Grandmas

When my then boyfriend (now my husband of more than thirty-six years) first met my grandmother she was carrying slingback heels looped over one finger, dressed to the nines (as she liked to say) and swaying a bit. She'd just come back from a convention where, she told me, the drinks started looking back at her. Instead of a highball, she thought she was drinking an "eyeball".

And I'm named after her.

Actually, I'm named after both grandmas--who had more in common with each other than most in-laws do. They were both smokers--they both gambled but in very different games; one played mah-jongg and the other was a poker player with a face so good no one saw her taking their money until she had it jingling in her muumuu, spread out between her knees.
My husband's friends thought she was just the sweetest old lady--until she won $17 in nickels from them.

I miss both grandmothers and my dad, especially now at Christmas.

Both grandmothers died of lung cancer as did my father who was only forty-four when he died. Now I find that I have the opportunity to help other families keep their grandmas and dads (and mothers, brothers,sisters, cousins and aunties and uncles) alive a little longer if they are diagnosed with cancer.

I hope that somewhere, someone's Grandma will live a little longer, with less pain and family around her cancer-free. I hope that someone's Grandma will live to celebrate Christmas with her grandchildren and their parents.

For more information on the State of Hawai'i's Comprehensive Cancer Plan go here.

Winter in Hawaii

The weather persons in Hawai'i are reporting "epic" waves.

They're saying that the waves are the biggest they have ever been in the last forty years.

I guess it's all about the measurements now.

When our grandparents were alive and still living in the house at Ka'a'awa--a place built to weather the rough Hawai'i winters--we had no way of knowing how big the waves were going to be or whether the high tide would bring dangerous surf our way.

The house at Ka'a'awa was just across the highway--all two lanes of it--from the beach. During the calmer summer months, the waves lapped at the rocks that faced the ocean and supported the retaining wall for the highway. The rocks seemed huge when we were kids, but later, as an adult, they looked pretty manini--about six to seven feet--and battered.

But during the winters, weather could be pretty severe.

Not snow.

Nor sleet, nor cold nor anything having to do with frozen water. Hawai'i winters have wild water--big storms that sweep down from the Northern Pacific and smack into the Hawaiian islands bringing the huge surf that draws crowds of surfers and onlookers around the world.

Most akamai folks stand on the hills and outlooks over Waimea and Sunset Beach, well away from the ocean.

At Ka'a'awa in the late 1960s, the ocean was up close and personal. Waves broke over the gravel and the highway, putting salt water and limu in the front yard of the Ka'a'awa house. Wind blew rain in from the ocean--slamming it against the house and the mountain that was almost in the back yard.

There was no escaping the weather at Ka'a'wa during the winter. The house stood strong and sturdy through it all. Just like the three of us, I guess. Despite the storms and the wild weather in our lives, we've managed to get through it all--with our families--more or less intact.

When the wild waves wash over the highways of your life and into the front yard--and bring the 'opala from the ocean with them; when the wind slams rain and breaks the branches of the trees in your yard; when the roof rattles and your hale is caught between the mountain and the rough seas of life--let's remember our strengths and our families and stand tough.