudden to throw me this little "dream party" was amazing!! I think Dan half thought I was exagerating when I told him that my fathers family damn near owned this island.......hell I thought I was too!!!

Landing at the airport on Molokai ..........I looked at every inch of the island as we neared.......wondering where he lived, how he lived and where was he now?? The Island of Molokai is much as I remember the island of Oahu as a child....no freeways, no fast food, no big department stores!! We rented a car for the three days that we would be there and the woman at the rental counter asked me "kamaiani discount?" which means if you have a Hawaii drivers license then you get a discount.  I told her no and she looked at me funny......not funny, haha, but strange funny....like she thought I was lying!!  We went on to check into the ONLY hotel on the island........lol  yeah....one one!! And Dan started finding folks he knew as soon as we got there.  Again as we were checking in the lady behind the desk looked at me very strange......WTH??? I blew it off......

We were meeting everyone for breakfast the next morning so while Dan was taking one of his 20 minute showers.......(for the life of me.......what the hell takes so long to take a shower???) anyways, I decided to go out in front of the hotel to have a smoke.  Well I guess the people who have the car rental office rotate between the airport and the hotel because low and behold the same woman from the car rental place at the airport came out to smoke too and today she's working at the hotel car rental desk!!  At first we didn't speak, just smiled.  Then she asked me where I live and I told her California but explained that I was born and raised on Oahu.  Then it was on.......lol  She told me that I look so familiar........so I asked her if she knew any of the Dudoits on the island and she laughed and said ......."thats who you look like!"........OMG, I could not have been more shocked if someone would have slapped me in the face! After I explained that I had never met my biological father she told me there are a ton of my family members that live on the island.  Later, that day Dan and I went to a little resturant, "Aunty Ruby's" in town for some lunch.......after we were served our plates I noticed that the woman cooking kept staring at me. I told Dan........hell I can't eat!! He asked why I told him that lady is staring at me and about that time out of the kitchen she came heading right to our table!! She excused herself and said she just needed to ask me something......I smiled and said sure! What the hell was I supposed to say.......??? She said to me........"are you related to Beverly?"  Hmmm.....do you mean Beverly Dudoit? Shes laughing and says Yeah!  I explained to her that I probably am but I do not know her......my father was born and raised here but I have never met him either...funny how nobody asked me what his name is!!  She told me there are tons of Dudoits here and you look just like them!

Ok twice in one day........is that weird or what??  The rest of our three days was fun but I spent a lot of time daydreaming, ..... was my father any of these local men that I was seeing at the hotel, or in town at the grocery store or just walking on the street past the hotel......it was the strangest feeling to actually be standing on the spot where he was born and grew up!!

The last night of the reunion we went to a chinese resturant and we sat at a long table on both sides of it. There was a couple across from us, the husband had been in the peace corps with Dan and met his wife in Samoa and now they live in Hawaii, in fact in the next town from where my country gramma lived!! I'm talking to his wife and I hear her husband say "charlie dudoit".....I almost passed out!!  I asked her......did your husband just say Charlie Dudoit? She said yeah thats his best friend on Oahu......ok Lola, keep calm!!  I asked her how old is he? and she told me that he is in his 50's......okay not DAD.......but could he be my brother???  I was so scared all of a sudden that I couldn't even talk! I didn't even know how to ask them any questions!!

On the plane ride home......I was deep in thought.........I told Dan, know what?? I feel like I finally fit somewhere.......all my life I felt like a puzzle piece in the wrong box!! Today I feel like I found the right box finally!!!.........hmmm......feels kinda good!   All the family pictures taken while I was growing up I looked like the neighbors kid snuck in!! I can't describe with real words how it felt to have those women tell me that I looked just like my relatives!  But all the way home I held on to that feeling with everything I had in me........and I held on to it for another eight months...........