100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #36. Tuahine.

 As a child growing up, I initially had a fear of old people due to their appearance and the odor they often emitted.

Especially if they were mentally incapacitated, it was terrifying, and I'd scream and cry until my parents whisked me away. Up until 1972, my parents took in foster children for which they were paid by the state, as I understand it. However, that year, my parents took in a very old Hawaiian woman whom we kids only addressed as Grandma Mary. In retrospect, at the age of 10, I had no idea of the treasure trove of knowledge that was Grandma Mary. Instead, I was afraid of her and made it a point to avoid her because of the way she behaved towards everyone. She also hoarded candies and crackers on her person, which were meant only for her own consumption. In her closet hung three mu'umu'u, and the rest were off white ones. On her feet, she wore black socks, and she walked with a cane. Her shock of white hair was short, which she constantly brushed back. Her dark skin was nearly flawless for someone her age, but my parents said that Grandma Mary was 90.

At 10 years old, I sat down with the abacus and calculated that Grandma Mary was born in 1882, the year that the 'Iolani Palace was completed. Additionally, that year marked a conflict between foreign business interests and the monarchy. Grandma Mary would have been 17 in 1899 when Princess Ka'iulani passed away in her home at 'Āinahau. Up until then, she was young enough to have recalled the atmosphere in Hawaii during the upheaval of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. Instead, at 10 years old, I could only sit there and watch Grandma Mary as she sometimes sat alone in our Ponohana loop home in Waimalu. Looking out the window, I saw my neighborhood friends laughing and having fun as they rode skateboards and used roller skates up and down the street. Grandma Mary looked at them, too, but only with her eyes. Her mind was somewhere else. It was the first time I had seen something like that happen before me, and for someone of my age, I immediately understood what it was. She was remembering something. For the first time, I approached her and gently placed my hand on her arm. Not at all startled, she looked at me, "Yes, pōki'i?"

"Are you remembering, Grandma Mary?" I asked her. 

"That's me there," she pointed to the street. "My sister Kaleiua is there too; she never listens to me, that girl."

I looked at where she pointed, and I saw that my neighborhood friends were gone; there were only two girls there, dressed in floor-length mu'umu'u with long sleeves. One was older and in her teens. The other was younger and seemed to be having more fun than her older counterpart. "You're the taller one, Grandma Mary?"

"'Ae," she nodded. "Mary is the Catholic name they gave me in school; my real name is Tuahine, after the rain of Mānoa. Pretty soon, the sisters will come to get us, and they'll punish us for speaking Hawaiian."

As if on cue, the nuns came and beat the two girls, but Grandma Mary, or Tuahine, inserted herself between her younger sister and the nuns, taking the brunt of the beating. 

"We were in trouble with the school, but the nuns got in trouble with our Mama. She came to the school and beat those skinny nuns within an inch of their lives."

Looking at the kitchen, Grandma Mary began to remember more. Our kitchen faded away, and in its place was an older, more worn kitchen. A beautiful Hawaiian woman is preparing a meal. A younger teenage Hawaiian girl is helping. That's Kaleiua; that can only mean that the Hawaiian woman is Tuahine, or Grandma Mary. Little ones run into the kitchen and take their place at the kitchen table. Tuahine and Kaleiua fill the plates with the hot food, and all pray before eating. "What remembering is this?" I asked her.

"It's the last time I would ever see them," she said. "My husband and I took on extra work cleaning horse stables overnight. One night, a fire started in the house, and it burned to the ground with my sister and my children in it. It's my last memory of them, the one I always treasure. The one that breaks my heart."

The memory was gone, and a second later, Grandma Mary looked at me like she didn't know who I was. "What the hell are you staring at? Do I owe you money?" Tuahine was gone. I would never see her again, but I understood a little as to why she was the way she was. After that, Grandma Mary became increasingly belligerent and combative, to the point where her family had to come and take her. 

My parents were sad that they couldn't do anything for Grandma Mary, as she swore at them and called them horrific names in English and Hawaiian. At the pinnacle of her ranting, I stepped forward and placed my hand on her arm. She whipped her head at me and drew her hand back as if to slap me.

"Tuahine," I said evenly. "Mālie."

She stopped and looked at me as if she knew who I was beyond my 10 years. She grabbed me and held me close, and sobbed for a long while. Her family was dumbfounded, as were my folks. At the end of the evening, her family took her home, not to what we now know as a senior living center, but to her own home. They called my mother a month later and told her it was as if a new Mary Kuahu lived in the house. She insisted that they refer to her as Tuahine, and not Mama. If I had known then what I know now, I would have sat with Tuahine Kuahu and recorded her life history for posterity. As I understand it, she passed away at the age of 107. My secret wish was that she might have shared her gift with her family to visit moments from her past, just as she had with me.