Angels Among Us. . .

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” –Anais Nin

I count myself extremely fortunate as a human being because I have always been blessed with amazing friends.  I consider them, quite literally, angels in my life.  I dedicate this piece to all the friends that have crossed my path.  They have added meaning to my life and helped shape me into the person that I am today. Some friends have come and gone and some are lifetime sisters and brothers. I am grateful to have been touched by each and every one of them.

Friends make life FUN!  I treasure the hundreds, the thousands of memories I have with friends over the years.  From small kid time climbing the mango tree in the backyard with our favorite neighbors to night picnics at Ala Moana beach with the sugas from the hood, from cruises through Waikiki to getting ready for single adult dances, I’ve had so many good times.  I’ve had adventures with friends in foreign countries, sang next to my girls on stage in front of thousands of people, watched them walk down the aisle, thrown baby showers and piled into a car of girls on our way to scope out the ‘other woman’.  I can’t imagine how uneventful my life would be without my friends!

Friends are my form of therapy.  I can’t count the number of hours and days that I’ve spent laughing, venting, gossiping, bawling, eating, singing, talking story, going out, sharing secrets and sometimes arguing with my friends.  When I’ve had a crappy day, when I’m exhausted, frustrated, irritated, elated, naughty or bored, I can always depend on my “friend therapy”. 

Friends come in different packages.  There are some people you can’t imagine ever being friends with who become your friends, some that you strike up a connection with immediately and some that were just always meant to be in your life.  I have always enjoyed the refreshing variety of my friendships.  I’ve been blessed to have married a friend that I met at age 12.  We’ve enjoyed over twenty years of friendship and love.  I love the sugas I grew up with in church, my Na Wai sisters, my best friend who was like an older sister to me, the friends I met in college and the friends who have become like family in my adult years.

In my life, angels have also manifested in the form of four-legged companions.  These heavenly creatures have provided unwavering loyalty, unconditional love and the ability to absolutely change my mood and my day around.  They have an intuitive gift for knowing when I need comfort, kisses and canine comic relief.  I’ve fallen asleep curled up next to these guardians that have watched over myself, my family and my home day after day and year after year. 

Friends offer salvation.  Sometimes that salvation arrives in the form of a 2 a.m. text that simply says, “I’m here for you, sis”.  It may arrive as an email, a timely phone call, a spontaneous visit, a midnight dessert run, a mid-week lunch, a movie night or a Skype session.  In days of sorrow, my friends have been a light in the overwhelming darkness of despair.  These angels without wings have held me up in their prayers, their faith, their thoughts and their words of encouragement, compassion and love.

Sometimes I ask myself how I’ll ever be able to repay my friends for everything they’ve done for me. My attempts at reciprocity seem feeble in comparison and so I rely on the grace of God to provide blessings and protection that are befitting these angels on earth.

Whether they are five minutes or 5,000 miles away, my friends are always near and dear to my heart. Whatever form they may take: a spouse of two decades, four-legged fur balls, the girls in the band, an international beauty, a six foot center, the sistahs from da hood, the college crew or a BFF that has become my guardian angel in heaven, I thank God everyday for my friends.  May I strive to emulate the kind of friendship that these angels on earth have always shown to me. . .

My Prayer. . .

Dedicated to my favorite newlyweds. . .

I watched the bride as she moved gracefully across a sea of grass,

On the arm of her father, veil blowing gently in the breeze.

I watched the groom as he caught sight of his wife to be,

His gaze never left her beautiful face as she made her way to nature’s altar by the ocean.

The raindrops came, soft and steady, a reassuring gesture that her beloved grandma was sending blessings on this blessed day.

With tears, he handed his little girl over to the man who would vow to protect and 

honor her until death do them part.

I looked upon the faces of those who gathered to witness this union,

Mother, father, sister, brother, family and friend, united in our celebration.

We sang, we prayed, we wept with joy and we surrounded them with love as they made their marriage covenants before God and family.

And as they held hands and turned to face their future together as husband and wife, in my heart, I sent up a prayer for their life ahead.  And this was my prayer. . .

I pray that you remember the vows you made this day.  May it remind you of your commitment to remain unified for eternity.

I pray that you honor and love one another always. And as the years pass and familiarity and routine sets in, that you never forget to be courteous, that you never forget to be kind and that you treat your spouse as the divine child of God that they are.

I pray that you wake up every morning in one another’s arms and that you start the day by thanking the Lord for another 24 hours with the person you are privileged to call ‘husband’ or ‘wife’.

I pray that your home may be filled with the sounds of laughter, sentiments of tenderness, words of encouragement, humble prayers and one day, the pitter-patter of little feet.

I pray that your lives be filled with adventure, success, abundance, food, travel, music, dance, family and friends and always, growth and learning. I pray that service to one another and your loved ones be a part of your family’s mantra.

I pray that you practice forgiveness on a daily basis and that your memory of hurts, faults and indiscretions be short. I pray that you seek to build one another up with your words and actions and refrain from those things that would tear the other down.

I pray that you always have each other’s back, that you remain loyal and that you always remember that you belong to each other exclusively and forever.

I pray that when the storms of life descend upon you and the adversary is closing in, that you hold fast to one another and to the rock of God and your loved ones. That during the days of trial and your journeys through the valley of darkness and sorrow that inevitably lies ahead, that you may find strength and courage and peace to make it through. Know this, I pray you always know this. . .that when you feel alone and hopeless and lost, know that we are all singing and praying and weeping with you, surrounding the two of you with love. . .from wherever we may be on God’s earth and in His heaven above.

This is my prayer for two people I love, on this, their wedding day and every day thereafter. . .

Two Decades

June 20, 1992-June 20, 2012

Twenty years ago, I knelt across an altar, clasping hands with the man I had chosen to be my eternal companion.  Surrounded by our loved ones there in the temple of God, we made sacred covenants as husband and wife.  I remember how bright everything seemed, how happy everyone was and how young we looked in the mirrors that seemed to go on forever. There we were, at the very beginning of our married lives. We were joyful, we were hopeful and we were innocent as we looked ahead to our future.

A short time later found us living in Laie and attending BYU-Hawaii. R-150, Temple View Apartments (TVA) was our first home, there in the shadow of the temple where we had married.  It was housing for married couples who attended college.  As we look back at it now, we acknowledge those as some of the very best years of our lives. We were dirt poor, living off minimum wage and scholarship monies, with no car of our own. But we were surrounded by other young, married couples, all struggling to go to college, make a living and raise a young family.  We were bound together not only by proximity but by similar circumstances, goals, struggles and our testimonies of the Gospel.  There were game nights and group Family Home Evenings, outings and Culture Night, Hawaiian Club, Song Fest and Food Fest.  And finally there was graduation and our little band of friends moved on with their lives and yet, all of these years later, we remain friends, bound together by those few life-changing years on Oahu’s north shore.

We moved on with our lives, me to law school and he to graduate school. Back to town we went, from my sister’s living room to a series of addresses before we accomplished our goal of purchasing our first home.  And while we waited for the babies that didn’t come, we watched other babies grow, we pushed through graduate school, saw our careers progress and served in a multitude of callings at church. The years moved quickly on and we gained experience, wisdom, debt and thanks to late nights at Zippy’s, lots of weight! There were dart tournaments and trips to Vegas and Utah, gigs and studio and business ventures.  There were Valentine days with sparkling cider chilling in a wastebasket and years of coordinating Halloween costumes and naming Christmas trees and kisses on New Year’s. And always, always, there were friends and family to enrich our lives and provide support.

We opened our home to our parents, to two precious doggies and one day, after 14 years of waiting, we opened our home to a little three-year old angel who filled our hearts and completed our family. A short time thereafter, we found ourselves back at the temple, kneeling at an altar, clasping hands as an eternal family.

And the years. . .oh how they’ve flown by. How were we to know that they would go by in the blink of an eye? They’ve brought joy and pain, love and heartache, triumph and sorrow, accomplishment and loss, death and new life.  

And marriage. . .who knew that it would be such a challenge and a blessing? How were we to know how much we’d change and grow and how much we would hurt each other and forgive each other and accept each other and through it all, simply love each other?

Two decades ago, I knelt across an altar from the man who I had chosen to be my eternal companion. Two decades later, I humbly stand by his side as his friend, lover and partner. It has been an extraordinary journey thus far and I thank the Lord for His mercy, guidance and love.  It is with great anticipation, gratitude and hope that I look forward to the next several decades and eternity with the love of my life. 

Happy Anniversary, Fosi, I love you. Eternally Yours, Delia

The Hunger Games

A month or so ago, I, like millions of other fans of the popular series, “The Hunger Games”, lined up to watch the first installment of the trilogy.  I watched as Katniss leapt, climbed, endured burns and stings, wept from loss, was torn by love, foraged for food and shot her silver arrows with precision and purpose. In the shadows (where men in these books often hang out), were Peeta and Gale, two men smitten by our bow-and-arrow wielding heroine, yet not getting much love from Ms. Mockingjay herself. As I sat for two hours in the dark theater, a single thought kept running through my mind. . . “It’s my freakin’ cheat day and I’m eating all the popcorn, hot dog, candy, soda and ice cream that I can get my hands on!”

Yes, this is what happens when you go on a diet, people, you experience your very own hunger games. But instead of running away from a bunch of blood-thirsty kids who want to slit your throat in a simulated arena, you find yourself running from. . .food.  When you are working with 1,500 calories a day, logging every morsel you put into your mouth on an iPhone application and have an accountability partner to report to, you start to get. . .hmmm, paranoid and a bit crazy.  And then running away from lunatics in a forest doesn’t sound so bad because YOU have now become the lunatic and it wouldn’t really matter who was chasing you if you knew you were running towards something worthwhile. . .like a bag of cheddar jalapeno Cheetos or a giant piece of double-chocolate cake.

When you experience your own hunger games, you find yourself wishing that, like the tributes in the arena, you received little silver parachutes with gifts from above every time you did something right. “I exercised 5 times this week, please let a pint of Ben & Jerry’s fall onto my lap.” But alas, no parachutes are falling in my world. These days (when I’m not cheating), I’m having internal conversations with myself that sound like this; “How many nuts can I eat today? Is 3 too much? Maybe if I eat the salt free ones, I can eat double that!”  Yes, it’s enough to make you feel like swallowing some nightlock berries just to end the misery and madness of it all.

And then you remember why you entered the games in the first place because you’ve just seen yourself in the mirror and you have a show to film for and a bridesmaid dress to look stunning in and you sigh, stop complaining to your accountability partner, resolve to pry the chocolate out of your hands and suck it up.  It’s all about choices, my friends. Even Katniss had one hell of a choice to make.  Even though I think she chose wrong, you gotta love a girl who can wear fire and shoot through an apple in a pig’s mouth from a 100 yards away.  Now if I could only do that to my calorie counter application. . .

Why Samoan is Hot. . .

In my heart of hearts, I'm a wannabe linguist. If I had to choose a super power, speaking all languages would be in my top three list (right up there next to being able to eat anything and still be skinny and flying).  Growing up in Hawai'i, I heard people speaking different languages on a daily basis-Japanese, Mandarin, Samoan, Vietnamese, Tongan, Laotian, Ilocano, Tagalog, Korean. The one thing I didn't hear was 'olelo Hawai'i, my own native Hawaiian language. That means I wasn't raised speaking or understanding my native tongue. Something I have always regretted.

My grandparents on both sides spoke Hawaiian, but given the pressure to assimilate into the American culture and the desire for their children to thrive in Western society, the language was not passed onto my parent's generation. This resulted in what I consider a devastating blow to our people and culture, for the life of a culture lives on in the language.  In one generation, the lifeblood of our people, the words which were spoken on a daily basis for hundreds of years, were virtually. . .gone, at least from general everyday usage.

Now this is the part of the story where I mention that I was attracted to Samoan boys growing up.  What does one thing have to do with the other you may ask (as well you should)?  Well, besides the fact that I like big, brown men, I just really dug the fact that they spoke their mother language! Yes, I know, I was raised with Filipinos and Chinese and their conversing in their native tongue didn't quite have the same effect on me, but that's not really important to this story, lol.  It resonated with me that my Polynesian friends who were my age could speak and understand the language of their ancestors.  As a Hawaiian, I both admired and envied their ability to do so.

I admired the fact that they had a connection with any other Samoan person they came across, that they would address one another as 'uso' (brother/sister) upon meeting for the first time. Along with the language were embedded cultural nuances that just didn't translate into English, things that you would only get if you were Samoan or spoke the language or raised in the culture. And what I loved was that this carried on whether they were in Samoa or California or Hawai'i. As a native person in my own land, I felt disconnected from my culture growing up and thirsty for the knowledge of my people. It was a desire that would lead me to explore my own cultural identity in college and grad school, studying Hawaiian history, culture, language and law.  My Hawaiian language skills remain poor and I will never be a native speaker, but I'm thrilled to see the increase of interest and work to preserve and expand our culture, particularly with the growth of native language speakers amongst our little ones in Hawaiian immersion schools (E ola mau ka 'olelo Hawai'i!!!).

So it is no surprise that I eventually ended up marrying a Samoan boy and yes he speaks Samoan and yes I think its incredibly sexy and oh so HOT! I love the fact that he only speaks to his parents in their language (I know this because they live with us, lol) and that even though he's been in Hawai'i since he was five years old and by all other accounts, a 'local boy', he still dreams in Samoan.  When he first started this practice during our early married life, I would shake him awake and ask him, "What are you saying?!?".  I guess you can take the boy out of Samoa. . .

I'm passionately writing this blog after my 100th exhortation to my husband to speak to my son in Samoan. Hello! He lives in a house with his Samoan-speaking grandparents and father! "Don't let HIS be the generation where the language comes to a halt", I say to Hubby.  This results in a minute or two of, "sau loa" and "fia 'ai" and I'm like, "even I know those, speak to him like you do to mom and dad!".  Alas, the battle continues on the home front for both myself as a Hawaiian to learn and speak more and for Hubby to pass on the precious language of his ancestors (to his son AND to me).

For all those who speak or understand your native tongue, don't take it for granted and don't miss the opportunity to pass it on to your children. For those, like myself, who will never be native speakers, we have the rest of our lives to do something about it-take a language class, learn from our elders, practice with friends, take hula, do something today. Do it for yourself, for your ancestors, for our future generations and if for nothing else, because I think its just freakin' HOT!

I ka ‘ōlelo no ke ola, i ka ‘ōlelo nō ka make.
In the language is life. In the language is death.
[Words can heal; words can destroy. A contemporary translation for this proverb is, in the Hawaiian language we find the life of our race, without it (the Hawaiian language) we shall perish.]

The Agreement

10:30pm: I sat on my back porch, one sneaker on and one sneaker in hand, listening to the rain fall. I sought. . .motivation. And at the very same time I sought. . .an excuse. My mind raced through a number of questions, answers and scenarios as to how this would turn out.

"Well Delia, you agreed to exercise 5 days a week for 30 minutes."
"But it's 10:30 at night, I'm tired and I just woke up!"
"I could always work out on Saturday. . ."
"Uh yeah, like that's gonna happen!"
"It's cold, rainy and there are flash flood warnings on Oahu."
"And this pertains to you how?" (staring at the elliptical machine in my covered back patio)
"I can make it up tomorrow."
"You're gonna do 1 hour on a Friday night?"
"And how are you gonna explain this away to the 'team'?"
"You better reach out for help now."

*Sending SOS text message*
*Incoming text message: "Push Dee! U got this! Get on that treadmill and do a quick 30 minute run."*

"Crap, putting on the other shoe now. . ."

Perhaps now would be a good time to mention that I have a 'team'. Last week I set a goal for myself, you know, the goal we all make for ourselves 3 or 4 times a year. The "I will lose x amount of weight by this date, I'll refrain from eating this, that and the other, will drink 5 gallons of water a day and work out religiously." Engaging myself alone in that agreement hasn't worked too well for me in the past, so I came up with the brilliant idea of engaging a 'team'! I chose an accountability partner, wrote up an agreement which my partner accepted responsibility for helping me uphold, I bought a new scale and downloaded a calorie counter application on my iPhone. I included Hubby in on my plans, enlisted the support of one more friend and away I went.

One week later I'm cursing myself for including so many people in on my delusional exploits. So much accountability! Did I mention that my accountability partner is kind of a hard a**? Which is why that person was chosen. . .and then there's the loving support of the others. Did I also mention that half of my support team is overseas? Which means that I receive emails, texts and Voxer messages of inspiration, support and threats (joking). I could easily lie. . .sometimes I fantasize about eating a Big Mac and reporting that I ate a salad, but no. . .I wouldn't do that to the 'team'.

Funny how we're so much better at being accountable to others and not to ourselves, sometimes. One day when I grow up, my goal is to be able to make agreements with myself that I will always keep, even when no one is looking, asking, emailing, texting or Voxing. In the meantime, I'm grateful for "Team Delia".

11:15pm: 30 minutes of exercise completed

"Hey, maybe I can do this after all. . ." :)

A Pound of Paper

“You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.” -Paul Sweeney

Never judge a book by its movie.  ~J.W. Eagan 

My name is Delia and I'm a bookaholic. I'm not ashamed to confess that I'd rather read a good book than do pretty much anything else. My love for the written word was instilled in me as a child and carries on today. My parents, particularly my father, being the scholar and writer that he was, had me reading before I started school. My mom used to scold me for getting so caught up in a book that I'd forget to turn the light on when the sun set and she'd find me squinting to make out the words.  When I read a book, the plot unfolds like a film in my mind-the characters and places come to life and I am transported temporarily to another world, another person's life. Reading expands my mind, inspires me, entertains me, fills me with joy, makes me laugh, cry or stirs up emotions of anger and indignation. They say you are what you read and I feel like I've taken bits and pieces of everything I've ever read and they have helped to shape the human being I am today. 

And so, in honor of books and my love of reading, I'm pleased to present:
"Delia's Book Club":

 1. The Book of Mormon/Scriptures: We believe that reading this book and abiding by it's precepts will bring a person closer to God than any other book. This set of scriptures is a companion to the Holy Bible, another testament of Jesus Christ, an account of His visit to the Americas. We try to read from it as a family every day. What a blessing it is to our lives.


2. Little House on the Prairie Series: I can't count the number of hours and days I spent reading these books as a little girl. It transported this brown island girl from Kalihi to the plains of the Mid-West, when America was young and homesteaders built and settled into the new country. I learned that "supper" was lunch, that white sugar was scarce and how to build a log cabin. Laura Ingalls Wilder was a little heroine and her rich, detailed accounts of an amazing time in American history fascinated this Hawaiian girl to no end.


3. Gone With the Wind: In Margaret Mitchell's famous thousand page-long tale of the South, I found myself both cheering for Scarlett O'Hara as she faced post Civil War poverty and wanting to strangle her for not recognizing that Ashley was a wimp and Rhett Butler was the real deal! I learned about corsets and dance cards, carpetbaggers and the burning of Atlanta. I was intrigued by the clashing concepts of Southern hospitality and slavery and was totally immersed in the brilliant details of a story line that incorporated history, culture and the universal concepts of survival, grit, friendship, loyalty, courage, passion and love. I consider it my favorite fiction book.


4.  Harry Potter Series: It was divine intervention when J.K. Rowling put pen to napkin and, as a single mother on welfare in England, conceived the concepts, characters and plot line for the most popular and successful children's books of all time. The beauty of this series is that its magic appeals to children of all ages. This inspired woman created a new lexicon, a world of Muggles and Wizards, where the orphan child rises up against the Dark Lord. I consider these books quite simply brilliant, beautiful and a must-read. Harry, Hermione and Ron are my forever friends and every time I read the end of the Deathly Hallows, I always cry. . .


5. The Twilight Series: Young girls, mothers and women everywhere sent up prayers of gratitude that stay at home Mormon mom, Stephanie Meyer, had a dream that led to the creation of Edward, Bella and Jacob. Three names in the modern world that don't need last names mentioned for anyone to know what and who you're talking about. Readers and fans the world over can't get enough of the PG supernatural world where an awkward teenage girl is fought over by the hottest vampire and werewolf around. And at the end of it all, despite the fact that we want to know who Bella chose and whether or not she became a vampire, the most famous question of all that defines this series may very well be, "Team Edward or Team Jacob?". (TEAM JACOB, people!!!)


Other Books that Have Influenced My Life:
-Books by Louise L. Hay and other metaphysical books
-Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy (a book that literally changed my life)
-Books by Suze Orman and other books around financial freedom
-Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen (a heart-breaking account of the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom by our deposed monarch, Queen Lili'uokalani) and other books about Hawaiian history and culture


New Favorites:
-The Hunger Games: If you haven't read them, read them now before the movie comes out on March 23-it's worth it!
-Telesa by Lani Wendt Young: Finally, a young adult fiction book set in Polynesia (Samoa) and written BY a Polynesian. Can I just say, "Fa'afetai tele lava!"?  A veritable mix of Twilight and X-Men, this book got the goods: love, passion, hot men, supernatural heroine, culture and a fantastic plot line-AND this is the first in a series! Support our island writers and order it today!


Ah books, wonderful, magical books, how grateful I am for them in my life.  And if you're reading my blog, thank you for thinking that my words are important enough to spend time mulling over. OK, people, time to get off the computer and curl up with a good book. Enjoy. . .I know I am!