Yesterday I went to visit Kay, my first cousin Roger’s recent widow, to see if she was okay and to offer help. I rang the doorbell and knocked on the front door. No answer. So I sat down on the porch and dialed her number. “I’m here.” She asked me to go around the left side of the house and up the steps to the back entrance.
Those red concrete steps. A sudden flash of memory. A two-year-old’s memory. I lived there until I was two! I remember going up and down those steps with my mother. This was Uncle Kiu’s house on 6th avenue, that backed up to the house my parents and I lived in on 7th avenue.
My mother didn’t drive, so she either walked or took the bus with me in tow, several blocks down the hill to Kapahulu avenue where all the shops were. She also carried me back up that steep hill, I remember. I also remember the butcher reserving the end piece of char siu for me.
So from our house, we took a short cut through the back yards and past Uncle Kiu’s on our walk. Somewhere I have a photo of me on those steps, and perhaps that is how I am able to remember those occasions.
Then we moved to Wahiawa next door to Uncle Harry and Aunty Edna on Kilani avenue for a change in climate and lived there until I was 12. Today I got to thinking about my childhood and my relatives and Uncle Harry’s wonderful two-crusted banana pie that he often baked.
Hey, are there any bananas in the kitchen this afternoon? Yes! I decided to make Uncle Harry’s pie.
Warm, fragrant banana pie with flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, lime, and butter. Mmmm…
Rebekah’s Studio 
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