Remembrance of Alohas Past

Los Angeles, California

Ten years ago, I was at The Kona Village Resort, waking up in Lava Samoan 8, a hale (Hawaiian for house, in this case more of a cottage) set on a promontory of lava with the ocean lapping on two sides. I wrote about this hale in a much earlier post entitled: Albert Finney Slept in my Bed. We had discovered LS8 by accident, after having stayed on the other side of the Village for a lot of years. But one year we had a bit of a 'Charlie' problem, which was the cute name the staff used for ratatouilles on the roof. And 'ratatouilles' is the cute name I'm going to use for things that you just don't want to see around your home or resort home. Look, it's Hawaii. And there are wildlife in Hawaii: Geckos, rodents, mongooses. The mongooses were brought it to deal with the rodents, but no one did the research and it turns out one is nocturnal and the other not. So that put a bit of a kibosh on the natural control. Now there is a mongoose problem, which anyone who travels from Pa'ia to Hana can clearly see from the roadkill.

We went to The Kona Village Resort in late October, beginning in 1998. And starting in 2000, we went every year through 2010. We had first stayed at the resort in the mid-'80s and early '90s, about a half-dozen times. But by 2000, there were no questions about where we would spend my birthday and Halloween. And that had a lot to do with Sandra. It is now ten years since Sandra and I shared our time, with John and Tom, at the Village. In May of 2011, the Village was taken out by the tsunami after the earthquake in Japan. It has been closed ever since though reconstruction is in process. It won't be the same for a lot of reasons. But the largest, for me, is that it can't ever be the same without Sandra. And without Tom.

I have so many memories of the time spent together, and with all the other couples we met during that decade. I think I had a sense while enjoying it, that it was as special of a time as I might ever experience. I have loved Hawaii since my family traveled there on the Matson Lines' Lurline, with my grandparents, when I was just five years old. I spent two summers there, the first when I was fourteen, and second when I was seventeen and recently graduated from high school. Tom and I spent our honeymoon there, at The Royal Hawaiian on Waikiki, and the Sheraton Maui at Ka'anapali. We traveled at least one more time to Maui before we decided it was way too Newport Beach for us, and we hightailed it to Kona. Our friends, Karen and Greg, had gotten married at the Village, and another woman I knew insisted that we should stay there. So, we changed our May vacation plans to stay at The Mauna Kea, and headed instead to The Kona Village Resort. It was magic from the get-go. But we took some years off to travel to other places, returning to the Village in October instead of May, in 1998. And it was at there we met Sandra and John.

I have written so much about Sandra. You can read about her at the top of this page. But, here, I want to write about how much I miss her. How much I miss her voice, and her laugher. How much I appreciated her goodness and optimism. How much fun we always had together, some of it bordering on getting into harmless trouble. We loved to say "It's our Village" while we were there. And, we did sometimes act like it. But we got along well with staff, and October was an extremely slow time at the Village, so we didn't bother other guests. At least, mostly. Sometimes the guest count dropped to sixty while were were there. We usually knew about a third of the guests, at least to say hello at lunch. And with a number of them, we sometimes took over The Bora Bora Bar.

There was a feeling that went along with vacationing at The Village. Sometimes it felt like being at camp, only without the yucky mountain dust and pines. Here there was sand and ocean, trade breezes and swaying palm trees. There was a feeling that went along with every experience, from walking in the morning quiet down the decomposed granite path to breakfast; to meeting up with John and Sandra at lunchtime at the tiny palapa-roofed Talk Story Bar; our seats at the six-stool bar saved for us by Chad or another of the bartenders we knew. We would arrive at lunch individually, but wait until the four of us were together to eat.

Evenings began just before sunset at The Bora Bora. We were freshly showered and ready for martinis, and for more conversation and laughter. More than ready to enjoy friendship, that felt like family (but in a good way). Each day repeated and was the same and different. From The Bora Bora Bar we watched for the elusive green flash as the sun hit the ocean horizon at sunset. I never saw it.

Sandra told me that once when they were at the Kona Village without us (they returned to The Village in winter and early summer, as well as October each year), a man came to the bar carrying an urn. He set the urn on the chair alongside him, and ordered two martinis. He told Sandra that he was taking his wife's ashes out to sea the following morning. We both nodded at the end of that story. We got it. It would not have been a bad end to one's story. But The Village was an end to its own story after the 2011 tsunami.

I have never known anyone quite like Sandra. And becoming close friends with her, despite her living six hours away in Sacramento, was the greatest gift in my life. When I would be getting ready for the trip, stressed about providing care for my mom while we were away, or about other home and/or business issues, Tom would say to me: Don't worry. You'll be with Sandra soon. And then you'll be alright. Did he recognize that I couldn't provide solace from the stress for myself back then? That he couldn't provide it? Of course, vacations, and The Village itself provided a real respite. But Tom was right. Being with Sandra made everything right.

I celebrated my annual fiftieth birthday there for quite a few years. The last one was ten years ago, and maybe that is why The Village and Sandra are so much on my mind at this time. Friends may come and go. But friendship with Sandra is eternal. Even though she has been gone for almost seven years, I still feel her presence. And somehow, on this late October day, in spite of all of the chaos in our world, I am happy and grateful for that. Thank you for reading my blog.