Posted on: Friday, May 31, 2002

Mother grieves loss of her 'star'

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

Fifteen-year-old Noe Pai died Tuesday when the car she was riding in crashed on Kalaniana'ole Highway. Noe's 22-year-old boy-friend, who was driving, is in the hospital. Photo courtesy Pai family

Lisa Pai of Kane'ohe is trying desperately to follow the advice of her healer in recovering from the most grievous wound any mother can endure: the death of a child. The beloved child in this case is her 15-year-old daughter, "the lush mist over the beauty of heaven."

That is the meaning of Jasmine "Noe" Pai's full Hawaiian name, Lilinoekauluwehileleleiau'ilani. Her mother spoke last night to a practitioner in the Hawaiian spiritual healing art of huna on how to move past Noe's death.

Should she vent her grief through anger aimed at the 22-year-old boyfriend who on Tuesday night skidded across the median on Kalaniana'ole Highway in Kailua and into oncoming traffic? He remained in guarded condition yesterday at The Queen's Medical Center from injuries suffered in the crash that followed, but Noe Pai, his passenger, died at the scene.

"My special healer came last night, and the most important thing he said was that, yes, we feel anger but we have to let that anger go," Lisa Pai said yesterday. "If anything, he'll (Noe's boyfriend) suffer the most. If he lives through this, he'll be suffering the most."

Police said yesterday that an investigation into either manslaughter or negligent homicide charges against the Waimanalo man is under way.

Meanwhile, the family of Noe Pai, a Castle High School freshman and the youngest of Michael and Lisa Pai's five children, struggles through the ordeal of planning the burial of someone who was the picture of vitality, someone imbued with friendliness and confidence.

"She was born a star in my eyes," her mother said, speaking during one of the calm breaks between storms of tears. "At age 2 she did her first commercial, dancing hula in an HVB (Hawai'i Visitors Bureau) commercial.

"She was the life of the party, too," she added. "From her brothers and sisters I would hear that when they would argue, she would all say, 'Can't we all just get along?'"

Five years ago the Pais moved to O'ahu from Kalaheo, Kaua'i, where hula had been a central part of family life. Lisa Pai and Wallis Punua had both studied the dance together, and Noe became one of Punua's students when he formed his Tahitian hula school Rohotu.

She later studied with the late Paleka Leina'ala Mattos, who died just last week, and with kumu hula Sonny Ching. But it's Punua who had the longest and deepest connection with the girl he calls Lilinoe. Punua is related through marriage to the family as well as through hula ties.

"She always had it in her heart that she was a lifelong member of Rohotu," Punua said yesterday. "She was very passionate about her Tahitian dancing, and she won awards at the Kaua'i Tahiti fete.

"She was really a go-getter, very talented and very ambitious in her dancing ... very positive. She was very vivid, just really had a love for life."

Punua was stunned when, Wednesday morning, he got the call about her death, a few hours after he'd stumbled across several photos of the child dancer.

"I had been up doing paperwork, and at about 2 a.m., I pulled out this old photo album I hadn't looked at for six months," he said. "I came across a lot of her pictures, taken about six years ago.

"I thought it was just a sign that God gave her a way of saying goodbye."

Besides her parents, Noe is survived by sisters, Leaura Kahaunaele, Kamalei Pai and Kelsie Pai; brother, Pihana Pai; paternal grandfather, John Pai; maternal grandparents, Anthony and Joyce Silva; and maternal great-grandparents, Manuel and Mae Andrade.

Visitation will be 5 to 8 p.m. Monday at St. Ann's Church in Kane'ohe; service at 8 p.m. Visitation also on Kaua'i, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. June 8 at Holy Cross Catholic Church; Mass at 2:30 p.m. Burial will be 4 p.m. June 8 at Kauai Memorial Garden Cemetery. Aloha attire.