Dear Editor,   

I am writing to share a heartfelt letter titled “Welcomed Beeb” written by my late father, Aeoainuu Aleki Tuala-Tamaalelagi. Though he is now in heaven, his words continue to carry the weight of gratitude, reflection, and deep love for life, community, and the healing hands that brought him back to us — by the medical team at our local hospital LBJ Fagaalu Hospital — if only for a while longer.

His writing was composed in the months (July 2018) following a near-tragic cardiac event that, by grace and the dedication of his medical teams at LBJ Hospital and Queens Heart Hospital in Honolulu, he survived. He often spoke about wanting to share his gratitude and the poetic truth of that moment with a wider audience, but life — and healing — got in the way. Ma’imau e pe ana leai le oti.

Now, as his child, I am honored to carry that torch forward, fulfilling his wish to share “Welcomed Beeb” with the community he loved compassionately. It is not just a testimony of survival, but a tribute to the nurses, doctors, friends, and family who held space for his recovery — and to the moment that the sound of life, that precious beep, returned once more.

I hope you will consider printing his letter in his voice, as he wrote it. In doing so, you would not only be sharing a story of miraculous healing, but honoring a man who lived with gratitude in his heart and poetry in his soul.

With appreciation,

Salamasina July Fuimaono

Child of Aeoainuu Aleki Tuala-Tamaalelagi

“WELCOMED BEEP”

Dear Editor,

I have liked to pen this for a while, but because I have been tied down by the structure of a healing process, that is about to make-hit the second anniversary of a reversed just about tragic stopping of the heart beat. This coming month of August would have made the second year the heart beats after several stops made it again and hasn’t stopped since. The trauma made it through a few months of the best medical treatment at LBJ, to the best medical treatment at Honolulu Queen’s Heart Hospital as well as the top lineup of medicine’s specialists from physician specialization to brain surgeons. Now out of bed again, I’m able to acknowledge a local comedian’s guip — “The Taulasea (medicine man) had left no cell unturned”

It is all well now that I’m out of the woods. But seeing the physical sides of the trauma without seeing the aching thumps of the heart, then the straight line on the green, the beep sounds still the pounding, and then wow, the straight line and again. . . the drawn out sound of the monitor, no beep, and the straight line again, wow, where’s that beep, and that stretched straight line. The wretched reversal of values — since when did we abhor this so straight, oh mercy. . . and this continued on and on. The tears, assurances, beloveds, and still no assurance of the end of that dreaded drawn out beep, that wretched straight line, oh so awfully straight line, oh how we’ve cooked in vain on things so straight now.

Seeing without seeing the drawn-out, smooth sound broke---- the beep sounded. WELCOME!! So welcomed and so real. Finally assurance, finally real again. On my discharge the following month, it was memorable with four incidents clearly entrenched in my inner being. First off, young Audrey, one of the wonderful LBJ nurses at ICU said on saying goodbye, “Ainuu, we don’t ever want to see you in here again” philosophically. Then Grace at Medical ward who said nonchalantly one time “you’re to blessed” Chairman of the board, Afioga Faumuina John Faumuina who humbly mentioned “We are doing our best with what is available to us here at LBJ”. And finally, Dr. Dmitri Orleanski, whom directed the whole operation and the wonderful team who all moved so gently. Such DELTA FORCE — wonderful precision and great skill. Faafetai tele.

Aeoainuu Aleki Tuala-Tamaalelagi SF

July 2018, Laulii American Samoa