Today I’m speaking as Tasha’s friend, but what you may not know is I’m also her cousin, at least we’ve been telling that story all these years now. Cause its my understanding somehow my dad is related to the Unga’s, which is Tasha’s mother’s family and I never bothered to check the genealogy because I just wanna be cousins so I don’t wanna check if its not true. But we’re cousin’s not just friends.
And its also my understanding in the Tongan language there’s no word for cousin, there’s brothers or sisters and your extended family and relatives are that close. Um, I never check that either, um I don’t know the Tongan language very well but I like that too so I’m not going to check. I’m gonna stick with that story.
And so that’s why I refer to my cousin Tasha as my sister. And when strangers would ask us,
Are you guys sisters and I would say, YES and I remember one woman when we were shopping at Ala Moana asked us that question and we said, of course, yeah, and she said, “Oh yeah I CAN TELL YOU GUYS HAVE THE SAME FLAVOR! See even strangers know we’re sisters, we’re sisters.
My relationship with Tasha and all those sitting behind me in pink is more than friendship.
We are family and we’re also her bridesmaids in her line, that’s why we’re matching…..if you we’re wondering why the heck, yeah……….!
We thought it was important that you know the history and the origins of this family so you can understand the depth of our friendship. And that’s what I’m gonna talk about today.
We have pretty much two generations in our family of friends. I might get scolding’s for this. And there’s a younger generation, that’s me, Sina, Keawe, we’re talking today. We’re classmates, Class of 90. And then there’s also part of that younger generation..Tasha, who’s actually Class of 91 and Carol, and others but everybody always thought Tasha was our classmate because we were together all the time but she wasn’t but we’re that younger generation. And after high school we went to college at BYU Hawaii and there we hooked up with our “older generation“, my sister Janet, Class of 85, Lori Atoa, Class of 82, Wendy Anae Class of 83 and Sonny Campbell Class of 81. These two generations, we found ourselves doing things together all the time. We were now fellow students together at BYU Hawaii.
And Janet, Tasha, Sina and I, we were also house mates in a place we like to call Hale 7 dorm which was my parents house on Iosepa Street.
And Tasha and Janet were roommates in one room, although Tasha never really officially moved out of her house at Kahuku, that was just her second house and roommate in Laie, and Sina and I were roommates. We did everything together. We rode bikes, took naps, we were laughing but napping was very important for us, the sleeping part. Talk story, went shopping, wrote newsletters, had parties and outings, stayed up late laughing and talking.
Our neighbor, who was a fellow student, would tell us, “Wow, you guys always have fun parties, lots of guys at your house.”
And I was like, GUYS?
“Yah, I can hear them laughing!“ But yeah that was us!
We never ever had guys, maybe only once in a while Keawe came over. But we were all sisters there.
And my dad thought we were all sisters too and that we were all his daughters. Whenever he needed something he would call on any one of us, to come do it, without hesitation.
Like the time somebody rode down Iosepa on their horse and then dodo, horse dodo right in the middle of
the street and who was assigned to clean it up? Sina and me. And who’s the one that took the pictures of us? Janet and Tasha.
We had laughs between the two generations. Um like the one time when Tasha and I who were underage got passed security at the night club and then Wendy and Janet got stopped, and they were way over age,
because they said that they looked too young! (loud laughter)
And sometimes we had little feuds between the generations.
Just a few years ago you know Tasha was a teacher and so are many of these pink people here.
So the last day of summer after talking to Sina we decided, hey lets go eat Papa Ole’s. Last day of summer…you guys gotta go back to school so you know just call each other. Call Tasha and Keawe, come meet us over there. And called Janet, she said okay, and you know some time passed by the time I was getting around to calling Wendy and Lori. Called Wendy and she’s like, “I can’t make it”. Called Lori and she’s like “I can’t make it” and Janet called “Oh, I can’t make it.”
So Sina, Tasha, Keawe and I roll into Hauula Shopping Center, and who do we see sitting at Papa Ole’s?
With a red table cloth, centerpiece with glasses with beautiful juice and garnish on it is Wendy, Lori, Janet and Sonny. They were like, “Oh are you coming to eat here?”
They thought we took too long to invite them like they weren’t invited so they made their own party. And we were not allowed to sit with them on their beautiful table. (laughter)
We had to sit on the side. So we love each other but we also feud with each other.
But way back when we decided we all need to be related somehow. So we made up a genealogy for all of us that would connect us all to the same family and we decided we would all be related through Captain Cook. And the story was that Capt James Cook sailed in his boat and he had three daughters. And one of them jumped ship in Tonga and the next two jumped ship in Samoa. These were Adele, Alice, and Helen. Mine and Janet, Wendy and Lori’s mom’s. Timing doesn’t work out but it works for us and then they all married local Tongan and Samoan boys and had their families and then all of the rest of the people that we have in our group are somehow connected to these extended families. And so we really think we’re a family and we even have a genealogy to prove it even though it’s fake.
We do all things that families do. We took family pictures, went on family vacations, had FHE, we had family Christmas traditions, and there’s been numerous weddings in our family and we even had a family reunion. Our very first Cook family reunion was held in 1995. We made the family tree. Me and Tasha stayed up all night coloring the tree and making the pictures so that we knew how we were all related to each other. We are very dear to each other and through the years our roommates and housemates have changed. We’ve started families of our own and followed in new pursuits.
But we still get together to celebrate the special occasions and in the last few years Tasha has brought our family back even closer again. Planning pink parties, making videos, making pink costumes, driving her to appointments. Going out to eat, giving massages and fighting over who give the best massage.
Spending time with her and thanks to Tasha we now have a family uniform. I cherish the family times that we had with her. Especially in this last year where we bonded, shared, laughed, cried, sang and loved each other. Now she has gone before us. She is our first generation in heaven. Now she will be there to greet us. And we’ll see her again someday. I’m so grateful for her love and example. I’m just glad for her loving us but I just I know how much she loves her family. She would do anything for them. And I am just so thankful to watch her family and the service they gave and their love for her. Thank you so much. And I am grateful for the plan of salvation and the knowledge that our bodies and spirits can be reunited and that we can see each other again. I love you my sister Tasha and I will see you again someday.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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