By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Nancy Kern doesn't bother to mention the other items that were stolen when thieves broke into her home last month. She says she doesn't really have anything of significant value, and besides, all that stuff can be replaced. But she's heartbroken over losing the mementos of some of her son's proudest moments.

On Aug. 19, Kern left her house near Punahou School at 5:20 p.m. to go to a meeting. She returned at 8 p.m.

"I walked in the door and everything looked fine. I didn't notice anything," she says. "I went into my bedroom and my bedroom had been just torn apart."

It took her a few days to realize that a brown bag containing about seven video tapes was stolen. The tapes were of her son Sean's trip to the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

"The other stuff I can replace, but these, it really breaks my heart," she says.

Kern made it a point to keep scrapbooks and remembrances for all her children. Her oldest, Leah, went to Yale, spent two years in the Peace Corps in West Africa and graduated from Harvard Medical School this June. Son Kenny is an artist in Honolulu. And Sean, the youngest, was a water polo star almost from the start.

Kern kept newspaper clippings of Sean's championship years on the Punahou team, his two-time win for collegiate water polo player of the year when he was at UCLA and, of course, his trip to the 2000 Olympics as a member of the American men's water polo team.

Kern went to Sydney to watch the games. Two of her friends took it upon themselves to catch every game on video tape — no small feat when you consider that the water polo games were sometimes broadcast in the middle of the night or were interrupted by coverage of other events. Kern treasured those tapes.

"If (the thieves) understood what this meant to me, hopefully they would find a way to return it because they mean absolutely nothing to that person and they mean everything to me," she says.

Kern told Sean what happened, and she said he's sad, but not as sad as she is.

"I can even see when he's got children and grandchildren, that they would be valuable to his future family."

Kern says she'd offer a reward but she can't imagine the thieves would take the chance of collecting it. She's hoping that maybe someone will put her name on the bag of tapes and leave it in a public place, maybe on the front steps of the newspaper building or her carport.

"I don't care that they know what my name is," she says. "They already know my name. They were in here looking through stuff."

She knows it's a long shot, that people get burglarized every day and things rarely get returned. But she's holding on to hope regardless.

"I'm just thinking if the person could maybe understand what they've taken and to give that back."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.