BABAN (in honor of Grandparents Day)

She was born in Okinawa and moved to Hawaii where she married and raised 9 children.  Her name was Uto.  She was my grandmother.  I called her Baban.  She called me many names.  'Number 1 fat girl' was one of her favorties, but 'Bakatare You!' rolled off her tongue more than once during any visit.  For the longest time I thought it was a term of endearment that she used for me.  I later found out it meant 'stupid', but by that time it had become my special name.

She called me lazy at least once a day.  Was I really lazy?  Well, of course I was, but I think I was lazier mostly because it was always so much fun to be lazy around Baban.  I never knew what tactic she would use to inspire me to work.  Once we ran several laps around the huge kitchen table as she brandished a broom aimed at my hiney.  The race stopped abruptly when she swung the broom at my head from across the table. 

Every summer and New Years was spent at Baban's house.  There were potlucks and luaus, picnics at the beach and all night sing-alongs in the carport.  Everyone in Kohola and most of Honolulu loved my grandparents.  When my grandfather became ill, he moved in with us.  I was saddened by his eventual passing, but I still had Baban.  She fought and won a battle with breast cancer, but would later fall victim once more.  Our last conversation, a week before her death, was one of shared memories and promises.  We would return to Kohala, she and I, and go fishing at Mahu Kona.  That night, when I turned to leave her for what would be the last time she called me 'Number 1 Good Girl'.

I returned to Kohaha on the Big Island of Hawaii the following summer as planned, but without her.  I walked along the rocky shore of Mahu Kona, the very rocks she loved to fish off of, and I could almost hear her laughter in the wind.  I could almost hear her voice shouting out above the pounding of the waves against the sharp black lava rocks 'Bakatare you number 1 fat girl!'  Oh how I wanted to hear her voice saying that one more time.

I took thispicture of  Baban at Mahu Kona during our last fishing trip together.  I think I was 19 at the time.  I didn't catch anything that day, I never did.  But I didn't go to fish.  I went to be with Baban.  Now that I am a grandmother I am chomping at the bit to be even half the grandmother she was to me.  I want to be a Baban!