Memories

Despite the issues clouding our relationship now, I have some lovely memories of our mother that I know my brother and sister share.

One of those is the way she used to sing to us at night when she was tucking us in and how each of us had a special song that she sang, just for us.

I think of this when I try to sing to my grandson but he tells me "Stop, Grandma!".  I think that has more to do with the way I'm singing rather than the songs...which are pretty old and tunes that I remember my (our) Dad singing.

She told us once, I think, that she gave us a specific song because of some trait we had that reminded her of the song. Hmmm.

My brother's song, because he was always "noisy" was "Little Sir Echo" .  

My sister's song was "Little Lady Make-Believe". I'm not sure why. But she did change the lyrics slightly. Instead of singing "as much as I love you" she would sing "as much as Mommy loves you". So yes, she referred to herself in the third person even then.

My song, which I remember clearly, was "Little Old Lady". I guess because I was so "old", fussy? Not sure.


Somehow, with technology, these songs have been preserved ;not the way our mother sang to us, which always sounds better in memory, but still...it's the song she gave to us when we were little.

For Joseph Kauakahi, Jr. by Margaret Mary Le'a Patricia Kaukahi Boyd-page 7

For Joseph Kauakahi, Jr. by Margaret Mary Le'a Patricia Kaukahi Boyd-page 6

For Joseph Kauakahi, Jr. by Margaret Mary Le'a Patricia Kaukahi Boyd-page 5

For Joseph Kauakahi, Jr. by Margaret Mary Le'a Patricia Kaukahi Boyd-page 4

For Joseph Kauakahi, Jr. by Margaret Mary Le'a Patricia Kaukahi Boyd-page 3

For Joseph Kauakahi, Jr. by Margaret Mary Le'a Patricia Kaukahi Boyd-page 2

For Joseph Kauakahi, Jr. by Margaret Mary Le'a Patricia Kaukahi Boyd-page 1

Just the Three of Us

I think we're weird, me, my sister and my brother.
I think we grew up a little weird.
We're pretty close and we've always found that managing our family (meaning our Mom and Dad--now just our Mom) requires a team effort.  If one of us tries to do it alone, we are doomed to failure...kinda dramatic sounding but true.
In honor of my distant but ever present sibs, I have these pictures of us through the years.  We always seemed to be together, even when we weren't.
We have been fortunate to find lifelong partners who are friends, too and we are so grateful.  But when it comes to working through the issues of our aging mother (who is totally in denial), we are so glad to have each other.  It really is a team effort.  Yay team!

June 16 2010-our Parents would have been married 59 years...

Aunty Bunny's story in her own words

I left the islands in 1951 to go to college and did not return for 25 years, at my mother's death. There was virtually not that much communication except for an occasional letter from grandma or Ethel or Leo. They all helped with finances and wardrobe etc, so it was imperative for me to return their favors when we did come back. It was also pay back time when Auntie Ethel got sick and Charta needed help with her. We got along with each other. Ethel and Leo and Wini and I always had a good relationship from the time I was a little girl. Your mom looked upon me as the pesky little sister who use to spy on her while she and your dad made out in the car parked outside the Hillcrest house.

She was also popular with the Kam School guys who use to scream in unison Margaret ---- as they passed the house. That use to infuriate grandma. Her first beau was a kid from Kam School. His name was Charles Willingham, he was redheaded and did not look like he belonged in Kam School. No sign of being hawaiian. You should ask her if you want to get her goat. I thought he looked DORKY! It was fun to tease her when she was a teenager and I was a brat, she didn't have a sense of humor, just like now. Tht is why I love to upset her even to this very day.

Maybe it's the time of year--maybe it's the time of day

We are all beginning to discuss what happens next.

I think our experience with family has forced these discussions--and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

What are we discussing?

What happens when Grandma dies (either or both--my mother, Alan's mother)?
There is one kupuna whose situation could be complex but his wishes and documents are clear. I know what he wants. I know how he expects these things to be done. The instructions are in an attachment to his will. I've seen it. I know who his attorneys are.

This is not so clear with our mother--who has a "death box" and some wishes of her own that need to be clarified...although I don't think this discussion will happen any time soon without trauma and drama occurring.

It is clear what my mother-in-law wants. She wants to rest in peace (near her eldest son) and she didn't want a funeral although this could be changing. Finding her papers, well that's another story.

I have been told many times by my mother what she wants. She's written it down. Where she will finally rest and how this will be paid for are not mysteries to me. We have a "fail-safe" plan that she does not need to know about if what she wants doesn't actually happen.

And while I was letting this post "simmer" in my brain my husband and I had our discussion about what will happen for us. I have an advanced health care directive at least. My youngest son knows the "triage" drill to take care of my mother in case something happens to me. My older kids know they'll have to come home and help.

We have a burial plot and my mother's paperwork is in order so my family won't have to hunt for it in case I'm not here to tell them where to look.

I know what my husband wants. And I have set up a fund for our youngest to pay for last rites and other things should the worst happen.

We don't have any long-term care coverage and although I like Lunalilo Home I hope I won't be eligible any time soon. To be eligible for Lunalilo Home you have to be Hawaiian, elderly, unable to live alone and destitute. While I could, some day, qualify for the first three I hope not to leave my family so in debt that we couldn't pay for elder care...but that could happen.

The discussion the grandmas absolutely refuse to have with us is what happens when they can't live alone any more, if we can't afford elder care at their homes and what they would like if they need to be in a care home. They've all given us some version of "I'm not going to be drooling in a wheelchair", which, I think, no one wants but without planning could become reality.

I'd like to think that Grandma Boyd had possibly the best option--people who cared enough to walk through the choices with her (my cousin), a good place to live, excellent care and someone to pay for it. That the "someone to pay for it" was me and my husband wasn't planned. But history is unchangeable and the lessons learned so long ago have paid off in some ways.

But paying for medical care for someone who was used to Kaiser and its managed care--and no longer had it for a variety of reasons--and many chronic and end stage health problems wasn't cheap.

It was, with the right paperwork and learning to navigate the State and Federal health care systems possible. Still, even with government funded medical coverage, a good portion of the cost of her care fell to us. We are still recovering from that more than thirty years after her death.

The current series in the local paper about nursing homes includes some lurid horror stories. I'm not saying the stories aren't true--but they aren't the full truth which, in some ways, is worse. And it fuels the fear many kupuna have about being left in a nursing home "drooling in a wheelchair".

I wish they would really talk to us about what could happen between being able to live alone and death. I wish they would let us set up options for them and know that we're not going to spend whatever money they have foolishly or on ourselves...but I know better. Fear of losing control can delay discussions until it is much too late.

I know that our family would really appreciate the candor and would honor their wishes...even if it means that we do nothing.

Wedding Licenses and Other Family Myths

Normally this post would be the subject of another blog I'm writing about kupuna and "our" adventures in technology--which started with trying to gather all the documents we would some day need such as birth certificates, my father's discharge papers and wedding licenses and what media/technology would be/could be used to make sure that whoever was left knew what to do and why and where.

Vital Statistics, one of the busier branches of the Hawai'i State Department of Health, (even before furloughs)is the keeper of many documents a family with kupuna in Hawai'i will need to gather BEFORE their kupuna needs a burial service.

Because my mom wants her final resting place to be with our Dad at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) I needed to make sure that she was still eligible for burial there after her divorce from her second husband.

The friendly, efficient man who answered the phone sounded like he was retired military. Which, in my experience with various military health care operations around the world, meant he was being pretty straight forward when he said I would need to make sure that I had my mother's divorce decree from her second husband.

This should have been no problem; but I didn't even have the marriage licenses from either of my mother's marriages to my dad or her second husband. A-hunting I did go to Vital Statistics.

Now, some people would say I was nosy. Some people would tell me to wait until I really needed the documents. All of this assumes that I'm around to do the legwork needed to set up my mother's funeral.

Unfortunately, a good portion of the job I retired from almost two years ago involved working with families dealing with the grief of losing a loved one. The families couldn't find the right papers, didn't know where to look for these papers, had not discussed services, burial and other important issues until it was necessary.

It seemed appropriate that I would gravitate to a job like this after being my grandmother's caregiver in her final years. Anyway--the job taught me to assume a worst case scenario-always.

What if I'm not here to get everything in order? Life is short and unpredictable--and I've found you can only control what you can control--part of that is getting the paperwork in order so if you aren't there, your loved ones can step in and do the work for you. I could ensure that they're not spending all their time sorting through stacks of paper or hunting through online data that will make no sense at all if they're grieving.

I got the marriage licenses--and found that somehow my grandmother's name had changed from the first marriage, where she was Ethel Louise Wong to the second marriage where she became Ethel Frieda Wong. Frieda?

Grandma's marriage license from the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace lists her name as Adele Wong. Her birth name is Yuk Lun Wong. Whaat??

There are stories there, I'm sure of it. Is there anyone left who can tell me these stories? Well, there are two, my mom and her sister, Bunny. I hope I can get these documented before one of my kids has to make that trip to Vital Statistics to get my paperwork.

Actually, they won't have to--it's all gathered in one place, in my file cabinet for now with scanned copies on a USB drive. The phone numbers that will be needed are bookmarked on my cellphone--which my youngest can access.

Now comes the not-so-fun part--to get my mother's divorce decree I have to ask her about a divorce that took years to settle, scarred us and made her ex-husband a forbidden topic and a forgotten episode in her life.

But, ironically, she can't rest next to our dad, the one true love of her life, unless she tells me about the one she wants to forget.

Dreams of the Fathers

"Death steals everything except our stories. " Jim Harrison from
"Larson's Holstein Bull"

Once upon a time there was a family. They seemed content. The father had hopes and dreams that he focused on his children.
He wanted them to have the bright places without the shadows he had lived through. For his children he pretended that there were no shadows. He focused his efforts on his hopes for his children; the future he wanted for them.

He wasn't perfect. He drank. He gambled. Other women found him as attractive as he found them. He tried to focus but he was young and it was much harder to be a good husband and father than it seemed.

He wasn't around his kids as often as they wanted him to be. They resented his absence in their lives.
Their future, as he saw it, was better than his. He believed that there wasn't anything he couldn't overcome. He believed there wasn't anything he couldn't endure.

Life was a miracle and a blessing and a test. He and his children would come through with flying colors.

He knew that pain could be endured; that illness and injury were part of life but not the only parts of life. Wanting and fear and anger and sorrow lived nearby to make brief appearances in his home but were not permanent guests. Life could be so much better for the kids because he would make it so. There was joy and some happiness.
He tried.

There once was a man who helped his children as much as he could before he had to leave them behind. He was not perfect; no one is. And when he left this world he hoped for so much more for his children. In the end, all his children were left with was his story.




Will his story live on?

Who will remember him?

All of us who are alive because of him;we will remember.