Home Sweet Home

Sunday, 22 May 2005

Don't know if I should really title this the 22nd of May, since I already had my Sunday yesterday but in the world of travel I have gained my day back (wish I could gain my sleep back but after the iced coffee I drank at the Tokyo airport before I boarded the plane, and my body not knowing what time zone I'm really in, don't think it's going to happen)...

Got in early this morning and my dad and my brother Jason ("Jay") were already waiting curbside. We got some pancakes at The Pancake House, and I got a lesson how to use the wheelchair and how use the lift to transfer my dad from the car to the wheelchair. I tried to lift him, and realized I need to learn some techniques here or start lifting weights real quick to be able to lift a 6'1" man that is dead weight.

We visited Aunty Bernice; she is a family friend, the kindest, sweetest old lady, who took me to visit my grandmother in California on my first plane ride without my parents when I was only 2 years old. I didn't cry at all and just waved goodbye to my mom as I entered the plane with Aunty Bernice. Then I stayed in California for a whole two months without my parents. (My mom is now convinced that this must have been what triggered the beginning of my travel bug.) Aunty Bernice is moving out of her home she's been living in since 1947 and moving into an assisted living care home. We walked through the house as she pointed out the playroom Jason and I used to play in when we were toddlers.

We dropped my dad off, and the first thing he handed me were a bunch of SCUBA diving books and reminded me that he has a good shorty wetsuit and mask at the house for me. Daddy's proud that I got SCUBA certified in Thailand. Went to get my truck (My dad is giving me his black Toyota Tacoma pickup since he cannot drive anymore; Jay gets his Harley.), but I was too scared to drive the stick shift truck up the hill and park it on the steep slope (after all, I'm still trying to remember how to enter the car on the left hand side), so my brother drove it up and hauled my bags down to add to the collection of now four suitcases that were portered here by my kind friends. I know have an explosion of clothing and Southeast Asian handicrafts and silk all over my floor, so I hope I can find my bed to sleep on tonight. The house will need some deep cleaning, as it has been a bachelor pad for WAY TOO LONG! There's crap everywhere, and since my brother was expecting my arrival (and my bedroom that had been vacant for the past 11 years I have lived in Seattle had been storage for my brother and dad's sporting equipment and junk), he moved the shelving and junk into the living room....Grreat!

But, no time to clean up right now...My aunt and cousins upstairs in the middle house (My father's brother's families live in neighboring houses on the same Mau compound on Sierra Drive) were going to Ala Moana (a big popular shopping mall near Waikiki), so I changed and went with them. Within an hour, I realized the error of my ways, and I was fading fast. I sat most of the time, ready to just curl up on a bench and fall asleep in the sunshine. But, my vagabond traveling days are over, and that might scare some people away from the fancy Coach and Burberry stores, so I tried to hold it together, while helping my 16 year old cousin Geoff figure out how to answer interview questions as he is looking for a part-time retail or restaurant job.... Until we got home at 2 pm. Then, I promptly crashed for about 4 hours.

I drove down to my dad's house (a 5 minute drive down the hill) to join him and my stepmom for some leftover Hawaiian food for dinner. MMmmmm, the kalua pig, squid luau, and fried ahi couldn't have tasted better. We watched "Desperate Housewives" and then they informed me of the events coming up to schedule in my calendar: An MDA sponsored event, an ALS seminar next Saturday, a visit to Waihe'e Tunnel that Bernice's (my stepmom) friend is organizing so my dad can go and perhaps benefit from some of the water's supposed healing powers, the ALS support group meetings the second Tuesday of every month, their Alaskan cruise trip my dad and Bernice are going on at the end of June, and my dad's weekly massage sessions. Then, we got down to the nitty gritty details. Bernice shared her frustrations of taking care of my dad, and how much of a toll it has been and how hard it has been to modify her life and her daughters' lives to take care of my dad 24/7. She shared what to be prepared for, my dad's stubbornness, how to bathe and toilet him, his daily routine, what he can and can't do, and how wonderful it would be to live in a house with more space and rooms that are ADA accessible.

Her sister just submitted a video and letter to the show "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" in hopes that someone out there will respond to our story. We're not hopeful that they'd come out to Hawai'i, but it would be so wonderful to be able to have more space for my dad and the girls to move about. Right now, after Bernice helps to toilet and dress him, he basically sits in a reclining chair all day long with the remote control, books, and the crossword puzzle handy, and food prepared for his meals for the day. He's lost almost all movement of his right leg, so his foot is all swelled up, and it just drags across the ground when he walks. It is hard for him to lift his arms, and easier for him to bring his head down to his plate to feed himself. He cannot access the other rooms in the house during the day when no one is around, and it's a very small house for four people (Bernice has two daughters) to share anyway. We're discussing the living situation, finances, quality of life, and a schedule for me, Jay and Bernice to share daily caregiver duties as my dad now needs someone 24/7. It's hard because there are many devices that my dad could use right now like a motorized wheelchair and a hospital bed, but insurance won't grant those unless the patient is totally debilitated, and my dad is still ambulatory to an extent.

On a happier note, my dad still goes to all of Lindsey's (8th grader at Kamehameha) basketball games and sits down by the coaches and refs, while taking notes the whole time (whereby the coaches always refer to him at the end of each game to see how the stats were), and his friends take him fishing on the boat on Fridays. He can still talk and eat on his own; He just looks really skinny and has lost most of the muscle mass in his arms and legs. His friends had a birthday party for him last night, and we will go out to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate his 58th birthday.

As I sat on the airplane last night coming home, people would ask me whether I was coming home or just coming to visit. Even the customs officer said "Welcome home," as he handed my passport back to me today. It's strange and overwhelming to finally come home to a beautiful island with sunny blue skies, cool tradewinds, and mist hovering over the lush green mountainsides...a place I have always called "home", yet have been away from for so long. When I was in college at the University of Washington in 1993, I was one that was most destined to return to Hawai'i as soon as the four years were done....the cloudy, rainy, overcast skies have never been for me, yet it was the wonderful friends and then the start of my teaching career that kept me in Seattle for the past 11 years. Now, I've returned to Hawai'i, no longer a Hawai'i resident according to my ID card or the federal government, but I've come home to my be home with my family at a time when my family needs me most. I always thought I'd come home one day in the future, but not yet, and not under these circumstances. Not only am I suffering from culture shock of being back in the states, with English being heard all around, organized roads, traffic, and industrialization, but I am starting a new life all over again.

I'll have to get a Hawai'i driver's license, change my address, get car insurance, find a job (luckily recruiting people have already left messages for me to set up interviews for teaching jobs in the public school system here....although I just found out that most schools in Hawai'i are year around, and so that may mean starting to teach here in July, and that just seems a bit soon right now.), open a bank account, get a cell phone, and become comfortable with driving stick shift up our steep hill. I know Seattle roads and schools better than I know them here in Hawai'i. Isn't it funny how coming home can seem so foreign?? And, yet it does. But, Hawai'i has always been home for me, and will always be, and right now, it's where I want to, and need to, be.