'Dad would be proud,' grad says
Cathy Free
With Sinama's help, Saia Meli built a family home in Tonga 10 years ago, anxious to have a place where his six children could visit from America and remember their past. During the dedication of the three-bedroom house in July 2000, Saia, 62, closed his eyes in prayer, grateful that his entire family was gathered around him again.
But the talented carpenter didn't open his eyes. As soon as the ribbon-cutting ceremony was over, Saia's heart stopped, just as his watch had stopped earlier that day after ticking reliably for decades.
"He was a man who lived by time — he didn't waste a single moment," Sinama recalls over a Free Lunch of chicken curry at Salt Lake City's Sawadee Thai. When she graduated from the University of Utah with a bachelor's degree in business finance last week, Sinama tearfully accepted her diploma in the memory of her father, who always wanted his children to get the education he never had.
It was a bittersweet moment for the 38-year-old student, who had put her own dreams on hold to help care for her parents and put her younger sister, Margaret, through college. Because she hadn't married, it fell upon Sinama to help her mom and dad learn the rhythms of a new life after the family left Tonga and came to Utah 30 years ago.
Nobody was surprised when the enterprising teen landed a job as an office assistant at one of Salt Lake City's largest engineering firms. It wasn't long before Sinama was managing the office, learning everything she could about building design.
When her parents became homesick and her father returned to Tonga to build a family home, "I could see the job was too big for him to do on his own," says Sinama. She took a leave from work and again postponed plans for college to design a simple rambler for her dad and arrange to have construction materials shipped from San Francisco.
"He kept saying, 'Don't worry about us, you need to go to college,"' she recalls. "But I knew I had more time to achieve my goals than he did. In our culture, family is more important than anything else. The ties to your homeland are part of who you are."
Several years after her father died, Sinama watched joyfully as her sister graduated from Westminster College. Now it would be her turn to get a college degree. For four years, she went to school 30 hours a week, working full-time afternoons and evenings and studying whenever she could find a spare hour or two.
"I feel so old now," she says, pointing to silver strands in her wavy dark hair. "Most students in my class are in their early 20s." She pauses and smiles, knowing what her father would have said about taking her time. "I don't feel that I wasted a single moment," says Sinama. "My dad would be proud."
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Recent comments
Hey! She's my aunty and she's the best aunt anyone could...
Joseph Tonga | May 11, 2008 at 4:56 p.m.
Thank you for sharing this young woman's story. She is an inspiration...
Janella | May 8, 2008 at 2:41 p.m.
