Mom and stepdad around 1960 at their home on Mokuhonua Lane in Ha'aheo, outside Hilo. This column is the second in a series on being moms and dads and the values that I have grown accustomed to and how it can shape families today. For background, please read my April column on page 9 of KWO, “Bungo and Papa Joe, growing gardens.” - Photo: Courtesy of Jeno Enocencio

Dad's little soldier

By Jimmy F. “Jeno” Enocencio

In the old days the mortuary would bring the deceased home so family members and friends could mourn over them. Family and friends from the sugar plantation camp came to mourn dad as he lay in a coffin in his black suit. Being Catholic everyone was dressed in black, as compared to today's standards of aloha attire or casual wear. Dad was there for days, and after everyone had left, I sneaked a peek from his bedroom door and saw men in black come in to do something for dad. I thought maybe they were changing his clothes, since he had been wearing them for days; and because he never had a bath, that's why he was starting to “smell stink.” I remember the black doctor's bag and the long hose that they carried in and the red juice that was leaking on the parlor floor. When I looked at dad after the men in black had left, dad was fresh like Mercurochrome; he had a new smell, he wasn't “stink” anymore, but mediciney.

His twin sister, my Aunt Filomena screamed her painful shrieks while holding on to the casket, begging for dad to awaken from his deep sleep. The only sounds heard were KA-PLUNK! Right on to the floor, nearly bringing the casket down when performing her dramatic fainting spells. It was a good thing that my cousins Jo-Jo and David were big enough to hold the casket up so that dad didn't hit the floor with her. After two weeks with sunken eyes and more flies coming into the house than friends and family, dad was buried with full military honors as a WWII veteran. I missed my dad. Mom said he was sleeping. I knew better though. I saw the sweaty Portugee and Kanaka man throw the dirt onto the flowers that lay on his coffin, until the puka was full. And I was there to get the flag that rested on his coffin as the soldier gave it to me with a salute. Nope, dad wasn't sleeping; he would have awakened by now.

Mom was now alone with four little boys, I being the eldest at 6. She met this really handsome man named Juanito Cristobal. His friends called him “Juaning,” so I did the same. I was that little pest, the same kind you find when you're dating a girl who has a little brother that does the devil to you. But you eat it because you want to show your girlfriend that you can handle and that her little brother's “so cool,” when actually you wanna ring his neck and throw 'em in the dumpster. That's the kind of little pest that I was to Juaning, climbing all over him and playing boxing with; and punching him real hard below the belt.

While he went along with most of my antics and horsing around, somehow I ended up living with my grandma Virginia and Papa Joe. Eventually I made my way back to mom, but I realized she was getting fat. A few months later I get another brother named Gerald. I also realized that Juaning was there every day at the new house; another man had replaced my dad. This man whom I climbed all over and played boxing with, was not the same man. The man that was making babies with my mom was made of stone. And as I looked at him with his cold steely eyes and occasional Filipino grunts that he gestured from his taunt lips, I knew that this was the enemy; that the good guy, my dad, wasn't around to save me.

Aunt Filomena was furious with mom when she found someone to replace my dad before the year of mourning was over and for not wearing her black garments. Mom was Protestant back then. She believed you mourn and you go on, which she did. One thing about mom, she never forgot to put flowers on my dad's grave on Memorial and Veterans days. When she did, she did it alone. When I visit my dad, I visit him alone too, and ask him: How am I doing? Am I making him proud? Am I keeping his name clean? Am I still Dad's Little Soldier? … I hope so dad. I hope so.

Jeno Enocencio writes about the many hats he wears.
Email pointman_jeno@msn.com