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PEARL'S GOLD TREE AND ASHES

Well, President Donald Trump did sign-off on the executive orders he promised during his campaign.  Here is the list.  Uncertain how any one or group can prevent them from becoming reality, but a few are trying:

19July2009 was a particularly tragic day for me.  My wife, Pearl, passed away after 47 years of marriage.

  • She had been in Kuakini Hospital for about a month.
  • I was there daily, and about a month into her stay, a staff member passed on to me a piece paper that showed the bill as of that date of over $200,000.  I thought, oh my gosh, if she's there for five months, that would be around a million dollars, plus other costs, like for doctors.
  • She was suffering from BOOP, and the prognosis was that if she survived, she would need to be hooked up to a ventilator for the rest of her life.
  • A few days later, it was a Sunday, first the bad news, she passed away.  The good news was that she would not be in a ventilator for the rest of her life.
  • She was on Propofol, which was the same sedative used to treat Michael Jackson, who died six days later.
  • It was midmorning, and when I returned home, decided to write an article for the Huffington Post, called Gratitude...Not Grief.  It was published that day.  I borrowed that title from Thornton Wilder:  The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.
  • I had bought a keyboard and was practicing to play something when she returned.  I also had a Dom Perignon for her homecoming.  I drank the whole bottle and gave away the keyboard.
  • The next day, my posting in this blog site was about her, In Celebration of Pearl.

Over the next couple of years, I devoted myself to following up on a few projects in her memory.

  • First, though, about the medical costs, a year later I had not received a bill for her hospital stay.  So I went to HMSA, and they said they were still not sure.  Even a co-pay of 20% would be around $40,000, plus doctor bills.  It now has been more than 15 years, and I never got a bill.  I must have a fabulous medical plan.
  • I formed the Pearl Foundation to do what I was not sure.
  • She loved this yellow colored tree, so I went on a search to find what it was.  
    • One trip took me to Thailand.  Their national flower is called ratchaphruek, and I thought this might be it.
    • But this tree has long pods, something the Gold Tree did not.
    • Professor Hunsa Punnapayak of Chulalongkorn University said he saw the Gold Tree in Pattaya and northern Thailand.
  • However, while I was in Bangkok, Pearl's sister  in law, Gwen Nakamichi, who worked at a botanical park in Hilo, found the tree, growing in Hilo, Pearl's home town.  A large one is located close by her Hilo High School, to the right.

Family: Bignoniaceae (big-no-nih-AY-see-ee) (Info)

Genus: Roseodendron (ro-see-oh-DEN-dron) (Info)

Species: donnell-smithii

Synonym:  Cybistax donnell-smithii Synonym:Tabebuia donnell-smithii

  • The Gold Tree, it turned out, also can be found all over the Manoa Campus of the University of Hawaii, including a bank of them right next to my building where I now sit.  Below is the one at Hamilton Library.
  • It took some effort, with the aid of Fresh Onishi, who was a councilman in Hilo, to gain the permission of the City Councils of Hilo and Honolulu, to do the planting.
    • Ala Wai Golf Course, which was covered by one of the local TV stations.

  • A second planting occurred at the Hilo Municipal Golf Course.  I should mention that a second tree could have been the one selected, a Jacaranda, where the flower has a wonderful aroma.  Appropriately enough, the Gold Tree in Hilo was planted right next to a Jacaranda.
  • At the one-year ceremony for her in Hilo, I published a book, a compilation of some of my Huffington Post articles, featuring her on the back cover.  In addition to that publication, I also passed out saplings of the Gold Tree so those who came could plant them in their yards.
  • So today there are many more gold trees, even at the Ted Makalena Golf Course.

  • My second remembrance project was to drop her ashes off at meaningful locations, particularly to places she wanted to visit, but I didn't, but now would.  To quote:
In most ways, thus, this was a conscience assuaging repentence.  I added nostalgic locations and places she would have truly enjoyed.
  • I had a series on PEARL'S ASHES in this blog in 2017, and when I went back, noticed there was one on 2January2017, a couple of weeks before Donald Trump was to be inaugurated for his first term.  Title?  IS DONALD TRUMP DANGEROUS?   Read that, I was at my prescient best.
  • Took me two around the world trips to lay her ashes at 50 sites, and I began to write a book on this experience.  But first, Hilo, where I said:
10 August 2009 was a day I won't forget.  I awoke early to catch the sunrise at Mauna Kea.  However, it was cloudy, and instead of a picturesque view of the mountain, I saw a rainbow:
  • I explained how I prepared her ashes for placement.
  • Pearl liked to visit Rainbow Falls when she returned to Hilo, so that was the location of the initial ash drop.
  • Soon thereafter, we drove up to Mauna Kea for a mass dropping.  When she woke up every morning from her youth, she could see Mauna Kea from her home.
  • I left the group and headed west for the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, where we spent our honeymoon, then the Four Seasons Hualalai.  Dropped her ashes at sunset.
  • I then drove to Naalehu, for this is where we met and got married.  Dropped her ashes off at this site, with the Hutchinson Sugar Company factory in the background.
  • Stayed the night at the Volcano House, tossing the capsule, #6, into Halemaumau Crater (which is now erupting again), with a rainbow in the background.  Here is a reprise of the first six ash layings.
  • I then returned home to Honolulu, and on my roof planted ashes #7 in an African Blood Lily plant which has a story.  Her previous stay in Kuakini Hospital was for a breast cancer operation.
While she was recuperating at Kuakini Hospital, I saw in a flower shop a red, spherical flower with no leaves.  I learned that this was an African Blood Lily (Scadoxus multifloras) and grew from a bulb.  I called it a sunburst to inspire her.  I told her that as long as she could re-grow this flower, she would live.  While chemotherapy lasted for a terrible few months, she mothered two more flowers the following year, and they almost kept doubling each year.  That's the view of Punchbowl from our Craigside penthouse.

And no, I am not dropping any ashes on the Taj Mahal.  Return for the story, and more.

- 

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