Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

I don't even know how to say it, or what to say. My husband died by suicide. He was at home on Kaua'i. I was visiting family on the mainland with the kids. Thank god we weren't there when he did it. Thank god we didn't see it. We didn't find him. I called the police when I hadn't heard from him for 24 hours. He had seemed stressed, but okay. He sent me cute pictures of our cat, peeking out of a cloth grocery bag. The police called me back at 1:30 am. I spent the night calling family and throwing up. Two days later we were on the airplane, with my sisters, going back to.... what? Clean out the house, retrieve his (young, perfectly healthy, 37 year old) body from the hospital morgue, hold a memorial, say goodbye to the place where we lived for ten years, where my kids were born. We had to leave our house-- it was on the UH ag station farm-- 150 acres of pasture, fruit trees, and a reservoir-- and we had a weekend to throw it all into a container-- m...

After I wrote Matt's eulogy (that last post), I realized that Matt was my intended audience. That's the eulogy he would have loved to hear-- to be seen and understood in that way. But then I realized-- he's not here. The eulogy needs to be for us left behind. And I was (still am) too shocked and angry to have it be for me-- a string of furious invective would probably not be appropriate for a memorial-- so I wrote this one instead. It's for the girls. My dear girls, I want to tell you a little bit about your daddy. Matt believed in Fun. From the time he was a little kid, he loved to play and joke. As a kid he had fun playing baseball and football, boogie boarding and playing at the beach. As a grownup he loved to have fun with you guys, splashing like a spinner dolphin out of the water and buildings amazing Lego worlds with you. He would even listen to Katy Perry and dance in the livingroom with you. He liked grownup fun too, like museums and restaurants and travel...

Matt Eulogy Draft #1 I was in labor with Rosie and I was beginning to panic. First baby, we had been assured that it would take days and days, and we had been out running errands in our little Honda Accord. But no-- She was coming into the world fast and hard, and I was sitting in the front seat of the car, totally unable to face going inside or going to the hospital. Matt coaxed me inside, helped me sit down at our kitchen table. The curtains had prints of vegetables on them, the light was orange and warm. He put his hands on my head and gave me a blessing. I felt calmed and fortified-- his steadiness and readiness carried me calmly through the rest of that labor-- he walked the labyrinth of birth with me and kept me grounded in the moment. He had a warm soul, and at his best when he was healing and guiding me. A year or so later Matt and I went to Obon. The priest, in katakana English, gave a sermon. He said, “One day, the buddha was approached and asked, Teacher, is there life ...

Matthew Henry Stevenson, of Wailua, Kauai, died unexpectedly at home on May 22, 2016. He was 37 years old. He was a cherished and admired father, friend, brother and son. Matt was born in Washington, D.C. to William (Bill) Stevenson of Greenville, South Carolina, and Mildred Teruya of Waikapu, Maui. The family moved to the Bay Area when Matt was five. As a boy he loved the birds, lizards, grasses, oaks and cattle that populated the watersheds and hills around his home. He also loved the time he spent in Maui with his grandparents, Walter and Joyce Teruya, where he loved grandma’s lei garden, grandpa’s plantation days stories, and the family history that connected him to Japan and Okinawa. He spent several summers in England visiting his dad, and loved the castles, the moors and the Neolithic standing stones. These early experiences in nature put him on a path to the career he loved as a range scientist, and a life he loved in Hawaii, but as a citizen of the world. Matt graduated fr...

Aloha! My feet are tired-- they're propped up in the baby papasan chair; my back is sore (my physical therapist is going to scold me) and I should go to bed but I want to record my impressions of my first hula class while they are fresh-- while they are from today. If I wait till tomorrow they will flatten, truncate, abbreviate. So today was my first day of hula! I've been wanting to start for ages--over a year. But signups are only once a year and I missed it in 2015 so this time I jumped on it. Or rather, I had my husband jump on it. I was in Colorado with my kids-- 8, 5 and 1 month old-- and even from afar I cajoled him into signing the girls and me up. The girls were not impressed. They moaned and whined. I do not care. I told them, "This is a non-negotiable." They have very advanced vocabularies. Today I overheard this conversation between my 8 year old  and a naughty 7 year old. Naughty 7 year old: I saw a rooster and a hen HAVING SEX. Circle of chi...

I'm on maternity leave but I got to return to my school this week for a couple of days to help out with prepping the kids for a big academic conference. I figured I'd help them put some finishing touches on their social studies projects, just polish up the English side of things. Their assignment was to describe the "push and pull" connecting certain big events in US history, and tie those events to Hawaii. Here's one: "The Indians got sick of the American's taxes, so they started the constitutional war to get rid of the Americans. Then George Washington freed the slaves." I COULD NOT HAVE MADE THIS UP. This was not a unique example. The kids-- seventh graders-- had no sense of timeline, no sense of causality. Not even broad general skeletons of cause and effect to hang ideas on. Kamehameha and JFK were all jumbled up-- Native Americans came from Africa and Captain Cook conquered Hawaii for the Americans by bombing Pearl Harbor. It was stunning. I...

10-24-2015 Saturday Baby Name As of Yet Unknown has arrived! She  is dozing on the boppy on my lap, Maile is watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for about the 8th time this week, Rosie and Matt are grocery shopping after Rosie’s double header soccer games-- last of the season. Oh-- I just heard the chain clinking on the gate- they’ve made it home. I want to write down Baby’s birth story while it’s still fresh and visceral and hasn’t reduced itself to an outline… So she was due October 12. Liz was here, with kids and husband in tow, staying down at my dad’s timeshare in Kapaa with a beautiful condo, a big TV, and a open-late pool that we swam at every day. Liz, with her experience as a doula and auntie status, was here to help with the birth, and especially to watch out for the girls, make sure they were in the right place, make sure they weren’t freaked out… so we waited and waited, spent nice time at their pool, sent their family off on little touristy adventures...

10-24-2015 Saturday Baby Name As of Yet Unknown has arrived! She  is dozing on the boppy on my lap, Maile is watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for about the 8th time this week, Rosie and Matt are grocery shopping after Rosie’s double header soccer games-- last of the season. Oh-- I just heard the chain clinking on the gate- they’ve made it home. I want to write down Baby’s birth story while it’s still fresh and visceral and hasn’t reduced itself to an outline… So she was due October 12. Liz was here, with kids and husband in tow, staying down at my dad’s timeshare in Kapaa with a beautiful condo, a big TV, and a open-late pool that we swam at every day. Liz, with her experience as a doula and auntie status, was here to help with the birth, and especially to watch out for the girls, make sure they were in the right place, make sure they weren’t freaked out… so we waited and waited, spent nice time at their pool, sent their family off on little touristy...

So my due date has come and gone, my belly is round and starting to drop, strangers on the street feel a kind of tribal ownership of my body-- patting my belly and shouting across the farmer's market at me-- You Look Very Pregnant!!! Why yes. Yes I do.  I love that pregnancy DOES connect me with a universal human experience-- everyone is interested and excited and maybe freaked out or pitying-- but I'm not alone in this. It's special but it's universal, too. I still haven't spent much time thinking about what's happening next-- I worked like a crazy thing up to fall break and through it-- haranguing students about last-minute assignments, grading, crossing my fingers that things would go smoothly over the next two quarters while I take off from work-- and I tell people that working full-time through this pregnancy saved my life. Yes, I was bone-tired, but I never had the time or energy to feel sorry for myself. Pregnancy is not a malady like a nasty cold-- the...