In Loving Memory of Dr. Paul Pearsall

As mentioned in the last blog, we flew to Hawaii in order to attend the memorial service for my Uncle Paul. My Uncle Paul and my Aunt Celest lost their son, Scott, in January. His death affected them both profoundly and they bore a large burden of grief. Unfortunately my uncle was not able to overcome this load and his health started to decline. When he passed away he was surrounded by my aunt and their Hawaiian family and friends. Their spiritual mentor, Kawaikapuokalani Hewett (who likes to be called Kumu, which means teacher) was on a different island at the time but was on the speaker phone leading the group in prayers and songs. Uncle Paul died peacefully and was encircled with love. It seemed natural that Kumu would lead Paul’s service but he had plans to travel to Japan not long after Paul’s death. So with a very short time to plan, my aunt was able to put together a lovely ceremony very similar to Scott’s. Of course their beloved friends of the halau, or hula group, performed, as did their musician friends Jerry Santos and Kaleihua Kanei, also called Snookie. It was a very touching ceremony.

As with Scott, Paul was cremated and put in a beautiful urn. It was encrusted with a drawing of a turtle, signifying moving forward. The turtle held a special place in both my aunt and uncles hearts. Their pool, as you can see in the last entry, proved this. Next to the urn was a black and white photo of Paul, Scott and their old dog Hana. It is my aunt’s hope that they are all together once again. His urn was surrounded by a variety of leis. Not all of the leis were circles. In the Hawaiian culture leis for teachers were open on the end to help their knowledge flow to their students. The lei with the green leaves and orange flowers in the photo below is an example. The laua’e leaves the halau members wear in their hair is on the left.

Paul’s Urn and Leis at Service

Paul has had a very rich, long history in the medical field. He has received numerous awards for his research on the relationship between the brain, heart, and immune system and his ground-breaking research on heart transplant recipients receiving the memories of their donor led to the formation of the Cleveland Clinic’s new Heart/Mind program. His research on 500 of the most successful men and women in the world in a book titled Toxic Success: How to Stop Striving and Start Thriving earned him the prestigious Trail Blazer in Medicine Award from the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine. He has been selected by the Oxford Biographical Society as one of the 1000 most influential scientists of the 20th Century, and is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in Medicine and Health Care. He was presented with the Book of the Year Award in medicine in London, England for his book Super Immunity: Master Your Emotions, Improve Your Health. In addition to the 18 best selling books he has written, Paul has given thousands of lectures across the world and is often joined by his Hawaiian family to present edu-concerts illustrating the wisdom of ancient Hawaiian psychology and medicine as they relate to modern medical research in healthy balance between working and healthy family life.

Before moving to Hawaii over a decade ago, Paul and Celest lived in Michigan. Some of Paul’s former positions include professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, Director of Behavioral Medicine at Beaumont Hospital, Director of Professional Education at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction and founder and Chief of the first positive psychology clinic in the world at Sinai Hospital where he received the American Psychiatric Association’s Rush Gold Medal for scientific and clinical excellence.

He will be deeply missed not only by those who he touched personally but also by those in the medical field.

Hawaii

My Mom, Dad, sister Jenny, and her fiancé Tommy met us at the airport in Honolulu. In typical Hawaiian fashion they gave us leis as we arrived.

Getting “Leid” in Hawaii

We were in Hawaii for my Uncle Paul’s funeral service. For the first couple of days dave and I stayed in a hotel but after the service we moved in with my aunt near the eastern coast of O’ahu. We spent the next six or seven days hanging out with my aunt, doing odd jobs around their house and playing with their pooch Li’a.

Li’a
Eastern Coast of O’ahu Island Near Celest and Paul’s House
My aunt and uncle had a beautiful pool built in their backyard. As a special added touch, life-like turtles were added to the bottom of the pool. Black tiles surround the turtles so it looks as if the turtles really are swimming and their shadow is under them. The turtles look so real the gentleman who came to do the final inspection on the pool was going to write Celest and Paul up for having real sea turtles in their pool.

Their Backyard
jody Riding the Turtle
dave and I took a couple days for ourselves while we were in Hawaii. One day we took a driving tour to the North Shore of O’ahu. On our way to the North Shore we stopped at the Dole Pineapple Plantation for a short train ride into the pineapple fields. We learned pineapples are not native to Hawaii. In fact no one is completely sure when the first pineapple came to Hawaii but they may have originally come from a shipwrecked Spanish ship in 1527. It was Captain John Kidwell that is credited with founding Hawaii’s pineapple industry. In the 1880’s he experimented with a variety of different types of pineapples before finally deciding the Smooth Cayenne with its uniform texture and cylindrical form was the best. It is this variety that Jim Dole began planting at the Dole Plantations.

Dole Plantation
The pineapples at this plantation were not started from seed. Instead the top of the pineapple plant is sliced off and then hand planted into the ground. It takes this newly planted pineapple 18 months to produce it’s first fruit and another 13-14 months for it’s second fruit. They can harvest two crops in three years or three crops in four years before the field is knocked back down and a new pineapple top is planted. An amazing 27,000 to 33,000 pineapples can be planted per acre.

Pineapple Field
Baby Pineapple
As I’m sure most of you know, the North Shore is a popular surfing destination in the winter. Due to the island’s location, giant storm generated swells make their long trek across the Pacific Ocean to break on the island’s beaches and reefs. However, in the summer the water is perfectly flat and suitable for snorkeling. We didn’t go swimming in the ocean but we did enjoy the views we got along the coastline.

jody at Sunset Beach on the North Shore Although the surf was flat on the North Shore, Waikiki Beach is a consistent surf spot during the summer. Early one morning we rented a surf board and gave it a try. It was a lot of fun and quite a work out. We were both successful, however, the locals made it look much easier than it actually was.

Jody Paddling
dave Surfing
On our way to the airport we made a stop at a famous skateboarding spot called Wallows. Turns out it wasn’t too far from my aunt’s house. Wallows was made famous in a 1987 Bones Brigade video. Dave, of course, was very excited to check it out even if he didn’t have his skateboard with him.

Wallows