Word travels fast in a small community like Kaaawa. Although we moved into town and sold our home in Kaaawa nine years ago, we still have some roots out there. So it took less than 12 hours for the news of Ward Lemn’s death to reach us.

This hurt. We met Ward years ago because his home was along the path we followed on our early morning walks to the beach. When we walked past on the last leg of our walk, he would often be sitting in his garage, or in a chair out in the driveway, mending his fishing nets. And things grew from there.

I previously wrote about how our lives intertwined, and I think I’ll just save some time and repost that here.

We do miss living in Kaaawa. We lived in that small windward community for just shy of 30 years before moving back into Honolulu after my parents had died.

We bought our Kaaawa house and moved there in mid-1988. I believe it was sometime in 1995 that a friend and neighbor got us to get up early in the morning and walk the neighborhood with her and her husband, later extending our route to walk as far as we could on the beach toward Kualoa.

Along the way, we were greeted by dogs, and I started carrying dog treats to reward them. It got to the point that we were buying large boxes of Costco dog biscuits, although ours was a feline household, and I would carry the daily ration in a bag slung over my shoulder when we left the house each morning. A few years later, I started posting photos of our favorite Kaaawa dogs. Those Kaaawa dogs are long gone, but their photos are still available online.

We met people our walks, and eventually became acquainted with many of them. Some were what Meda calls “animal-mediated friendships.” We met dogs, and found that almost everyone is willing to talk about their dog, and we were always interested in hearing their stories. And that provided just enough of a bond to create new friendships.

But sometimes, even without a dog involved, we struck up conversations with others who lived along our route and who happened to be around as we walked by. One of those was Ward Lemn, who was working at Kamehameha Schools when we first met him. Ward had also been a fisherman for most of his life, and I often took photos of the many small boats and nets in the yard, or of Ward in his sitting in his carport mending nets.

Somewhere along the way I was asked if I would bring my camera and take photos during a family party. Now, these aren’t just simple affairs. Their parties are the real deal, usually drawing at least a couple of hundred people, with several generations of siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunties and uncles, mixing freely with neighbors invited to join the festivities, including ourselves. Food preparations begin weeks before an event and gain steam as the bid day approaches. This family has cooking for hundreds down to a science!

Over the years, I’ve taken and shared photos of a variety of these events, from Ward’s retirement party to several baby lauas, high school graduation parties, graduation photos, even at least a couple of weddings, over two decades.

Along the way, other circumstances brought us closer in a strange way. We were burglarized by one of Ward’s grandsons, not once but twice over a period of several years. His family helped us retrieve a few of the stolen items, and along the way we learned that the boy had burglarized Ward’s home as well, drawing us further into the family web as we all had to struggle with how to deal with the tensions and emotions the situation created.

In any case, I was approached recently to take photos at a graduation party for another of Ward’s grandchildren, who just graduated from Castle High School. I gladly agreed, and yesterday was the day. I had fretted for a couple of days over what camera to take with me, and ended up stuffing two into a camera bag, along with spare batteries and memory cards, lens cleaner, and a small towel, just in case. I arrived in Kaaawa toward the end of the afternoon, and immediately was surprised to be reminded that I had previously taken photos at the graduate’s 1st birthday luau at the begging of 2007!

All those many party’s are a blur in my mind, and it took me more than an hour of searching through old backup files this morning to discover that I had, indeed, captured those images from that particular baby luau. I haven’t found my original files, but I did find a backup of what I had originally posted online back in 2007. Unfortunately, those were tiny digital images by today’s standards, most just 640×480 pixels. So I spent a while this morning making new copies at twice the size and reposting them to share (again) with the family.

I hope they enjoy the photos as much as I do!

In any case, Kaaawa is like that. A small community with lots of connections. We miss that more than anything, and are glad to retain at least some ties.

In any case, Aloha, Ward. We’ll miss you.