What is the meaning of this word? When I was a child I wasn't raised in a "traditional" environment. No father (he left my Ma before I was bor) raised by my Ma and my Grandma I thought I knew happiness. There were maybe two other kids who were in single homes (when I was younger single families just weren't common like they are mowadays) so there was always that strange outcst feeling during certain events. I had my Uncle Clayton who would help me with cub scouts. I had my Uncle Gene to help me learn fishing, swimming and things about outdoors. My Uncle Ray was always around tinkering with cars and doing handy work same as my Uncle Clayton. These were the men in my life. We lived in a huge duplex home, my Grandma, my Ma, my Aunt Lorraine, Uncle Ray (her b/f), my Aunt Gerry, my uncle Gene (her hubby), my Uncle Clayton.

Aunt Lorraine had 4 kids, my cousins JJ, Annette, Dominique and Ray. Aunt Gerry also had 4, Gene (Jr. Boy), Kim, Collette and Darlene. My Ma soon had my lil brother named Pat. Full house, huh? Well we lived what is commonly known as "Ohana style" Ohana means family in Hawaiian. It isn't uncommon at all to see clusters like what we had allover the place.

I was in and out of hospitals most my childhood, vision problems from birth and further complications thanks to faulty doctors. It never really bothered me, it was just a part of my life, I accepted it with a smile. "No tears, boy, no tears." My Uncle Gene would always say.

Aside from my vision issues I was a really active kid. Loved swimming, would stay in the ocean for hours on end. We lived right on the water. My bedroom was maybe twenty feet from the Pacific. Was beautiful.

Things change. Is a harsh reality to learn, and I had the displeasure of learning this at 9 yrs. old. Hurricane Iwa changed everything. It all but destroyed my childhood home, more than half of it was in the ocean we all once loved. Immediate result? We had to move. We were no small group and my Ma and Aunts did not want to split us up. Good friend of my Uncle Clayton, mr. Mau, he let us use his farm house till we could get a new place. Insurance, disaster relief, government assistance, became well known in my once happy home.

The farm house. This home was small. Maybe half the size of where we came from. We, the kids, had to now share beds. We were all very close so it was not too bad. Like camping or a sleepover every night. Food, that was a hard time. See, my Ma didn't work, neither did Aunty Gerry. Uncle Ray and Uncle Clayton did freelance metal work and auto work. Side jobs, not real steady pay. My Grandma was a E0 year vet as the post office, and the main source of income. My Aunt Lorraine worked as a clerk at a bank, helped out a lot. My uncle Gene was combat retired from Vietnam, government assisted.

We had insurance come in around 7 months later. Looking back those months seemed like years. We enrolled in the school there, were looked at as "the ghetto kids" cause all our own clothes were replaced by donations and hand me downs. Was a humbling experience to say the least. Also, a hardening one. Fighting became common. We wouldn't "take no lip" from anyone. Soon, the snickers and ridicule were replaced with silence and a type of schoolyard respect.

This went on for almost a year and a half. Finally, the split up we had all feared quietly, happened. My Aunt Gerry and Uncle Gene found a home. They moved out. It was a home not too far from us, nice place she still lives in today. Uncle Gene has since passed, R. I. P.

Soon after, my Grandma found a place. Here, in Kailua. A big home. More than enough room, affordable, close to schools, and her biggest selling point, nowhere near the ocean. She was since the hurricane deathly afraid of the sea. It broke my heart as I grew older and really grasped how that storm damaged her. How it damaged my whole family.

My Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Ray had soon broken up, she got a new man, Uncle Frank, who moved her and her kids with him. My Uncle Clayton had gotten married to my Aunt Linh. So now, in my home, it was me, my Brother, my Ma, my Grandma, Uncle Clayton and Aunt Linh.

What I had begun to notice was this, the bonds between my cousins and I, were all but severed. Distance, it's a cruel thing.

From seeing these people every day, and all the promises of "we'll all visit and even though we aren't in same house, nothing will change." Becoming nothing more than worthless words to fill the growing uncomfortable silence that had begun to consume every get together it was, to say the least, a weird time in my life.

Then came Sam. My Ma met this man, they courted, dated, for two and a half years. Then tied the knot my junor year of high school. The wedding was beautiful and for that one day, my family seemed as if that storm never happened. Things were okay.

Time. It has a weird way of making things seem so important, yet in hind sight so worthless. Think about things you may have thought were all the world when in high school, like having the "cool bag" or knowing all the latest music. Didn't really affect anything in the big picture now did it? My family, which was once an Ohana, had become all but strangers exchanging hollow greetings and even hollower goodbyes.

This begs me to ask, what does family really mean? Is the effects of one storm as strong on others? I've never met anyone else who had lost an entire home, entire childhoods, entire family histories, to a storm. I look back on everything now, and yes I know it cannot be changed but I wonder, would this same separation have happened if we had not been forced out? Would things now be different?

Questions with no answers. A child who grew into a man, not carrying regret but carrying questions. One can only imagine I guess.