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.