PEARL WOULD HAVE BEEN 80 TODAY

Pearl Yukie Nakamichi was born in Hilo on 10July1939.  She went on to become a registered nurse, and I met her when she was working at the Pahala Hospital while I was a process engineer in the adjacent town of Naalehu, the southernmost community in the USA.

Pearl passed away almost a decade ago.  I began writing a virtual (meaning it will not take any hardback form, remaining on the world wide web, for the cost of publishing a book with a lot of colored photos is astronomical) book entitled Pearl's Ashes, beginning with the Introduction.  There was an earlier introduction on 20November2012.  Best as I can tell, my efforts stopped on 30August2017 with Chapter 25:  Pearl's Ashes--La Mer, which was the 40th site where I dropped her ashes.  I'll have to now find the rest, for I know there were at least 50 locations.

We met in September of 1962 and got married in December.  We were together for 47 years.

All that remains today is the remainder of her ashes in an urn.  Capsules of her ashes are scattered throughout the world.

She especially loved the Gold and Jacaranda trees.  In my around the world missions, I dropped her ashes at the foot of Jacarandas on the way up to Haleakala  on Maui and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, her second favorite mountain, next to Mauna Kea, which she could see from her Hilo home.

Yesterday, Nancy (she is on the extreme left), Pearl's cousin from Hilo (they both worked for Senator Spark Matsunaga), sent me this message:

Hi Pat!

Hard to believe so many years have passed since we lost Pearl and planted the trees. The ones at the golf course are doing very well. The tallest one is maybe 30-40 feet.

This one to above was three feet tall when we planted it five years ago at the Hilo Municipal Golf Course.  She'll send me photos of what they look like now when she returns from Boston.

Working with the county councils of Honolulu and Big Island, spearheaded by her cousin Fresh Onishi, who was then a councilman, we also arranged to plant the Gold Tree at the Ala Wai (left) and Makalena Golf Courses, and various locations in the Hilo area.  Unfortunately, the Ala Wai trees all died, but perhaps a few are still growing at Makalena.  Hilo Municipal was an especially super location, for adjacent was a Jacaranda tree (right), which was blooming at the time of our planting ceremony.

While I do miss her, she is certainly gone forever.  I have a friend who might soon lose his wife because of illness, and we talked about death and the afterlife.  He might have a psychological advantage because they are religious.  They will meet again in Heaven.  Then again, maybe I am better off, for I'm a non-believer and know she is not looking down on me to watch my every move.  I can go on to unrestrainedly enjoy the rest of my life, hopefully maintaining my present state of euphoria.

The Dow Jones broke its all-time record today, gaining 186 points to 27,047.  First time in history that the Dow has seen 27,000  Why?  I guess President Donald Trump tweets have influenced the Federal Reserve to talk about possibly reducing interest rates.

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Tropical Storm Barry is approaching Louisiana and should reach hurricane force just before landfall on Saturday:

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