PAU*

Los Angeles, California

Shortly after March 11th, we received photos of the Kona Village Resort which was hit by the tsunami generated by the earthquake in Japan. The tsunami hit the Village around 3:00 am. All guests had been evacuated to nearby hotels, and no one was injured. But the Village got slammed. It is now closed indefinitely, and the photos we received which document the damage are heartbreaking.

We first traveled to the Village in 1986, searching for a place in Hawaii which wasn't Waikiki, which Billy hated, nor Maui, which just didn't seem Hawaiian enough. We decided to give the Big Island a try, and made plans to go to the Mauna Kea. A woman (whose name I have since forgotten, but it may have been Jeanne), who worked out next to me in Kim Blank's class at Jane Fonda's Workout in Encino, had touted the Big Island. When I told her of our plans to go there, she got excited.

"Where are you going to stay?" she asked.

"Mauna Kea," I told her, expecting her enthusiastic affirmation.

She vehemently shook her head (long red curls rippling for effect). "NO," she exclaimed, still shaking head and curls. "NO," repeated again, emphatically (I'm assuming you got that with the italics and bolding. Like, I'm trying to convey that there was no way she was going to let us go to the Mauna Kea).

"Does your husband want to wear a jacket and tie to dinner every night?"

"Uh. No. Probably not," I responded, not a little overwhelmed by her response.

"You're going to the Kona Village," she stated.

And . . . we did.

On that very first flight to the Big Island, when our plane was on approach to Kona airport, I looked out the window and saw what I believe was the ugliest landscape I have ever laid eyes on. Lava. Weird beige-colored yucca-ish plants. White stones arranged in graffiti-like patterns on top of the lava. Moonscape. Are you getting this picture? I PANICKED. We gave up Maui for THIS?!

We gathered our luggage, and piled into some form of transportation and headed up the highway. About twenty minutes later we were on the roughest road I have ever traversed -- seriously. Mexico? Greece? Nope. Rougher. The driver pointed out that, if we were lucky, we might see donkeys. Donkeys!?! Donkeys in Hawaii.

Finally we arrived at a guard gate and were allowed to enter. Vegetation appeared, and we came to a stop at a circle, in front of a thatched-roofed building. Someone, who we now know was Auntie Eleanor, met us and placed welcome leis around our necks. It would be the only time that this happened, that we wouldn't feel like we had come home.

Within a day or two, I sent a postcard to my parents. It said only this: This is IT. It was the place I had dreamed of, in the Hawaii I had dreamed of. It was . . . magic.

I went to Hawaii for the first time before I started school. We sailed from San Francisco on the Matson liner, The Lurline. My dad had spent the duration of WW II stationed at Pearl Harbor. His aunt and uncle also lived on Oahu during the war, as his uncle was a Royal Navy advisor to the US Navy. Having spent three years in Hawaii, my dad had developed an intense affinity for the islands. By the time Billy and I spent our honeymoon there, it was my lucky seventh visit to the islands, including two full summers spent there.

We were to travel to the Village, with our friends, Todd and Christopher, in May. It would have been their first time there, after hearing about it from us for many years in copious amounts of too much information, on and on, ad nauseam (I've misspelled this word all my life and only now learn that it ends in am, thank you Google Dictionary!), more or less (we can't help ourselves). Our canceled reservation for this trip would have been our eighteenth stay at the Kona Village. And the twenty-seventh time I would have traveled to the Islands. But, those lofty numbers aside, I have to write that Billy and I, and all of the Village returnees, who are part of the Kona Village ohana, are mourning the loss of this special and magical place. Unless you have been there, and stayed there, you have no idea.

I have celebrated every birthday, with Sandra and John, at the Kona Village since 1998. I cannot imagine spending a birthday and a Halloween somewhere else. But, we will. Hopefully the Village will return to us, and will somehow have retained the magic that we knew there. But, we have to be realistic. The Kona Village staff has been let go. The grounds, and even our special hale, Lava Samoan Eight, has been devastated. How it will come back to us is, at this point, unknown.

Here is our hale, knocked off of its foundation, without steps, and without the railing (where I found a Happy Birthday balloon tied on the morning of my birthday each year, courtesy of a special someone, with a big heart, in management of the resort). The second picture is of the hale's lanai where we often spent time watching the approaching sunset, before hurrying off to the Bora Bora Bar to meet Sandra and John.

Like many others, we have come back again and again to Kona Village, and felt a special joy when we arrived at the circle outside reception. And, each year, we eagerly looked forward to seeing the faces of all of the staff there who have felt like our special Hawaiian family (ohana). What we know is simply this: We have loved being at the Village. We have truly loved this place. And we will miss it more than any of us can imagine at this time.

*Pau means the end, or over. We fervently hope that the Village is only pau, for now. Mahalo for reading my blog. Aloha nui loa.

This Means You

Los Angeles, California

Billy repaired a slow drain in my bathroom sink recently. He had to take it apart and clean the trap, and while doing this, something broke which had to be pipe-doped back together (ok, I have to disclose that there are two things in that last sentence that are completely alien to me, and that would be the trap-cleaning and the pipe-doping). Anyway, the sink was unusable for forty-eight hours due to the setting up of the pipe-dope (I'm starting to enjoy writing pipe-dope, what is wrong with me?). So, while the pipe-dope (!) was curing, there was a sheet of paper taped to the faucet on which was written, in red, DO NOT USE - THIS MEANS YOU!

I got a kick out of that sign because it was so Billy. And I was grateful that when a plumbing (or electrical or structural or . . .) problem occurs in our home, he is the go-to guy. In fact, at one point in married life, I used to cynically state that the major reason for women to marry was to have someone around to deal with the plumbing and electrical, and of course opening tight-lidded jars. But I never really meant that. And it is always good and comforting to be part of a team. Especially when problems crop up.

Unfortunately, the area of my life where I am not part of a team is in my family in the care of my aging mother. I am in this alone, and that sometimes feels like the most daunting part of a situation that is overwhelmingly difficult. As my mother's mental and physical capabilities diminish, so has my family dwindled. My father is thirteen-years gone, as are all aunts, uncles, and first cousins. There are no nieces nor nephews. I have a sister who also lives here in Los Angeles County, but early on, she opted out of any care for my mom. I can't blame her. Her husband died two years ago at a relatively young age, and from a sadly debilitating neurological disease. She went through the wringer with him. And, in the way that life doesn't play fair with time, my mother's situation dovetailed with his death. I think it was too much for her, and that she just couldn't face it. So when, a few months after we moved our mom to a senior housing facility, I asked her to come and check on Mom when I was going to be in Kona for a week, she said no. And after that, she stopped answering her phone when I called; she stopped responding to emails; and she more or less disappeared. She does visit my mom. As far as I can figure, she comes about every month or two, staying for an hour or two, or so my mom, and the facility, has reported. But, despite my attempts to reach her, she hasn't spoken to me in about eighteen months. She's unenlightened about Mom's shifting medical condition, prognosis, and care. All that heavy lifting is mine.

I don't mean to complain about this, even though I find it to be the hardest thing I've ever experienced. Loss of a family member to death or dementia is very hard. I've done that. I'm doing that. Loss of a family member because they've chosen to carve you out of their life so that they won't be called upon to help, is harder. I always thought that my sister and I were close. And I often told our friends this, when we talked about siblings and especially about the estrangement that a lot of our friends have with their siblings. But, when I would say that we were close, Billy would always add "Yeah, they're close, but you've never met two people who are more different." But I never really got that, nor realized how that would play out when we might be called upon to work together.

When my sister was overwhelmed by the care of her husband, I told her that she could call me anytime. And she did, often two or three times a day; sometimes late at night, and finally, in the middle of the night. I knew that I could not change her situation, but that the one thing I could offer was my time, my ear, and my shoulder. I decided early on to suspend whatever I might be doing when she called. It was little enough to offer, considering the ordeal she was experiencing. I felt that we grew even closer during this time, and I suppose that makes it hurt all the more that she has disconnected from me so abruptly and, evidently, so finally. I'm still shell-shocked by it, though no one who knows us both is at all surprised. I've come to learn that I'm the only one who didn't see this coming.

So, Billy, who especially loved and was loved by my dad, has stepped in to pick up the slack with my mom. He goes with us to mom's medical appointments because it takes two of us. This I realized, when, after the one time that I had to use the restroom when I was alone with my mom, she disappeared. In a panic, I finally found her, with her walker, wandering around the parking lot. This scary lesson taught me that one isn't enough. Billy also goes with me to meetings with the management in the community where she lives. He pays for her laundry, and for extras at her facility. And he manages the rental property which was her home before we moved her. He knows that I am stressed about her finite income and the unknown upcoming expense of increasing care. I manage her bills, and small investment portfolio, and compile her tax information each year. I've changed very little except rearranging her accounts to enable her to get a little more interest (laughable, these days). Early on, I determined that I would follow what she had been doing when she was well, so I still utilize her tax accountant, and her medical professionals -- all of the people she chose. Her doctor is also my doctor, so he knows us both well and has been a great help with her physical health issues, as well as her issues of depression and dementia.  He also knows the family situation. I've long since abandoned my embarrassment at crying every time I go to him for any of my own health issues. We both understand that my personal challenge, as the only caregiver for my mother, is dealing with my own sadness and stress.

It is difficult for me not to feel hurt when my mother lashes out at me. From my friends, and the members and facilitator of the support group I attend, I often hear the words: that's not your mother talking. That's the disease. But, if I acknowledge that, then I am accepting that my mother is gone. That the mom who giggled with me, in our box at the Hollywood Bowl, when the first violinist did a solo on a musical saw, is gone. That the mom who once introduced me to a friend of hers by saying This is my daughter, Mrs. Healy (later explaining that she wanted the friend to know that I was married -- and did we laugh a lot at this silliness for years afterwards) is gone. That the mom who spent a day in my kitchen each year baking batches and batches of Christmas cookies with me is gone.

In her frustration and in the anger that is currently a part of her dementia, my mother often berates me for not having children. Currently, she finds this to be the largest of my many faults and transgressions. She says that she does not want any help from me, because I did not have children. I can't convince her of this, but I know in my heart that you don't have to have children to have a sense of family. I have always had a sense of wanting to do my best with what I can offer. And I have offered what I could to my family: my time; my support; even my blood when my mother needed it. But what I never saw ahead of me, was the time when I would be the only family member left to do all the care. I suppose that if someone had warned me that my mom would need a family member to provide this care, and that that someone would be utterly on their own to provide it all, I would not have believed them when they added, and this means you.

When we were in our thirties, we often repeated the popular slogan Life is hard, and then you die. We thought it was funny. At the time, we had no compass nor sign markers to let us know what was up ahead. Life has been hard, at times. It's hard now because of the situation with my family. But we've also been lucky. We've made so many wonderful memories, and have an abundance of good friends, and we continue to enjoy life in spite of its travails. I've learned to practice what I've always known -- that sometimes you just have to suck it up and do what's required. It's not fun. It's not pretty. But we have responsibilities to those who depend upon us. I remind myself that my mom probably won't be around for much longer. And that, despite her dementia-driven abuse, I will miss her when she is gone. But for now, the lesson that I have learned from this is an important one. It is that you can't do anything about what you can't do anything about. And this means you. And, right now especially, this means me. Thank you for reading my blog. More cheerful next time, I promise.