Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 9, 1 September 2008 — Kūpuna memories [ARTICLE]

Kūpuna memories

Sharing my thoughts through Ka Wai Ola o OHA is a new experience for me. Sharing my thoughts about kūpuna and our kuleana to their well-being is second nature. My dear mother, Hulu Kupuna Elizabeth Nalani Mersberg Ellis, called it "koho 'ia," ehoiee no ehoiee. Taken by the impact of Claire Hughes' most recent eolumn in Ka Wai Ola titled Traditional behaviors and kūpuna, I recognize words that speak of times past. How grateful I am that you have surfaced a eoneein we as

Hawaiians should better understand to be our kuleana to kūpuna in our fast-changing Hawai'i. Change is inevitable, yet how we choose to practice what we know to be pono with our kūpuna is pa'a, a learned tradition. Mahalo, dear Claire! Remember? Our mothers were "kupuna buddies." Your mother, whom we all addressed as Aunty Violet chose not to drive, mine drove them everywhere. They taught in both the mother tongue and English, dressed in highest fashion, exampled kūpuna behaviors and shared openly with honesty and passion. Laughter was one

of their trademarks, tears as well. Both are gone now, yet eaeh day is one of honoring their times past. Where one begins to recapture and restore what remains is a challenge, not an impossibility, for people like you. "Aunty Be1ty" Kawohiokalani Ellis Jenkins Waialua, O'ahu