Leilani’s Aloha…..
Lounge is the location the Evite said and people wondered what this establishment was in the middle of a residential neighborhood. And they asked myDarlin’ Robert Kenui Pope and me, just who is Leilani anyway? As we move inside our little tropical paradise nestled snugly in our two car garage, Leilani gently spreads aloha to all who enter.
Leilani, who we rescued from a local thrift shoppe as we searched for treasures one rainy afternoon years ago. There she was… on the top shelf by the checkout, all by herself looking for her forever home. For someone had taken her from her homeland of Hawaii and abandoned her in a land foreign to her. And she must have spotted this local boy, myDarlin’ coming a mile away…. OK, maybe an aisle away. Strangely enough, we saw her at the same time and said, ‘Leilani!’ and that very day she came home with us.
Isn’t it funny how a dashboard hula doll can change your life? And she traveled with us, went to gigs and helped us to decorate her lounge. In Leilani’s Aloha Lounge, the music and aloha hang in the air, and if you close your eyes you’ll feel the slightest breeze. And soon after, Leilani sent her kieki (children) to live with all of the Ohana near and far, and the luckiest of all went back to her homeland of Hawaii to live with myDarlin’s sister.
myDarlin’ left this world of ours to be with our Lord in paradise, and now our sweet Leilani is also flying as his sister gave her to the kind pilot of Paradise Helicopters. Every day, they fly above the islands, watching the lava flow, the waves crash onto the shore and the sunset over the horizon. And I know that myDarlin’ joins them, celebrating his native land.
And this land of Hawaii is like none other I have ever experienced; a living land with kind spirited people and atmosphere of Aloha. I listened as a local politician gave an inaugural speech and thought to myself that it is his approach that could truly change our world. He said that ‘Aloha is more than hello and goodbye, it’s how we live’ and I couldn’t agree more. ‘At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what we say; it matters what we do.
Today, I am filled with gratitude that God brought myDarlin’ into my life and I had the opportunity to learn what it is to live aloha. And now myDarlin’ and Leilani can experience the paradise of Hawaii right here at Leilani’s Aloha Lounge and in the skies over Hawaii as they both fly with the angels.
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