Page 4 of Big Island Horizons
“Are you hungry?” Tenn asked when she came back out of his daughter’s room. “I kept some dinner warm.”
“Thank you,” she said as she stepped into his arms, “but we ate in Kona.”
“That was a while ago.”
“I’m fine, really.”
“Your hands are cold,” he said, kissing her knuckles. “How about some tea?”
“Tea would be lovely. Mamaki?”
“Why don’t you get cozy on the couch and queue up that show we were watching? I’ll make the tea.”
Lani kissed the line of his jaw, which was as high as she could reach when he stood straight, and traded the warmth of his arms for a fuzzy blanket on the couch. She settled into the coziness of her home away from home, feeling deeply grateful for all of it.
2
‘Olena
‘Olena and her two daughters were mostly settled in at their new place, which was just a few doors down from New Horizons Community Center. A family friend had given ‘Olena a good deal on the small two bedroom place, and the location was perfect.
They were fully moved in, but in a bare bones kind of way. There were no pictures on the walls yet, no rugs or pillows or other details that made a house feel like home.
But there was something else that needed to happen first.
‘Olena had taken cuttings from her parent’s yard. Her mom was an amazing gardener, and the garden at the Madeira place was a riot of color, with food plants and ornamentals all mixed together. ‘Olena had taken little pieces of everything. With a bit of love and care, they would grow into bushes almost overnight.
Her favorite were the hibiscus flowers. Her mother had them growing everywhere, in every color under the sun.
Mahina drove around with gardening shears in her car. If she ever saw a hibiscus bush in a new color or some other ornamental, she would pull over and snip off a tiny piece to add to her garden.
These days, ‘Olena did the same. Not that she really needed to. It seemed like Mahina had already collected them all.
She had bundled up the little hibiscus twigs by color and labeled them, so that now in front of her house she planted them out from the front door in two identical rows of her favorite varieties. White flowers with deep red centers, bright golden flowers that darkened to a deep orange in the middle, pink flowers with yellow edges.
The purple hibiscus she saved for the backyard, where she sat out on thelanaievery morning listening to the birds wake up and watching the world come alive with color.
She planted more cuttings all around the borders of the property, including along the street to create a wall of green between her home and passing cars.
Before adding a thick layer of mulch to keep the grass and weeds at bay, she planted coleus cuttings everywhere. The crazy colorful plants grew crazy quick, and they would provide a thick layer of color at ground level while the hibiscus rooted and grew more slowly - relatively speaking. Soon her new home would be as colorful as the Madeira place.
This was just a rental, and it wasn’t forever. But it was the first place that she had ever lived on her own, just her and her daughters, and she intended to make it feel like home.
‘Olena had moved back in with her parents after her divorce, expecting it to be a temporary thing, but having that support and being with family through those early years had been such a godsend that she had stayed for nearly five years.
Kiki had been a baby when they moved in, barely walking, and now she was a lanky six year old wearing size eight clothes.
Luana actuallywaseight, nearly nine, a thought that never failed to make ‘Olena’s head spin. Strange how the seemingly interminable days of early childhood made for years that went by in a blink.
She was deeply grateful that her parents’ support had made it possible for her to spend those years with her babies instead of working two jobs away from them in order to put a roof over their heads.
Finally, after years of hard work, her homeschool co-op was generating enough income that she could afford a home of her own.
It was also big enough that their rotating locations of Pualena parks and beaches were becoming more and more difficult to keep up with. She had finally secured them a permanent space at the community center… just in time for the place to lose its funding.
‘Olena was determined to save New Horizons, not only for her girls and their friends but also for all of thekupunaand at-risk residents who depended on the place of refuge that the community center provided. New Horizons and the surrounding park hosted a weekly soup kitchen, activities for elders, and groups for new mothers in need of community.
She refused to let the place shut its doors due to lack of funding. With the help of the community, she would keep it open.
