In a few days…

I will be home…in a few days.
I will feel the island breeze…in a few days.
I will taste my favorite foods…in a few days.
I will see my favorite people from my past…in a few days.

My Aunti and Uncle, although not by blood, by heart are letting my stay with them for the weekend in Kaneohe. They’re throwing me a potluck dinner party for all of my family to come celebrate.

When first moving to Oahu, we were in awe of it’s beauty. We were in awe of it’s weather. We were in awe that we really lived there! I was 5 and life at that age is wonderous any where you live, let alone on a tropical island with mountains at every corner and beaches at every turn.

Living near the ocean is home to me, on so many different levels. Every fiber in my being is pulled to the lull of the waves. To walk the beach, looking for sea shells and chasing hermit crabs, was my ideal day as a child. To find Japanese glass balls floating to the shore, and learn of their origin, was a blessed gift. Digging my toes in the sand, feeling it’s damp heaviness surround my foot right before the sea would rush in and drain the sand away is a sweet memory. Doing cartwheels and leaving hand and footprints down the shore was my signature, leaving my stamp of love for the island I lived on.

I dream of those days most nights. To know I’ve chosen a life away from them is not ideal, but I know I always have a home to come home to in my family away from family, on the island of Oahu. We were the first Hoale family to don the door of the Nazarene Church in Kaneohe, and our O’hana opened their eyes wide and soon their hearts to us.

We learned their dialect, and their culture as if it were our own. I spoke pidgin before I learned proper English. In fact when I moved back stateside, the education board made me take a test before starting school, because they thought I wasn’t smart enough to be in the 4th grade. They assumed my broken dialect was a sign of my intelligence.

I still have that test. It showed my intellectual age being 23, when I was only 10. I blew their tests out of the water. Then they wanted to put me in accelerated classes….I said no thanks. I would do fine in the normal classes with normal kids.

Back on point…I grew to love, breathe, and sleep my island life. Knowing that I will be home in a few days means more to me than anyone could ever know. It will be a short 3 day trip to Oahu, before leaving for Maui for a family wedding. But those short 3 days will be amazing! I will visit the place I went to school, and some of my other favorite spots like here, here, and here.

Sunday, we’ll attend church where I did as a kid. I hope my son and husband can appreciate how unique and special this place is. Not only because of the love for Christ they have in their heart, but also because of where it sits. It’s at the base of a mountain with slat windows, which allow the island breeze to stream through from side to side. You get to see God’s great creation in all it’s beauty, smell the wonderful flowers on the breeze, and worship in His goodness.

Afterwards we’ll go to Pearl Harbor so that my family can visit the Arizona, where I can point out my other house we lived in at the east lock of Pearl Harbor. We lived 20 feet from the Naval Intelligence Building, and it was a house that was pre-WWII, with vegetation that should be in a jungle. I had a closet that overlooked the harbor, with an amazing view.

Needless to say it’s going to be hard to tear myself away from my family and home, but I’ll be going to other family (in-laws) waiting for us on Maui. We’re staying at a beach house a block from the ocean, with the rest of the family to see my brother in law and future sister in law get married. This will be near and dear to my heart as well, knowing we’re making new memories to last a life time not only for me–but my five year old, who will taking it all in with wonder…just as I did 30 years ago.

I wish I could scan some of the old pics of me at 5 to post here, but my scanner is broken. I’ll post some new ones I get from this weeks adventures. Stay tuned!!!

PS….here’s the house in Maui we’ll all stay at: