“I was born in the 70’s at Queen’s Hospital and raised by my parents in Waipahu. I grew up running barefoot and making mud pies in our backyard. My dad would go fishing and bring home kampachi and my mom would clean it and cook it on the grill outside. It was a simple life growing up.
“In my young adulthood, I met an Ewa Beach born and raised boy who turned out to be my ‘meant to be fairytale.’ We loved to hike, surf, and frolic in the sun, but the number one thing we shared in common was ohana. Sunday afternoons and birthdays, we would get our family and friends together to celebrate with potlucks at someone’s house or at Zippy’s.
“We were married on the the beach in Waialua and soon had two little ones. We worked full time – he at UPS and I at UH Manoa. We lived near UH and tried saving every penny life could throw at us, but there was always something that took away that savings.
“We loved the hanabata days that we were not able to give our keiki. It came down to our keiki and what we wanted to give them.
“In June 2015, we packed up our little ohana after selling everything we owned and hopped on a plane to the Great Northwest. We had never dreamed of living anywhere else and we had always dreamed of our keiki growing up with their cousins. It was heartbreaking to leave everything we knew and leave who we are. Hawaii made us.
“We can only dream to come back and buy a home like the one we have now. We can only dream to raise our keiki in the warm beaches in Ewa Beach or Haleiwa. We can only dream to grow old and frolic in the warm sun in a home we built with memories. We can only dream of our old Hawaii.”
Liane Jackson
Vancouver, Washington
