I was among the Finalist parents who didn’t get to share a word of insight at last Friday’s FinTalks—which I wish had been an hour long and not the usual half-hour ::chuckle::

My hanai son’s name is Pono, as you know.

And as you also know by now, the word means “righteousness,” or “goodness.” It’s a beloved name Hawaiians often give to boys. And so you’ve probably heard of the phrase (or blessing) “Mālama pono!” — take good care of yourself, or of each other. Broadly understood, it is an entreaty to be in balance and alignment... with yourself, with others, with the land, with ’Akua.

It’s what I wish now for you, for Adri, and your child together.

What a gift it is, for that child to be born in Hawaii—islands of aloha, locus of an extraordinary and ineffable power that I’ve been fortunate to experience for the past 4 decades now. It’s a quality that doesn’t yield itself easily to words, mediated as it is by touch: by the honi between people, and between you and the physical presence of the earth there itself... the forests, the beaches, the volcanoes, the estuaries, the ocean, the streams, the sky. I know that Adri, in her community work in Waianae, has already felt this power, and come to know it. And so, then, have you.

And soon, very soon... so will Baby Z.

I looked through my iPhone for a suitable photo to accompany this musing, and found one from about 8 years ago. I remember it was from a hike I made through ’Iao Valley in Maui, at which I went off-trail for a while, I recall. Sometimes it’s good to feel lost and unmoored—because then, finding your path back to the familiar grounds your humanity in a most basic, elemental way… and you find home again.

I like the surprise of that magenta blossom in the middle of the tropical stream-bed; I still feel echoes of the delight at that moment of seeing that splash of color amidst the dense, deep green of things. Here, in this composition, it stands for the new life of your child, being born to the light, emerging from the enveloping dark of Adri’s womb.

And so... mālama pono, my friend. You and Adri are now in the “after” part of things, in which the sustaining of a new life—with the most profound and beautiful aloha—will become the center of your lives for this next coming while.

With warmest aloha,
Lloyd