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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Friday, December 6, 2002

HAWAIIAN STYLE
Memories of our Lady of Love still fresh, 1 year later

By Wade Kilohana Shirkey

It was a communion of souls across time and space, two old friends "touching" in the quiet evening mist of Kane'ohe.

Holidays always conjure up memories of Loyal.

Over a friendship that stretched back decades, it was mostly along the byways of our hometown that our paths, Loyal Garner's and mine, would cross. Her song, "Ku'u Home O Kane'ohe," proclaimed both our loves for that Windward enclave.

Sometimes our friendship was professional, as she so often backed up our halau at public performances, from Jingle Bell Run to Christmas parties to Cancer Society fund-raisers. A day after minor surgery, she stood in witness when our halau was officially blessed. Loyal was, as they say, loyal.

But, most of the time, our paths just crossed more literally, usually somewhere along the main drag in Kane'ohe, she in her big white Ford with the "LOYAL" plates, me in my jalopy. She'd wave; I'd smile. Sometimes it was nothing more than standing in line together at Longs Kane'ohe or Safeway — or her scurrying to keep up with her mo'opuna at Windward Mall.

"Eh, you following me?!" she kidded one day in line at Zippy's after more than a few chance Kane'ohe meetings that week. "What!" I kidded back, "you behind me!"

"Yes, and be scared, be very, very afraid," she joked, her kolohe humor fairly dancing in her caring, warm eyes.

Then there was our final meeting. She lay riddled with pain, fighting for her life in the hospital, shortly before she would lose that valiant battle with the "Big C."

She had lost neither her hair nor her sense of humor in the treatment. With little change of appetite or girth, she kidded, "I was AFRAID I'd be the first person to GAIN weight during chemo."

Also still present was her faith in God, a faith she knew would pull her through. With a resolve that impressed doctors and friends, she vowed to fight the Grim Reaper — and win.

But it was not to be.

There were tears in her eyes as she squeezed my hand and said goodbye. "I'm gonna make it," she vowed. And you could do no less than believe her.

The next time I would commune with Loyal was standing solemnly before her casket at Kawaiaha'o Church. "You swore you'd make it," I silently complained.

During the few months following her death, I continued to "cross paths" with my friend, as an occasional memory of The Lady of Love stirred within me. Oftentimes it was just the memory of a place in time we had shared, or the hauntingly lovely strains of one of her songs as it reached out and touched my heart from the radio.

Such was the occasion the other night, driving home, a cool and rainy evening, the fog whispering to me as I crossed the Pali toward home. As I turned toward Hawaiian Memorial Park, from a new CD came my friend's hauntingly beautiful voice:

"E ku'u morning dew," she sang of much the same kind of mist that enveloped me at that moment. "Alia mai, alia mai," — "wait here, wait here." I momentarily closed my eyes and silently said: "Hi, Loyal!"

My car pulled into the cemetery, alongside Loyal's final resting place. I lowered my car windows despite the billowing mist and light rain and turned up Loyal's wonderful clear voice on my CD player and leaned back in my seat to enjoy a moment with Loyal.

"E kali mai 'oe," "Wait for me," she implored musically. " 'O wau iho no, me ke aloha," "to remain yours, with love."

I checked the next day for the exact date Loyal's wonderful presence had been taken from us. It had been exactly — to the day — one year before.

"Ma laila no kaua, e pili mau ai": There, you and I will remain forever."