05/30/2026
Day 2: Kauai Magical Grief Healing Tour. -Journal Entry.
I am determined not to let the absence of a rental car keep me from doing things. There are always plenty of things to do at a Marriott. It is not like I haven't seen this island. We've been here every other year since 1998. I've seen what I want and really, without Howie to experience things with, maybe this trip is just to rest, reset, and recalibrate.
I joined a walking tour along the lagoons, a scenic stretch that reaches out toward the bay and the lighthouse. While the guide shared the history of the land with us, I just walked. I took in the beauty of the lava shoreline and let the rhythm of the path beneath my feet do its steadying work.
I kept scanning the horizon, my eyes searching the break of every wave. I was so certain, so hopeful, that Howie would send me a sign. Perhaps a turtle surfacing for air or the distant breach of a whale. Just something to tell me that he was still right there with me, on the other side of the blue.
Kauai has chickens the way Rome has pigeons. They are everywhere, unhurried, entirely unbothered by the humans moving around them. Our walking guide was born and raised on this island, and she carried chicken reverence the way islanders do. She was very informative about the area. She knew the lagoons, the history of the old Westin properties, the sacredness of the land beneath our feet. She knew the chickens by their markings. If they had names, she would have known them, too.
When we came around the back side of the golf cart storage area, she began to clap her hands. And the chickens came running. She scattered birdseed and they clustered at her feet, a small feathered chaos of pecking and jostling. I smiled at the absurdity and the sweetness of it all. We had ourself a chicken whisperer!
And then, from a tree overhead, a red-headed cardinal dropped down and joined them.
Several people in the group gasped. They had never seen that bird before. I had. Howard and I had watched ones just like it come to our balcony at Hanalei Bay year after year. We had marveled at them and their beauty. Seeing it stirred up emotion from somewhere quiet inside me.
But I did not yet know the best part was still coming.
Our guide said, almost in passing, "There is a beautiful red one that lives in the area. We might get to see it." I puzzled over that. A Northern Red Cardinal? In Hawaii? I thought she might be mistaken. Cardinals belong to the mainland. They are mainly on the eastern side of the United States. Cardinals are how Howie tells me he is close. He's proved that with some NOE's scribed elsewhere in this journal.
At our next stop, she pointed into a tree above us and said, "Look. There he is."
I looked up.
I was not prepared for the color. It was not the red of any crayon I have ever held. It was the red of something that exists outside of ordinary categories, bold, vivid and alive. His little head was poking out of the branches of a tree. As he looked down I was looking up. We held that gaze for a long moment, just the two of us, and I felt Howie so clearly a big smile broke across my face, my heart raced and I felt the taste of joy.
Then my brain interrupted, as brains do. Get your camera. I fumbled for it, tried to find him in the frame, and by the time I did, he took flight into the forested area.
I was deeply disappointed, but I did not need the photograph. I had already received the message. My heart was so full I did not know what to do with it except keep walking, grateful, and satisfied I had received my message. Who needs a turtle?
