Today is my dad’s birthday. I’ve been having a particularly difficult time of it today for some reason. He’s been gone so long, and I still miss him desperately.

Before moving to Honolulu, Dad worked for the Kahului Railroad on Maui.

This is the earliest photo of Dad and me. I was about a year old, and this up Tantalus, where I spent the first four years of my life.

Dad loved sailing, and he’d frequently take my brother Kaniela and me to the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor, where he was helping a to take care of a friend’s sailboat. Dad would row us around and we had so much fun!

A street photographer took Dad’s photo in downtown Honolulu one day.

Dad worked at a couple of supermarkets before moving to Piggly Wiggly. He used to take Kaniela and I down to the store on Sundays when he went down there to check on things. To this day, whenever catch the aroma of green onions, I am immediately transported back to the produce department at Piggly Wiggly, because when we walked in the door, that was the aroma that greeted us.

Sadly, Dad developed Parkinson’s Disease when he was only in his late thirties. My other brother, an RN, has done quite a bit of research about the disease, and there seems to be evidence that pesticides could be a contributing factor. Dad was handling a lot of produce in the days of DDT etc., and I can’t help but wonder if that caused the Parkinson’s that ravaged his body for fourteen years.

Dad was so brave. Everyday he’d do his best to get up and walk around to keep his muscles strong. He’d fall a lot, and we kids would pick him up and help him get going again. The sound of him falling will never leave me, and it hurts my heart even now. He’d always get up and start walking again, ’round and ’round the house, and I will never forget his courage.

Sadly, the disease took its toll, and he took his life when he was only fifty years old. I had a twelve day old baby and a three year old at the time, and I mourn that they never got to know him. I have never recovered from that terrible day. The edges aren’t as sharp as they used to be, but my grief still overwhelms me at times. Dad taught me to play ʻukulele and guitar (he had a lovely tenor voice), taught us Japanese words, songs, and phrases, and one day, even though I don’t think he’d ever been on a horse before, when my horse was acting up, he galloped her all around Kapiʻolani Park to get the oogies out of her. He took Kaniela and I sailing around Leʻahi on Sundays, and those memories help to ease the pain of my loss.

So today, I look at his photo and miss him all the more. There’s so much more I could say about this man who was my dad, but it’s hard to type with tears rolling down my cheeks.

Hauʻoli lā hānau, Daddy. I love you.