Posted on: Monday, May 30, 2005
'Let kids know, so they don't forget'
By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer
Each time Napua Kaopuiki visits the graves of her father and sister at Punchbowl, she steels herself for the sadness that inevitably overcomes her.
Andrew Shimabuku • The Honolulu Advertiser "This is where their papa and auntie are," she said, as children in diapers scurried around her minivan parked a few feet from her father's headstone at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. "I'm always sad (around here)."
Kaopuiki and her family were among hundreds of local families who began their Memorial Day rituals yesterday.
For many families of veterans, the Memorial Day focus on O'ahu is on the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, where more than 45,000 veterans and family members are laid to rest, and the Hawai'i State Veterans Cemetery in Kane'ohe, where more than 5,600 people are buried.
By 10 a.m. yesterday, a line of cars was slowly snaking around Punchbowl crater, as drivers searched for parking.
In every corner of the veterans cemetery, people made their way through the rows of grave markers, stopping to search for the name of a family member or a friend.
By 1 p.m., the green fields of Punchbowl were covered with flower arrangements as families carried and clipped bundles of flora, adding color to the gray slabs bearing their loved one's names.
Andrew Shimabuku • The Honolulu Advertiser For the past 19 years, Takushi, an 80-year-old 'Aina Haina resident, has come to Punchbowl on the fourth Sunday of every month to visit the graves of her husband, Tetsuo, and her brother, Takeshi.
"As long as my son brings me I come," she said, rising from her knees and gesturing at her brother's marker.
"I remember them. It's sort of nostalgic. I'm not too sad about it. It takes years but you accept."
Takushi's husband, Tetsuo, was a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and fought in Italy and France during World War II.
"He got injured but he came home," Takushi said.
Muriel Uyeno, 71, visits the graves of her husband, Norman, and son, Stuart, as often as she can. Norman Uyeno was an Air Force veteran who served in the Korean War.
Andrew Shimabuku • The Honolulu Advertiser Nearby, Henry Spillner of 'Ewa Beach tried desperately to herd more than 20 family members, kids and all, to the gravesite of his in-laws, Alfred Ah Loo and Dagmar Vaumoana.
After several moments of spirited visitation, Spillner began to herd his family toward his brother, who died fighting in Vietnam.
"We talk to them, my brother especially," said Spillner, 63, pointing toward the ground. "We're trying to let the kids know, so they don't forget."
Spillner's day was just beginning. He said he was going to visit the graves of his parents in Mililani and other relatives in Kane'ohe.
Throughout the day, hundreds of Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts turned out to leave lei and plant small flags.
Amid the visitors, cemetery officials set up chairs and tents in preparation for today's Memorial Day ceremonies.
As the day wore on, people searched for shade as the sun beat down, while others ignored the heat and continued to work.
Alice and Ed Otsu, both 73 of Kane'ohe, came to visit friends and the graves of their children, Mark Yoshio and Patricia Mitsuko, who were stillborn. Ed served two years in the Air Force, allowing him to bury his children at Punchbowl.
"You give birth to them and they don't come home with you, they came here," Alice Otsu said.
"We're at an age now, that we're in the twilight of our lives," Ed Otsu said. "We're facing reality I guess, but it's not fearful and foreboding as it once was."
Frederick C. Lum was an Army man who served in World War II and the Korean conflict. He died in 1965, and for 40 years his wife, Ruth, 82, and daughter, Frieda, have come to his grave.
The pair carefully cleared the overgrowth from Frederick's name, and made sure that no weeds were sprouting nearby. Next they picked flowers from a pile they brought and clipped the stalks before they arranged them in water.
"To me, he helped the country and we want to show him respect," Frieda Lum said. "And he's my dad and her husband."
Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8110.
But she cries only when she is alone, and yesterday was time for her family to come pay their respects to their grandfather and aunt.
Seven-year-old Evan Schatz, front, and his brother, Dane, 6, joined other Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts yesterday in placing flags near grave markers at the National Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl.
Near the cemetery's entrance, far back from the road in an area where the brush meets the grass, Kazue Takushi poured water over her brother's grave, carefully brushing away the excess with a small broom.
Takushi family members yesterday cleaned Takeshi Nakamoto's grave. Lee Takushi, right, cut grass around the grave marker, while Ashlee and June planted flowers. Kazue Takushi, 80, visited this grave, that of her brother, and the grave of her husband, Tetsuo.
"I miss him; he died at such a young age (51)," she said. "I'm thankful the Lord saw me through all this. He died when my daughter was 15. It was kind of a hard life but we managed, we pulled through."
Charles Barker and his wife, Conoly, paid respects to Steve Baker, Charles' uncle and one of the 45,000 veterans and family members laid to rest at the National Cemetery of the Pacific.
