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.