In the ICU, the tubes piercing you pierced me.

The machines, the beeps and chirps from integrated electronics,
overwhelmed me.

My fear couldn’t keep me silent.
I’ll forever regret my insistent talk when you wanted only silence.

I remember you calling me an idiot (to shut me up?).
You were right, again. I remember not telling you,
I love you, Dad nearly enough times in your final days.

I remember when you were moved to the top floor terminal ward.

While our family friend Stuart and I sat a deathbed vigil, my sisters
waited for word in their hotel room near Honolulu International Airport.

Your breathing quieted and faded till it stopped. The pain you had
in breathing for several years, finally over. Stuart and I ate a late dinner,

talked deep into the night, celebrating your life and telling our favorite
stories about you. You, the storyteller, stilled but not your stories.

After I declared, “I’d like to be a writer,” Stuart suggested writing
about your ʻōhelo berry pie. I remember your recipe was from an entry
in the Volcano House guest register, written over a hundred years earlier.

You were a devotee of Pele, the Goddess of Volcanoes, so I would begin,
“At Kīlauea, collect ʻōhelo berries, make the first handful an offering to Pele.”

Afterwards, my hotel room was cheerless and bleak. I woke up drained,
raw from grief. Waikīkī, peerless tourist destination even for death.