On October 30, 2019, my grandmother Ramona Wegesend passed away. She was 91 years old and was one day away from hitting the 2 month mark past her 91st birthday
my photo
Ramona Wegesend
August 31, 1928, to October 30, 2019
When I visited her home on her 91st birthday (8/31/2019) she seemed relatively healthy.
Just a few weeks later, she had to go to the hospital due to irregular heartbeat. The first time I visited her, she was bed-ridden but was able to engage in conversations as normal.
Then a few weeks later, on October 15 (my birthday), I visited her in the hospital again. At this point, she was very weak and incoherent. It was the last time I saw her.
The last time I saw was a huge contrast from her very independent spirit. Even though she was relying on a walker for years, she refused to move in with relatives who encouraged her to move in with them. She lived life on her own terms.
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Early life
My grandmother was born Ramona Caban on August 31, 1928 on the island of Kauai. She was a descendant of Puerto Rican immigrants who came to work on Hawaii's sugar plantations in the early 1900's. She grew up at a time when the plantation workers lived in segregated ethnic camps (ie one camp for Filipinos, another for Japanese, Portuguese, etc.)
When she still a young girl, her family moved to the island of Oahu. More specifically, the family moved to the Lanakila section of Kalihi. While most of the family eventually moved out of that neighborhood, my grandmother remained there for the rest of her life.
My grandmother was 13 years old when the Pearl Harbor attacks happened. That's only a few miles from where she was living. After that, Hawaii was under martial law. My grandmother would tell me stories about living under all those restrictions (ie. have to carry a gas mask everywhere, all windows had to be painted black, all lights had to be off at night).
Parenthood
Only a few years later, my grandmother would have the 1st of 8 children. That would be my uncle Marshall, who died earlier this year.
My grandmother had him in her early teen years. I bring that up, because when I was a kid, I learned all the birth years of my relatives and from that, I did the math. My grandma still laughs about the time I brought that up to her. I was still a kid when I asked her about that, though now as an adult who is aware about the traumas and stigma that teen mothers face, I wouldn't bring that issue up unless they bring it up first.
My grandmother had a few more sons: William (Puddy), Gordon, Patrick, Warren, and then she finally had a daughter Sharleen. That would be my mother! Then she had another daughter, Linda and a last son & child Michael.
The father of most of those kids was William Paul Wegesend, a man of Portuguese & German ancestry. That would be where my last name come from. He died about a month before I was born. Because of that circumstance, I was much more connected to my Puerto Rican side than I was to the German-Portuguese side.
Ramona Wegesend and William Paul Wegesend divorced while my mother was still growing up, but my grandmother continued to use her ex's last name until the very end.
(an obituary for William Paul Wegesend as posted on the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. My grandmother's name wasn't mentioned they already divorced, but my mother's name is listed as one of his surviving children) https://www.newspapers.com/clip/15867834/william_paul_wegesend_obituary/
For much of the time, my grandmother raised all 8 children while living in public housing, being a single parent for some of that time. But poverty was no excuse for her; if any of her kids brought a toy they found in the park, she would demand that they put it back (or else, hint, hint, hint) because it's not yours.
My grandmother grew up in a time when higher education wasn't accessible to women in her situation. She worked as a janitor at a hospital.
She never learned how to drive and relied on public transportation. The same is still true for me. We're just not car people.
Becoming my grandparent
Her children eventually branched out, some moving off-island, some moving to the other side of the island.It was my mother who took the most care for my grandmother. For much of the time when we were growing up, my parents and my grandmother were living in the same building in Lanakila Housing. Of all of her grandchildren, me and my brothers were the closest ones to her.
Like my grandmother, my mother had her first child (that would be my oldest brother Frank) while she was still a teenager. My mother's relationship with Frank's father didn't last long, so it was basically my grandmother had to help raise Frank. My father eventually joined in and made me and my other brother Ramiro.
When we were children, me and my brother would go to grandmother's house to sleepover Saturday night and she would make pancakes Sunday morning. It was one of my most precious memories of childhood.
Even though my parent's home (in the same building) had much more space inside, it was grandma that had the bigger yard. The yard was her pride & joy where she maintained the shrubs, grass, gingers & more. The yard has gotten major praise from our neighbors.
Parents moved, grandma stayed
In 1995, when I was a few months away from high school, my parents had to leave Lanakila Housing because their income was too high to remain in a public housing complex meant for low-income residents.
There were many places nearby that my parents could rent. However, they wanted to be so-called "homeowners" (actually, they signed a long-term mortgage, making their lives owned by the bank, so much for "home ownership") and the houses they could afford were on the other side of the island.
My parents left Lanakila Housing, my grandmother stayed. I wanted to stay with my grandmother.
Like my grandmother, I liked where we were at, despite the stigma and stereotype related to public housing and Kalihi. It was home.
My parents' decision to move to the other side of the island created a rift within my family that took decades to heal.
I'd rather stay in a small unit with my grandmother in the ghetto with no cable TV ( this at a time when MTV actually played music videos back then and YouTube didn't exist yet) and sleep on the floor than to live with my parents in a house with middle-class comforts.
As far as I'm concerned, my grandmother's home was my real home, not my parent's house on the other side of the island.
I used my grandmother's address when enrolling at McKinley High School since it was in the school's district. I preferred that school because my friends were there, and that school's location was just perfect (near downtown, Ala Moana & more).
The school's registrar said at assemblies to use our parent's address. I encouraged my parents to move back to avoid violating that policy. They refused. This caused major tension with my parents that took decades to heal. It was only this year (2019) for my father to say "back then I didn't understand how you felt, but now I do"
Learn more at https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2019/07/emotional-sunday.html
Near the end of high school, I stayed in my grandma's unit full time. It was where I was supposed to be.
I understand that it could be a challenge to raise a teenage grandson in your home. But we respected each other's personal space the best we could in such a tiny living space. As long as I cleaned up after myself, it was all good.
During that time, she loved to watch Oprah in the afternoon and watch Joe Moore's newscast in the evening. We would be talking about what we saw and share ideas.
My grandmother since I became an adult.
My grandmother's former unit required climbing a lot of stairs. But circa September 2002, she was getting to the point where she couldn't do it so easily anymore. So she moved to another unit on the other side of School Street. Not only was it easier to walk into, it was a much bigger unit with 2 bedrooms even though she was the only full-time resident. At the time, I was in college spending most of the year in the dorms (which I didn't really like that much) but I did move in for a while in the summer of 2003 before I moved into my own apartment.
However, around the time of her moving into her new unit, my grandmother lost one of her sons, who I call Uncle Patrick. He was very close to both my grandmother and my mother.
my blog post on Uncle Patrick
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2017/09/uncle-patrick-15-years-later.html
My grandmother continued to reach some milestones.
We had the 80th birthday celebration in 2008 at Buffet 100 with the extended family.
For her 85th birthday celebration in 2014, we had a smaller gathering at the 100 Sails Restaurant in Hawaii Prince Hotel.
For her 90th birthday, my grandmother had a very low-key gathering. So low-key that I found out too late.
Then on Saturday, August 31, 2019, we celebrated her final birthday at her unit. It was me, my parents, my nieces (their parents work on Saturdays). We had brunch and many conversations. My nieces learned the hardships that women of my grandmother's generation had to go through. The nieces felt grateful they lived in more gender-equitable times, even though they complained their father (my brother) puts restrictions on going out, and I spilled the beans about the freedom their father had when he was their age. (sorry brother, had to keep it real).
Afterward, my parents and nieces left grandmother's home, but I stayed and talked with grandma! We talked about our lives now as well as her experiences before I was born. At the same time, we were watching old movies from before my time. That was her favorite thing to watch.
Life after grandmother
On the morning of October 30, I got a phone call from my brother around 6:20 when I was at the bus stop.At that point, it was expected. She was in the hospital for weeks and it was time.
Last Saturday (11/02/2019), me, my parents, my brother, nieces and some uncles & more came to what was my grandmother's home to clear it out.
I inherited a stereo and a TV. I also took some canned food, towels, a scale, fan & a few other items. Other stuff went to other relatives or to her neighbors. Others had to placed in the dumpster.
Some relatives came & went during this time. Then my father delivered some Zip-Pacs for what would most likely be my last meal at grandma's unit.
The funeral is coming up later this month. It will likely be a major gathering of many generations in our family tree coming together. I will probably see relatives that I haven't seen in years.
Thanksgiving & Christmas will be coming up soon, and we will definitely feel an emptiness now that grandma will no longer be with us. The thing I loved about talking with grandma was learning about life in Hawaii before I was born, comparing how things were back then versus now. My grandmother represented living history to me, and now that is gone.
😢
