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.