Spirit of Aloha | Message of Aloha | March/April 2002

This Place

Musical Comfort

Maile Mossman, a senior lead in Aloha's Contract Services department, brings music to the elderly at Hale Makua care home

Spring is a time of renewal and reflection. Every year at this time, we reflect upon the velocity of change and the empowerment that hope provides. In these times especially, we also reach for the familiar-the people, thoughts and things that bring comfort in uncertain times.

Volunteer efforts in our communities are a source of comfort and a balm for the collective soul. Service to others is not only personally rewarding, it is necessary for a healthy community. At Aloha Airlines, we are proud to count among our employees many who spend their free hours providing selfless service to others.

Maile Mossman, one of four senior leads in the Aloha Airlines Contract Services department in Kahului, Maui, uses her musical talent to spread cheer in Hale Makua, a senior care home in Kahului. With seven children and seven grandchildren, Maile is a nurturing force, who believes in the infinite power of giving.

"A woman at my church needed someone to drive her so she could sign up for community service," she recalls. "When she went away to college, I continued the community service. I had younger kids at home, so I dragged them along with me to Hale Makua." Her two younger children, she says, grew up comfortably among the surroundings and people in the rest home. Maile believes that their experiences at Hale Makua helped them develop into compassionate, caring adults.

"I go to Hale Makua on Wednesdays and sing for an hour-and-a-half," Maile continues. "I take my 'ukulele, open the door, walk in and start from the first room, moving on until I end up in the Alzheimer's wing. I've gone once a week for years, and now I have a granddaughter I'm thinking of taking along. She's only 6 months old.

"I like going because I learn so much from the old folks. The young, the aged, the ill-there comes a day when you will have been all of that. So I seek them out."

The daughter of entertainers, Maile was never far from music. She learned by ear and had the natural gift of a deep and mellifluous alto. Taught by the Hawaiian "old-timers," she became an entertainer in Las Vegas.

"That's where I met my husband, who was in the audience," she continues. "He was stationed in Washington, D.C., so I worked there, for Sen. Hiram Fong, and two of our babies were born there." Once out of the Air Force, her husband, Boyd Mossman, went to law school and today is a retired judge on Maui.

Maile joined Aloha Airlines eight years ago. She had come to Aloha from teaching Hawaiian studies in several Maui schools, a transition she recalls as stressful. "I didn't know a thing," she says. "You should have seen the copious notes that I carried around with me. And now I love the job." Her work at Aloha includes teaching classes in hazardous materials, and, like the other three Contract Services senior leads, conducting training in gate services, checking in and other terminal duties. Because she had a difficult time when she began, she says, she is sensitive to the fears of beginners.

That makes her an exemplary trainer. And her personal experiences make her an exemplary human being, whose compassion is immediately apparent.

"I had breast cancer and had my breast removed five years ago, and that has a bearing on my compassion for others," she notes. "Somedays I'll arrive at Hale Makua and the bed is smoothly made, empty, and I hestitate to ask the nurses. There is much to be learned at a place like Hale Makua. There is something about the eyes of the elderly, about their wisdom, that I appreciate.

"As I get older and life continues to be stressful, I worry about my children. But when I look at these people with their wrinkled hands and the twinkle in their eyes, I see what we're on Earth for. I see that we're all on the same path."

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