August 22, 2017 at 06:36PM

Yup, she's my kid. "Aw look, a butterfly!..." [Sly smile directed pointedly at me.] "You know, I might get you a butterfly for your next birthday." 😑 from Facebook
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She made us Mother's Day breakfast (with Grandpa's help) 💕 . 🥓🍳🍞🍓 #monsterblog

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Hilo (Great) Grandma

Dear Isabella,

You met my Hilo Grandma once, when you were a baby. She was already half way gone, and hardly recognized me or understood who you were. I wish you had known her the way I did. 

She taught me to sew. I can't quite remember her voice - it's just inches out of reach, it's been so long since I've really heard it - but I can easily conjure the rhythmic whirring of her Singer sewing machine set up on the patio between her house and Uncle's. I feel the heft of her serious fabric shears and hear its glide across the army green colored table as she cut out slinky fabrics that became the evening gowns she bippity-boppity-booped for the pageant winners who flocked to her house. 

I remember the shuffle of her slippers on the old brick paver walkway surrounding the family house. Lying luxuriously in bed on spring break - I slept in her bed between her and Grandpa when I stayed with them - I would hear her walk past the louvered windows hanging the laundry on the lines at the back of the house. "Hoy! You're still sleeping?" she scolded, but with a smile. 

She stocked the house with my favorite foods when I came to visit. ClassicCampbell's chicken noodle soup would be stacked under the sink and she made Portuguese sausage burned in the skillet, or Filipino chorizo in the big can. She would make corned beef hash cooked so long it was utterly dry, and mix it with hot rice and roll it into dumplings for me. Loaves and loaves of bread, toasting pair after pair of slices for my breakfast and buttering them generously all the way to the edges with Country Crock. After dinner I had all the ice cream cones and Swiss Miss I wanted. 

The next morning she would measure me for a dress and tell me how much smaller my waist should be. 

My grandma saved old Ziploc bags for reuse, bought meat on sale because it was cheap and froze it for years, folded and saved wrapping paper. She carried Ricola and strawberry hard candy in her purse and fed it to me to keep me quiet in church. Her most famous phrase was, "Hm! UP to you." Sometimes when I was little and she was younger, we would walk together to my Aunty Felipa's house a few blocks away. 

She gave me uncomfortable lectures about my body being my temple. She would bring me to her bedroom and painstakingly show me each piece of her extensive jewelry collection, telling me exactly what gem it was and the story behind her purchasing it or receiving it as a gift. She put four blankets on the bed in case I got cold - in the summer. She let me play with all her old-lady perfumes on her dresser. 

I had to bathe at 4 o'clock in the afternoon as if we were still on the plantation, and I was encouraged to put baby powder all over my skin afterwards. I was not allowed outside - even to sit on the lanai with shoes on - once I had bathed. 

My grandma often picked kalamansi from the tree in the driveway and squeezed the juice over my hands after I had been playing in the dirt, saying it was the same as washing. My hands would be sticky but I smelled of bright citrus. She would talk on the phone in Ilocano to her friends or our family and every so often I picked up my name and I knew she was talking about me. People were always dropping by the house for an unannounced visit or to give her papayas or bananas or lychee. 

Grandma's house was the heart of the family. Grandma was the matriarch. I was her golden girl and she loved me with ferocity. She died Friday, she's been gone a lot longer, and I miss her and I wish you had known her. 

Love,

Mommy

March 17, 2017 at 05:45PM

My girl found flowers to pick me just like before 💕🌼 #nowandthen #fbf from Facebook
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My girl found flowers to pick me just like before 💕🌼 #nowandthen #fbf #monsterblog

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We had an intern at work today. Thankful my company lets me do this in a pinch. #betterhealthbetterlife #monsterblog

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Grandpa Hilo

Dear Isabella,

There are things I want you to know about your Grandpa Hilo, things you will not get to experience or learn about on your own. In time I hope I can capture just a glimpse of the man he was to me growing up, in stories maybe. 

I wrote this about him for myself, but by the time you're old enough to read this, it might make a little sense to you. 

Love,

Mommy

I lie here and I remember him, as if he is already gone. In a way, he is. 

Nothing quite prepares you to see your parent - who you think of as a strong, if flawed, individual - reduced to a crumpled heap of vulnerability. 

The dad I knew was a solid man. Big arms and stone hard calves from working Big Island cane fields in his youth. He made me hold his hand everywhere we went and kiss him on the cheek when he dropped me off at school. When I was in third grade he walked me across Middle Field to class on the first day. I didn't want to hold his hand and to this day he talks about how heartbreaking this was for him. In summer school before eighth grade I decided I didn't want to kiss him goodbye in the morning. He wouldn't let me go without it and quoted the song that was just on the radio, "because your kiss is on my list." I rolled my eyes. 

My dad taught me to be fierce. Until Cayla came along, I was the only girl in an ocean of boy cousins and brothers and I was the baby and I was spoiled. But I was taught the proper ways to throw a football and swing a baseball bat and at my soccer games he would yell, "Stop playing like a girl!" I threw a spiral better than Jason, and beat Ian at chess, and I fired a rifle with stunning accuracy, and my dad showed me that I could do anything the boys could do. 

My dad taught me that I'm special. He has never stopped talking about the night in Hilo when, at 3 years old I told him the crescent moon was "trying to come out. Like a button." He thought that was so genius. (I still don't exactly get what the big deal was.) He would buy me a card and maybe a flower or some other small gift every Valentine's Day. He always reminded me that even as a grown up I could never escape being Daddy's little girl. 

I have spent the better part of my life expecting this time in a very real way. To varying degrees, Dad has been near the edge of death since I was 15. Many days and nights since then I have spent staring at a ceiling in the dark or at a scuffed linoleum floor under unforgiving lights, and remembered. Remembered the morning drives to school, the trips to Burger King, the Sundays at Sandy Beach. Thought about all the lessons he taught me: take care of yourself first or you can't take care of anyone else, don't carry baggage or you will get stuck, if you're going to do something do everything to be the best at it. I think about these things, I hear his voice so clearly. 

I have also spent much of our time being a rotten kid. He and I had our ups and very intense downs, and I went through periods of speaking to him with utter disrespect, contempt even. Ignoring him. Punishing him, essentially, for what at the time felt like grievous wrongs. We had epic arguments, exchanged some charged words on occasion. He loved me - liked me, even! - unwaveringly and vehemently through all of it. I took his love for granted, and only in the past couple of years realized how comforting it was to hear, "But how are YOU, Sweetheart?" My dad taught me forgiveness. 

Last week I held his hand, pianist's fingers wrapped around mine. His skin was so soft, paper thin, dark brown. Today I wished I could go back to third grade and walk across Middle Field with him one more time. 

Now that the night is upon me, I realize. Nothing prepares you to say goodbye to your Daddy.