The Clear Path

My grandfather was a hardworking, gentle man of Japanese and Hawaiian heritage. He held a simple vocation clearing trails that wove across property, mostly owned by the Estate of James Campbell.

Amongst brush and other vegetation, stood sometimes small, sometimes massive mesquite trees, known to locals as kiawe. The crooked, thorny, yet somehow beautiful branches created intrusions on the pathway of those to come. It was his duty to clear the way. Afterward, he would cut the large kiawe into manageable logs, load up his large flatbed and drive back home. 

After his wife had passed, I would spend my weekends there, partly to keep him company, partly to get me out of my parents’ hair. Customers would drive up from all over the Island for their supply of firewood – most often used for cooking, not so much for warmth in the tropical climate. After a brief negotiation on price, they would peel off some bills for him, load up their cars or trucks and wave goodbye. 

When his neatly stacked row of kiawe ran low, he would restock by heading out in the morning, seemingly by a sixth sense, to another cluster of trees he had already scoped out, always willing to slow down, waving another car ahead, with a “shaka” and a smile to a driver you knew by name. This was a time you left your front door unlocked, where the neighborhood would gather to fill potholes. This was an era people mattered more than your green light.  

Shooting Grandpa’s Window

On such occasion when I was ten, I was eager to join him. Of course my presence was not required. My intention was to get in some needed target practice! Not long before, I coaxed grandpa at the local department store into gifting me a semi-automatic CO2-powered BB rifle. It was time to try it out. Instead of my more powerful and accurate Benjamin pump action, today I was to “plink” off as many tin cans as I could, as fast and long as the little gas cylinders would handle, setting up target after target on the back of his empty flatbed. 

Later that day, when Grandpa neared the end of his work, we both climbed into his ten-wheel truck, hungry and eager to get home. But scarcely before we moved a few feet, we heard a cracking sound behind us, and as Grandpa peered in the rear-view mirror, I heard a grunt from him unlike anything I had heard before.

Unbeknownst to me, during my effusive practice, a stray BB must have penetrated the rear window of the cab. Grandpa grew uncharacteristically quiet. The silence lingered with us the remainder of the drive home. Nothing was said as we drove through the cane fields, ambling down the slopes to the banks of Pearl Harbor, where his house was perched on a lot freckled with fruit trees of every kind. Despite his obvious annoyance, he never raised a hand, never raised his voice.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone

-Henry David Thoreau

As I recount that exchange, in a short few moments, my grandfather knew that it was a mistake, decided that any punishment would take away from the joyful moments, and that I had probably already learned my lesson. A good parenting decision places the effect of his action above the expression of his displeasure. A more harsh response could have changed my outlook forever. Instead, his reserved choice of grace was an example for me to witness and value to this day. 

So this story of simpler times serves as a guiding lesson to bring forward. In a world of activity and annoyance, it is easy to focus on the frustrations right in front of our eyes. But in the moments we find ourselves about to lose our temper, we must pause and decide the actual choice in front of us. It was not about a broken window or a failed project – it is about the people we touch and the impact on their lives long after we are gone. My Grandfather is long gone… but his values, his choices, his guidance lives on in me forever.

You are as big as the smallest thing you refuse to let go. 

-Albert Joy

Take time to delight in the beautiful moments life offers. Love your neighbor as well as your family. Take joy in the success you have already accomplished, for--trust me, we blow past our wins too quick. In times like this, it is important to extract the best lesson out of the hardest thing that life threw at you. Your lesson or good thing to work toward should be greater than the bad thing that happened. I know what it is for me. What is it for you?

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Lessons learned. Opportunity for growth.

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