by Alison Ryan
Gray and slippery, covered in placenta and blood, crying a pitiful little cry, Karalaini and Jack’s baby entered the world. On a fishing trawler in the Koro Sea, weighing seven pounds and four ounces, although no one had the presence of mind to weigh him at the moment of his birth, Solomon (named for the man who delivered him) Jack Kano, who’d use the Fijian version of his surname, O’Connor, was born.
The Making of Champions
Chapter Eight
Logan
“Mom, I can unpack my own clothes.”
Logan and her parents were in her dorm room at Xavier University. It was move-in day for college athletes and her parents were doing what they did best; hovering.
“But I know you,” her mother smiled as she hung up a dress in Logan’s wardrobe. “You’ll just ball everything up and throw it in drawers.”
Logan opened her mouth to protest but instead just laughed. “Okay, maybe you have a point. Which is why you shouldn’t waste time going all Martha Stewart on my dorm room. By the end of this week your hard work will have been undone.”
“End of this week?” her father interjected. “That’s way too generous. You mean end of this day!”
All three of them laughed. It was true. Logan could be a mess at times. But who had time to clean their room when there was so much to do?
She supposed it was time to change her cluttered ways now that she’d be living with someone else who may not appreciate what her father fondly referred to as her “floor-drobe.”
Logan loved her parents more than anything, but she was eager for them to leave. Out her window she could see her fellow freshmen gathered in the quad, socializing and getting friendly with one another. She didn’t want to miss out on a single thing.
“Guys,” Logan said, gently taking a pair of folded jeans from her mother’s hands. “I know you mean well. And I am so grateful for all you’ve done for me. But…”
“You want us to go,” Chuck said.
Logan smiled, throwing her arms around his shoulders. “I mean, I didn’t want to say it like that but… Yes. It’s time to let this baby bird fly on her own.”
Her father squeezed her shoulder and suddenly fell into a bit of a coughing fit. Logan and her mother stared at him, worried.
“Daddy, are you okay?” Logan said, patting his back.
Chuck’s eyes were slightly bloodshot. He leaned on his knees with his hands.
“I’m okay,” he finally said. “Just can’t seem to get rid of this damn cough. Nothing worse than a summer cold.”
Logan nodded. “I know. You should get home and rest. Take some cough medicine, read a book, enjoy your retirement and your nice, quiet home.” She winked at him.
He laughed. “It’s just hard to let go, Logan. You’ve been our whole world for 18 years.”
Tracy Lowery, with tears in her eyes, grabbed onto her husband and her only daughter.
“This is harder than we expected, sweetheart,” Tracy cried. “I knew one day this time would come, but it really seems to have come so fast. The days are long but the years are way too short.”
Logan could feel her own heart breaking a bit at the sight of her mother crying.
“I’m not far away,” Logan reminded her. “At least I didn’t accept that offer at UCLA.”
Her mother laughed. “Yes, thank God for that. Because then I’d have to move to California.”
It was the week before her debut game with Xavier when her mother called her to tell her about her father.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” her mother had said, her voice wobbly on the other end of Logan’s iPhone. “But he went in after having this cough that couldn’t go away… And they think there might be an issue. They’re running some tests. He told me not to tell you, but I know you’d want to know. Let’s just keep him in our prayers, okay? I am sure it’s nothing and even if it’s something, Chuck Lowery isn’t going to be defeated so easily.”
There were times in Logan’s life where memory would be either her best friend or her worst enemy.
In this case, memory became the friend who stabbed her in the back when she wasn’t expecting it.
For the rest of her life she would remember this phone call from her mother. She’d remember that she’d just gotten out of the shower at her dorm. A terry cloth towel had been wrapped around her body that was still sore from soccer practice. She’d been laughing with her roommate about a YouTube video when she’d heard her cell buzzing on her desk.
And she’d envy the girl she once was. The one who didn’t know her father was dying.
Chapter Nine
Solomon
Gavin O’Connor never visited Fiji. The cursed water surrounding those islands claimed the lives of his parents, his younger brother, future sister-in-law, and niece or nephew. If he woke up one day and read that a tsunami or volcano had sent Fiji the way of Atlantis, he wouldn’t have minded. It represented nothing but pain to him. No remains of his family members were ever recovered.
Gavin tried to keep busy to distract himself from his loss. He poured himself first into his career at the bank and then into his time at the gym. Working out twice a week prior to the loss of his family turned into four and five times and then to twice a day, five or six days every week. He drifted away from friends and his remaining extended family. He poured his fury into the gym.
When lifting weights and running were no longer adequate outlets for the swirling emotions he couldn’t deal with, he turned to combat sports. First boxing, then karate, and from there he moved on to judo. It was through judo, nine years after the darkness descended over him, that the clouds began to let sunshine filter through.
After taking judo for three years under an older Japanese teacher, Sensei Shinji, Gavin started teaching the younger students. He found that working with children brought him the closest thing to happiness that he’d felt since he got the awful news from Fiji so many years ago. Watching their frustration turn to joy when they mastered a new technique, or when they used the tools he gave them to beat a bigger or more experienced opponent, warmed places in his heart that had been frozen solid.
He still worked with Sensei Shinji on his own, and was on the fast track to his black belt. His work at the dojo was pro bono, as he made plenty of money through his day job, and he requested that Shinji use what he’d pay him to instead fund classes for kids who couldn’t afford to attend or take a martial art otherwise.
Gavin had moved on from the tragedy to build something resembling a life, and he even joined the fledgling social media world in order to better connect with his students and their families as they moved up in the judo world and began attending tournaments.
It was in his hotel room at a tournament in Chicago in the summer of 2007 that he flipped open his laptop to find a mysterious Facebook message awaiting him:
Hello, Mister Gavin O’Connor. I hope I’m not bothering you. I also hope that you’re the person I’m looking for. My name is Solomon Jack Kano. I live in Fiji, I’m 13 years old. I think my father was your brother. If any of this sounds familiar to you, I would like to talk to you about my father. I never met him but I want to know about him. Thank you. As we say here in my country, bula!
Gavin O’Connor’s heart about burst out of his chest. Tears stung his eyes. How was this possible?
He clicked on the picture attached to the message and saw a boy, maybe a teenager, with long, dark hair and a square jaw, tan skin and blue eyes, which seemed out of place. There was fire in those eyes, an intensity that belied his years. He recognized it. The same flame he once saw in Jack’s eyes.
It couldn’t be. Gavin was assured that there were no survivors of the accident that claimed his brother, including his fiancée. Had he been lied to? He had to know. But at the same time, it could all be some sort of sick joke. Or an attempt to extort money. As much as he wanted to reply, he couldn’t be sure.
He looked over the profile, which listed “Solomon” as 18, although his pictures were clearly of so
meone younger.
Solomon rarely smiled, although he seemed to be leading an active, busy life. There were images of him swimming and surfing, playing rugby, hanging out with friends, all the normal things Gavin imagined a boy growing up in the islands might do.
Gavin slept fitfully that night and when he gave up trying to get any decent rest, at just before five in the morning, he fired off a reply to the surprise message he’d received the night before.
Solomon – I’m very surprised to hear from you. Jack O’Connor was my brother, yes. If you’re really his son, I’d love to talk to you, to meet you.
My brother died in a boat accident in a storm a long time ago. It was my understanding that no one on the boat survived. I’ve attached my e-mail address. Please understand that this is coming completely out of the blue for me. Do you have any sort of proof that you’re related to my brother? Or an adult, a guardian who can vouch for you? I look forward to hearing more from you.
– Gavin O’Connor
The tournament went well for Gavin’s students, despite his distracted coaching. He checked his e-mail that evening at the hotel and was disappointed to have heard nothing back from Fiji. The team returned home and several days passed with nothing new. He began to forget the Facebook exchanges and assume they were some sort of hoax.
One morning before work, he checked his e-mail and found a new message from [email protected].
Dear Uncle Gavin,
It’s me, Solomon. I am your nephew, but I don’t know how to prove it. I have a scan of a picture. I know the quality isn’t the best, it’s from an old article I found in the library. I had to make a copy of it and then scan the copy.
Gavin clicked on the link at the bottom of the e-mail and a grainy black and white picture emerged. It was two people in a hospital room, a man lying in bed and a woman sitting next to him. They were both smiling. She was beautiful, and her part of the picture slightly more clear than the man in bed, but he had a bandaged, elevated leg and what looked like an Ohio State tank top on. The article described a shark attack and although the caption was nearly illegible, he could make out “-erican” and “Jac- “.
The picture was Jack. And, he guessed, Karalaini. Seeing his brother again twisted Gavin’s face into an ugly, sobbing mask, but it proved nothing. Anybody could print that picture. He read on.
I live in a small village in the Mamanuca Islands. I grew up here with my family and until I turned 13 last month I had no idea anything was different about me. On that birthday, my mom and dad and my two grandparents who are alive sat me down to have a talk. The people who I thought were my mom and dad, who were mom and dad my whole life, told me a story. They told me that they were actually my aunt and her husband. That my aunt was my mom’s older sister. She and her husband adopted me and raised me because my mom and dad had been killed in a storm.
Gavin had to get up and walk away for a moment. He had a lump in his throat the size of a grapefruit. Could any of this be true? He chugged a bottle of water and paced in his living room.
He noticed the screensaver flickering on his laptop, so he sat back down and continued reading.
They told me that my dad was American, which makes me kailoma, that’s our word for mixed-race Fijian.
They showed me pictures of my mom and told me that she was rescued from the ocean after the storm but she was barely alive. The fishermen who found her had to do an emergency operation to get me out. They said your mom and dad were here too and one of my uncles and that they all died.
My grandfather told me that they were all so upset and so sad and everything was so crazy that they just kept me and decided not to tell me anything until I turned 13. I got really mad and ran away for a day. I ran and ran and just slept on the beach. My whole world turned upside down. But I knew my family loved me and how sad they would be to lose me so I came back.
They told me all about my mom. I have pictures and stories and everything but I don’t know anything about my dad just his name and just that picture I sent you. Oh and that he was bitten by a shark. But that’s it.
I’m pretty good with the computer so I found a story from an American newspaper from when my dad died and it said he had a brother and gave your name. I hoped you would have a Facebook and I searched for you and I found you. It made me really happy to find you.
Can you tell me about my dad? And about my family in America? I would love so much to visit America. I see it on tv and movies but I don’t know anybody who has been there except to Hawaii. I want to see New York and all the big cities. It looks so cool. I don’t really know about Cincinnati. I hope you write back to me.
-Solomon
Gavin sat, dumbstruck, and read the entire message twice more. Could a baby really have survived the storm?
The father of one of his students, Rebecca Wright, was an attorney. He’d call Scott Wright that afternoon and run the entire story by him, see if it rang true or threw up any red flags, before replying to Solomon.
The conversation with Scott Wright did little to illuminate the situation, as his specialty was real estate law, but he did assure Gavin that he didn’t think he could possibly be on the hook legally for any money. He encouraged him to follow his heart, to proceed with caution, but that there was no reason not to pursue some sort of a relationship with his “nephew.”
It took Gavin several hours after class that evening to compose his response to Solomon. He had a million stories to tell, about Jack, about Solomon’s late American grandparents, about life in America. He had a few pictures of his brother that he scanned and attached to the message, both from when he was a young boy and a more recent one taken at the last Christmas they shared.
Solomon-
Your story has really surprised me and touched me. To find out I have a nephew living on the other side of the world fills me with excitement, but also with sadness that it took this long to find out! When my parents and my brother died, it really left me alone. I’m a bit jealous that you had so much family to take care of you, but of course I’m so happy you did. I have just one grandparent left, on my mom’s side. She lives in Chicago. My dad had one brother, but he’s also passed away.
I work at a bank, and that’s my job, but my true love is judo. I have been teaching judo and working with kids for several years now and it’s my favorite thing in the world. I have a few students around your age and some as young as five years old.
Your dad, my brother Jack, was the best brother anybody could ever have. He and I grew up together playing every sport there was to play. He was best at baseball. He was left-handed. His favorite thing to eat was spaghetti, and he would always drive our parents crazy because he’d eat it one noodle at a time.
His best friend, the one who came to Fiji with him, was named Wyatt. Wyatt and Jack traveled all over the place together learning to surf and chasing the biggest waves. They loved the ocean. Wyatt’s parents still live here in Cincinnati, and I bump into them once in a while. The last I heard, Wyatt was living in Hawaii. I’m going to have to track him down and tell him about you.
I hope you like the pictures of your dad that I included. I wish had more. I know he’d have been a great dad and that he’d be very proud of you.
If your family there thinks it would be ok, I’d love for you to visit here. I could pay for it. Maybe if somebody from your family came with you? Let me know. I’m so happy to have a nephew! Oh yeah, before I forget, BULA! Talk to you soon…
-Uncle Gavin
Gavin tracked Wyatt down through his parents, and when he shared the story of Solomon with him, Wyatt offered to get on the next flight to Fiji to scoop him up and bring him to Ohio. Gavin didn’t think an international kidnapping was the way to go, but he did tell Wyatt that he was going to try to arrange for Solomon to visit him and that Wyatt was more than welcome to come home for a visit whenever the details could be worked out.
That’s how Wyatt and Gavin came to be waiting in international arrivals three weeks later for a
flight to land at the Greater Cincinnati Airport from Nadi, Fiji, by way of Auckland, New Zealand, and Houston, Texas.
With layovers, the trip had taken the better part of thirty hours, and Solomon and his aunt, Ruth, staggered off the plane completely spent from their journey.
Gavin and Solomon knew each other from pictures, and their embrace was a tearful one as Wyatt and Ruth shook hands and introduced themselves. Once Gavin finally let go of his nephew, Ruth took the brother of her sister’s fiancé’s face in her hands and stared into his eyes, blinking away tears of her own.
“Gavin, I’m so sorry this reunion is so belated. Our entire family apologizes. Without your brother, without your family, we wouldn’t have Solomon. He has been such a joy, such a blessing to me, to my husband, to all of us. We only wanted to make the most normal life we could for Solomon. Please understand.”
Gavin nodded his head. “The past is the past, Ruth. That baby needed a family. He needed what only you could give him. I don’t blame you a bit. I’m so glad you’re here!”
As tired as Solomon and his aunt were, typical of a thirteen-year-old boy, he was starving.
Being Cincinnati, there was only one place to take him – Uptown Chili.
Gavin and Solomon had, in discussing Jack, covered the topic of food extensively. Solomon’s idea of “American food” was hamburgers and hot dogs, which suited him just fine, but Gavin insisted that Jack’s favorite food, without question, was chili. And not just any chili, it had to be Cincinnati-style chili. When Gavin described eating chili over spaghetti, and smothered with cheese, Solomon thought he must be joking. When he realized Cincinnati chili parlors were a real thing, he knew his first meal in his father’s hometown had to be a 3-way.