Heritage Paper

Lei of Love
"Mom," I asked as we drove away from my great-grandmother's house, "Do I have to go over to her house for the whole day while you're at work?"
"Why?" She asked as if she didn't already know the answer.
"Because I get bored over there," I whined, "There's nothing to do except help her pick pikake flowers. Plus, I don’t really have anything to talk about to her. I'd even do math instead of going to her house everyday.”
"Com on, Kev," my mom pleaded, "It's only a few more weeks until you start 4th grade. And besides, you should keep grandma company. You know that she gets lonely every once in a while."
"Yeah, but…" I thought and thought, but I knew there was no way out of it. "Okay, I guess if it's only a little more."
"Kevin," she asked, "Do you know why grandma picks those flowers?"
"Yeah, so that she can make those flower lei she likes to make."
"Well, that's one part of it," she began, "Did you know that your great-grandpa built that house?"
"Yeah," I responded, "But what does that have anything to do with the pikake flowers?"
"Hold on, hold on, I'm getting there. He built that house as soon as my mom was born sometime in the mid-1930's. But only a short while later, he died of cancer. For your great-grandmother (Jane), it was probably the toughest time in her life. It was hard for her because she felt that he had given so much to her, and that she didn't give enough back to him.
"She kept getting more and more depressed, until she noticed the pikake garden in her backyard. When her husband was alive, he always took great pride in the garden's appearance. Times were hard back then for them, and my grandma wanted to use the garden for food and crops. He would always consider it, but in the end he would always respectfully deny her request. It seemed the two most important things in his life was his family then the garden. In the later stages of his cancer when he could support neither of them, he lost his will to live. She never knew the reason why he liked the garden so much and it never occurred to her to ask.
"After he died, Jane wished she had asked him about the garden. In order to help herself cope better and possibly find an answer to her question, she started walking through the garden everyday. She’d walk slowly, reminiscing of the times she enjoyed with her husband. One day while doing this, she realized that maybe if she could use these flowers that meant so much to her husband, she could become more at peace with his death. So, she thought of ways she could do this. Then she thought of the idea of making lei out of the pikake flower.
“After she started picking those flowers and making lei out of them, she felt more at ease. It was like therapy, not only did it make her feel closer to her husband, but it also gave her some alone time to think about the times they had together. So, she's been making those lei ever since.”
"But,” I said, caught a little off-guard, “Didn't my great-grandpa die like 50 or 60 years ago?"
"Yeah," she said, "That's how much your great-grandma loved him. So I guess in a way, her wanting you to pick pikake flowers is so that you can have a piece of his life, since that garden was such a big part of it.”
“Wow. Did this actually happen?” I asked, “Or are you just making it up so that I won’t mind going over to her house anymore?”
“I know that most of it is true,” she said, “But, if you really want to know the details about it, you’ll have to ask her tomorrow while I’m at work.”
“Fine,” I replied, “And even if I do get bored at her house, at least we’ll have something to talk about.”
This story gave me greater respect for my great-grandmother, and even though some of it is not true, it’s cool that there was some meaning behind her making pikake flower lei. After my great-grandmother died a few years ago, nobody took care of her garden, so we were forced to take out the pikake bushes in her backyard. Even so, the fact that she made pikake lei for my great-grandfather for more than half a century is a story I’ll never forget.