More Cousin Visits, More Eating

Our first order of business was getting these old folks to their appointments, so we got organized and in the car in plenty of time. While Auntie Annette was getting her eyes checked, I went outside to be on a call with people in Tennessee and South Carolina, talking about strategic planning for Southern SAWG. It was funny to be sitting on a bench outside an office at Queens Hospital in the wind and occasional showers, trying to take notes and actually think about issues that are far, far away from here.  Finished the call by the time Annette was done at the doctor's, and in the meantime I had succeeded in tracking down my cousin Alan. So we made a plan to meet for lunch.

Everyone always looks the same.

We met at a very casual, very local Vietnamese place and filled our table with plate lunches.  We haven't seen Alan in many years but last year when Anna was here with the big family group, they got together for a family party. Like his mother Arlene, Alan has an amazing memory for people and details, and he asked questions about every single family member and stored the answers away. His oldest boy, Tyler, is getting his masters in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech so we talked a lot about what it was like to make the decision to go there, and what it is like to live in the South. He pointed out that when you are in school you are generally insulated from your surroundings, and that school fit all of Tyler's requirements. The younger one, Micah, is still at Punahou and starting to ponder which elite school on the mainland will deserve his parents' money. Alan is such a nice guy -- so much like his parents (Auntie Arlene says, "it's scary, isn't it?").  Like his parents, he has a clear-eyed view of the costs and benefits of living in Hawaii. His kids will need to earn plenty of money if they do want to come back here.

It was STILL super windy but Jon and I went back out to Waimanalo to look at the beach. Only one guy was in the water and there were just a few people like us, just standing and looking at the waves and the sky but not going in. We went to a well-reviewed ice cream store and got the most famous flavor: coconut macadamian nut.  Plus kahlua fudge.  Even if it is rainy, it is not cold here so the ice cream store was busy.

Flags being ripped apart in the wind.

Then back downtown for dinner at Babe and Arlene's condo on the 12th floor, overlooking Honolulu, Diamond Head -- a really great view. They say they can plan their driving without a navigation system by looking down to see the traffic.  Arlene made a delicious dinner that fit everyone's dietary restrictions -- watercress and tofu soup, ginger fish, kubocha squash with char siu and snap peas, Japanese sweet potatoes, kim chee cucumbers.  She can literally cook better than anyone, standing on one leg. All the food came out hot, as she had staged the cooking over two days.

I had been texting with another cousin Scott for three days, trying to figure out how to fit into his schedule. It turns out he has been ill for almost a year, with esophageal cancer. At the moment he is cancer-free after lots of aggressive chemo and radiation, but he has not been able to swallow for twelve months. A whole year of a feeding tube, with lots of struggles and learning. He and Tammy arrived at about 9:00, just when we were getting ready to head out.  When Anna was here in December, he was a robust 210 pounds. Today he is a very long and lean 150 pounds. He says that is almost his high school weight.  Looking around the room last night, I realized that 5 out of 8 people had lost really significant amounts of weight due to health struggles.  Only Tammy and Annette and I have held steady.  So the conversation was almost completely about the last year of hospitalization and treatments. Scott is younger than I am, so it's not just old people. Or I guess we are old people too, really. He was always the goofy, super relaxed and cheerful one -- the oldest of three boys.  They are all like that but he was always kind of the dopiest one. He is much more able to say what is true now, and still be very upbeat. He says he is at heart a pessimist, so he won't believe in his survival for a while. He was told the survival rate of this cancer is 33%. I said, I'll take it! You can do that. He said that 's what his brother Matt said too, but he is not going to count on anything.

This trip has been quick, with a focus on seeing people rather than seeing Hawaii. I feel lucky that we got in the water twice since it has been crazy windy and rainy.  I haven't worn shoes since we arrived. I even went into restaurants without shoes on even though that's really what kids do, not grown-ups. No rain coat. Not at all necessary since it stops raining by the time we get to the next place, every time. I feel bad leaving these people without a clear plan for transportation next week but I can't really solve those problems, I can only pass on my best ideas to the cousins in charge. Eventually they will figure it out. There will be plenty of complicated times. Getting old is full of complications, for sure.

In four days, we saw: Annette, Freddy, Berta, Donna, Babe, Arlene, Pat, Alan, Scott, Tammy. And we had real conversations with all of them, we didn't just see them for a minute.  Time well spent on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Too bad this is so far away from home.