UPCOMING EVENTS
1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY
DATE: May 18 2019 Saturday
Location: Bamboo Grill (Wailua Golf Course)
600 - 1000pm
RSVP: 808-652-3667
PRAYERS
DATE: May 30 - June 1st 2018
LOCATION: 4362 Uahiapele Street Lihue HI 96766
TIME: 6 - 8pm
Attire: Aloha
FUNERAL AND MEMORIAL SERVICE
DATE: June 1st, 2018 - Friday
LOCATION: Immaculate Conception Church
TIME: Viewing at 8-930am
Eulogy 930am
Service at 10am
Burial: Kauai Memorial Gardens
FAMILY GATHERING: Lihue Neighborhood Center
TIME: After burial services
Attire: Aloha
40-Day Follow Up Prayer
June 22, 2018
6pm
4362 Uahiapele St. Lihue
1-YEAR Follow up Prayer
May 14 2019
6pm
Family Reunion
Kaua'i - March 29 - 31, 2019
Oahu - March 27 - 29, 2020
If you would like to send flowers, please click here.
Grandma's Eulogy
Castora Asuncion Guillermo was born on March 28,1922 in Laoag, Philippines to Guadalupe and Eulogio Guillermo. At the age of 1, she, her older sister Nicolasa, my Aunty Nancy , and older brother Nicanor, my Apo Nick, along with their parents boarded a ship and headed to America because her father had been recruited by the Hawaii Sugar Planters Association to work. In order to secure passage the family had to lie about Castora’s age and say that she met the minimum age requirement of 2. The journey took 3 months in steerage and when they reached Hawaii the family settled in the Spanish camp in Waipahu where my great grandfather labored as a “cut cane” man on the plantation and my great grandmother worked as a laundress.
Growing up Castora was a tomboy. She played softball, tennis, and even volleyball. For softball she was the catcher and grandma Nancy was the pitcher. They were an awesome tandem and growing up me and the other cousins would always hear stories about their softball days. In fact, all of us girl cousins grew up playing softball just like Castora and Nancy and they would enjoy watching our Bobby Sox games.
At the age of 16, grandma went to work at Dole Cannery in Honolulu where she worked the night shift earning 35 cents an hour prepping the pineapples. Her salary went straight to her mother to help support the family.
In 1941 she graduated from Waipahu High School with dreams of becoming a highschool home economics teacher. Unfortunately, this dream was interrupted by World War 2 and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. At that time the family was living on Waipio Peninsula with a full view of Pearl Harbor and the atrocities of war left an impression on Grandma.
Soon after, while playing tennis for Oahu Sugar, Grandma would meet my grandpa, Catalino Suero who was her tennis coach. They fell in love, got married and had 5 children, my mom Carmencita, Catalino the second who died in infancy from whooping cough, Catalino the third, my uncle Tino, Kathleen, my aunty Kathy, my aunty Charlmaine as well as her niece/hanai daughter, Andrita, my Aunty Rita. My mom shared so many stories about growing up in Waipahu with all of her siblings and her cousins, and I know they were good times, but in the 1950s they moved to Kauai when my grandpa, who worked for the Hawaii Sugar Planters Association as a supervisor in sugar technologies, was assigned to Lihue.
When they first arrived on Kauai, they stayed at the Kuboyama Hotel (now the Nawiliwili Tavern), and later rented a home from Mamoru Kaneshiro (then-owner of Kaneshiro Hog Farms) in Kalaheo, and later moved to Lihue, where they rented a house owned by the Oanas. In 1967 thanks to Aunty Kathy’s employment with the Lihue Plantation Store they bought their first home in Molokoa which will always be to me Grandmas house--pokey grass and yard filled with plants, refrigerator stocked with food, and door always unlocked. At that time Grandma worked at Yoneji store as a butcher and the store was a playground for many years for my cousins and I. It was always so much fun to explore in the store before we made our way to the back to find grandma. I was always so envious of my Kauai cousins who were so at home in Yoneji store and its treasures--which to me meant those red plastic sandals that squeaked when you walked!
Even back then, life on Kauai was different from Oahu and grandma fell in love with fishing and crabbing. My Grandpa Suero, being the boss would go to visit his single laborers in Kipu camp to play cards and socialize. On one of those visits that Grandma went with she met and befriended Dativa Padilla. Through talking the two found out that Dativa knew her mother Guadalupe from the days in the Philippines because the two would go down to the river together to fetch water. Their friendship grew and they became fishing partners with the Suero clan travelling to Kipu to fish on the weekends as well as travel to Niumalu to go crabbing. The two families eventually became intertwined when Dativa’s son, Aurilio, my dad, married Castora’s daughter, Carmencita, my mom. And that’s where I come in, I am Aurene Castora Padilla, the Oahu granddaughter, the one that inherited grandma’s name, the pack rat that also cannot throw anything away, the one that loves the ocean and also has that same photographic memory.
When my mom told me early Monday morning that my grandma had passed away I was in denial. Grandma just celebrated her 96th bday a few months ago and lived a long and full life, but I could not believe that she was gone.
How could the woman who had been there for all of my life’s milestones be gone? How could the woman who survived world wars, cancer, and even being hit by a car be no longer with us? She was the matriarch of our huge Guillermo/Suero/Padilla family. Always present, always the one that we all looked up to--the one that represented our large clan with grace, humor, dignity, gentleness, and a huge smile. Grandma was a survivor, she was our hero. She was there for all of us all the time. I could not imagine a world where she did not exist--there was still so much I wanted her to be a part of, so much more to share, so many more trips for her to make to Oahu to celebrate with me, I had never had the chance to send my own kids Dannika and Noah to live with her on Kauai for summers like I had planned to. There was still so much for all of us to learn from her. 96 years did not seem like enough time.
I started to get ready for work by making breakfast, and as I opened the spoon drawer my eyes rested upon this beautiful soup spoon. It is the only one resting in our drawer of plain plastic soup spoons and it has been there forever, never used. This spoon that no one uses has been in the drawer ever since I can remember (because I was blessed with grandma’s amazing memory) and I know precisely where it came from. Grandma brought it home in her purse, wrapped in a napkin after a party. Grandma was known for bringing things home from parties. Whether it was some filipino dessert, a half eaten piece of puto, or even a soup spoon, you always had to check her bag for napkins when you came home from a party. She claimed that she was bringing home balon to eat later or to feed her dogs. I will never forget the time she made a whole pot of pork guisantes at our house. It was yummy but as she cooked for an army, there was plenty left. I caught her spooning the whole pot of pork guisantes into our dog Koa’s food bowl. I was horrified and scolded her but she insisted, and boy, did Koa love grandma’s pork guisantes he ate the whole bowl up!!!
And grandma loved a party. I loved it when our family had something going on because it meant that grandma would be coming to visit from Kauai and she would be staying at our house. I always gladly gave up my bed when grandma came to Honolulu (as she called it) and slept on the couch. Her visits always meant that at some point we would be stopping by Pearlridge or Libby’s to get some of her favorite steamed manapua, rice cake, pepeiao, char siu, roast port, and pork hash to bring back to Kauai in the pink box. Later, when I was able to drive it meant that I would be taking her “Pashad” or “galavanting” to see her old stomping grounds. As much as Honolulu had changed since she lived here she could still tell me exactly where to go and how to get there (something I sadly did not inherit). Grandma would tell me that we were going to see her best friend Barbara. I would ask her, “Grandma, did you call her to let her know you coming?” And of course the answer was no. Like the olden days before phones we were simply going to drive to her house. Grandma would navigate and we would pull up to a house in Waipahu. I would watch as she would get out of the car, and yell for Barbara--she would yell at the top of her lungs the way they probably did it back in the day. Miraculously, Barbara would come out of the house see her and they would embrace and cry, look at each other and hug some more. After they wiped away their tears we would get back into the car and leave. True friendship, no words necessary, just hugs to remind one another of their long-time bond.
On one of those trips she insisted that I follow her directions and drive her deep into Waipahu in the lands behind the highschool. She brought me to some crazy deserted dirt road and I told her that we could not go there, it said “No Trespassing” but she insisted and so I drove, all the while ready to duck down in case of emergency. As we drove there were half-naked barefooted kids, adults staring at us, and pitbulls. I was freaking out, positive that we were going to get shot. I kept telling her that we needed to turn around and that we couldn’t be there but she insisted that she just wanted to see--see what Grandma? There’s nothing to see!!!! But she was deep in thought so we kept driving until we got to the end and a big chain link blocked us from going any further. I wanted to lock the doors and reverse outta there but she got out, looked around, sighed and said, “aisos, everything change” shaking her head.
Grandma was a reminiscer and she would sit and tell us stories about her younger days. She remembered absolutely everything, her memory was so clear up until the end. Her stories about Waipahu, plantation life, the war, fishing, were always epic. She would talk forever about anything and everything--world history, current events, politics. Just two years ago, when I last saw her she asked me who I voted for. I paused before I answered, worried that my grandma might be a Republican, but she was so totally relieved when I told her, “HIllary Clinton of course grandma!” Because even at the age of 94, she was still a voter and still attuned to world news. She then went on and on about our current President, equality, and I just had to laugh and be proud of what an amazing grandma I had and be even prouder of the fact that my own daughter, Dannika was just like her.
Grandma always told us to go school and study hard. Education was important to her, perhaps because she was unable to realize her own dreams of becoming a teacher, something that my Mom was able realize for her, and I was so honored when she was able to see me graduate from college in Oregon. The family trip of me, my brother Aaron, my mom, and dad plus grandma that went from Washington to Washington DC and then to Vegas was epic. Going on a road trip with grandma was like no other. Her mouth didn’t stop. She would talk and talk and talk and ask so many questions. She was just “curious” and made friends with EVERYONE.
I can still remember the car ride from Oregon to Washington. She read every single sign between the states, reading aloud the Native American city names with different pronunciations. My mom was trying not to get annoyed, and me and my brother could not stop laughing. 20 years later we still laugh and say, “Puyallup, Puyallup” “Shohomish, Snow-ho-MISH” the way grandma did for two hours!!!! When we made it to DC, Virginia and Maryland, she loved the museums and seeing all the “ancient” artifacts. When we went to Vegas she loved playing the slots—so much so that we lost her but found her in the casino. Grandma loved history, she loved travelling, she loved adventure. She was a wise women before her time. Thank you Mom and Dad for that family trip, it will always be one of the most special in my heart.
But her smarts was just one of the special things about her. Grandma was a prolific crocheter. I am sure everyone in this church today owns one of her creations. These awesome handmade gifts from grandma were always a hit or miss. Sometimes you scored and got a beautiful beanie made of a solid color yarn mixed in with the matching tri color yarn. But other times you got the “rainbow, filipino” You know the one, the one that was purple, peach, green, yellow, orange--made with left over yarn (because grandma never ever threw anything away!). Every year at Christmas when we got the big box from Kauai grandma’s presents would be saved for last. You could spot grandma’s presents a mile away. Once opened, my brother and I would have a mad dash to snatch the ones with the best colors. We would often wonder where we would use the red socks, or what we were supposed to do with the small lap blankets. I used to take the socks, the blankets, the pot warmers for granted but now they are treasures to me and I searched the house for all of them. It is going to be so weird this Christmas without grandma’s blankets or her famous fruit cake.
When I told my son Noah that Apo had passed away he said, “I wonder if I can inherit some of her yarn?” She had taught Noah how to hand knit on one of her visits and it had made an impression on him. She actually tried to teach me to crochet one summer and I was bad at it. Withh her help I was able to make a really long neon red string and she lovingly told me I had made a “belt.” I had a new found respect for grandma and could not figure out how in the world she was able to make the hundreds of projects that she finished and gave away to family and friends. Grandma was patient which she had to be with 5 kids, 16 grandkids, 26 great grandkids and 8 great great grandkids.
As the grandkid that lived on Oahu, I saw my grandma as a loving, nurturing one that would always support me at everything--from my graduations from college, to the baby luau for my kids. My mom would call, and she would come. Even when she was slowed down and couldn’t walk she would be here in her wheelchair. I tried to be a good girl so that grandma would be proud of me. Still, she did strike fear in me even when she scolded gently. I still remember the last time I got scoldings from grandma. It was 2 years ago and she came into my room to “talk”. She never raised her voice, but her words went straight to my heart and I felt guilt as the tears fell from my eyes. That is how grandma was. She was gentle and strong, but most of all she was wise. You did everything that you could to make her proud. She was an amazing woman, with an amazing life and she loved her family deeply. I am thankful to see that Grandma is in each and everyone of us here. I not only see grandma in my mom, aunties, and uncle but in my own kids, my cousins, my cousin’s kids, and the littlest cousins too. Although she is gone, the lessons and values that she taught us run deep, and when I look at all of our Instagrams and see my brother Aaron’s art, Clarissa’s world travels, see Kamaile hitting the ball outta the park and Kaylee shooting a basket , the fish that Adrian, Wesley, and Aaron catch, see Nana and Madi, Rhonda;s hula, Heidi's motorcycle, Kehau and Kelsie's antics, see the kids loving the ocean, see how we take care of our own without leaving anyone behind, and give back to the community, I know that her spirit will live on as long as we continue to tell her stories, bring our kids to the beach, and love one another the way she loved all of us. Thank you grandma, we will never forget you. - Aurene Padilla
I’m Dr. Addison Charles Suero Bulosan, son of Charlmaine and Adams Bulosan, grandson of Grandma. Can you hear me? Can you hear me in the back?
In the last few years, Grandmas hearing declined and sometimes you weren’t sure if she actually heard what you said. So if I speak a little loud or slow, it’s because I want to make sure Grandma can hear me as well.
With your permission Grandma, I’d like to share with all of you a few things about Grandma that you may or may not have already known. For those who had the fortune to know her, remember her so she can live on within you. For those who have not met her, I hope these stories can inspire you to live like she did.
They say a person dies twice, once as the spirit leaves the physical body, and lastly when their name or memory has last been shared.
Well, I guess Grandma is going to literally live forever. She shared so many stories and touched so many lives that her legacy is intertwined with who we are, and how we treat each other every day. In fact, this connection with Grandma is so real and tangible that if we just take a step back for a moment, take a deep breath and recall our experiences with Grandma, for some of us, we literally would not exist. If Grandma didn’t take the chance and dated grandpa Catalino, My Mom, Aunty Rita, Aunty Cita, Aunty Kathy, Uncle Tino, would not be alive today. That would mean we grand kids, great grand kids, and great great grand kids, would not have the opportunity to be alive and well. If she didn’t give you the advice, or show up in your life, what would be different? If she didn’t create that meaningful connection with you or with someone you care deeply about, you would not be here today. So take a moment with me in gratitude - Grandma left a piece of her heart and mind within each of us.
This is where we all first met Grandma, in our hearts.
Since birth, I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time with Grandma. Like many extended families here in Hawaii, the Bulosan family had the privilege to continue to live in the home that Grandma and Grandpa Suero settled into in 1966. She babysat my sister and I while my parents worked. She took us “galavanting” all over Kaua’i, like she did for many of the grand kids here today. Looking back to these fond memories a few things stick out that I hope we can continue in her honor...
Grandma Suero genuinely cared for people and provided “present-time consciousness.” Present- time consciousness is when you sat down with Grandma, she was 100% with you. Now for some family members who received present-time consciousness from Grandma all the time, it can be overwhelming, you all know what I mean. She sat with you, asked you over a 100 questions of your life, and if you are lucky, she would share her entire life story. One of the most amazing things about Grandma is that she REMEMBERED EVERYONE. She remembered your parents, where you lived, where you attended school, who was your best friend, where you worked, and most importantly, she connected with you on the deepest level.
You felt her heart and mind, and you knew in your heart that Grandma genuinely cared about you.
She did this with everyone. It could be a stranger she just met, but her Family especially noticed how intentful she was with everyone. And whenever you left her, you left in a deep sense of awe - like, I want to be like that with the people I care about.
I see this quality of genuine care flow through Grandmas children- you all have this ability that Grandma had - which is to remember someone, and truly care for them. I see it passed on to the grand children, and is now being passed on throughout the next generations. There are 3 days that stick out for me with Grandma that I’d like to close with.
One late night in year 2000, Grandma use to stay up late to make sure that Rissa and I would fall asleep. Everyone was out of town except for myself, Rissa, Grandma, and uncle Tino. Like most nights, I stayed up pass Grandma and made sure she went to sleep. I’m not sure why I use to do this but I did. This night, I heard her say good night to us, turn off the T.V., and then heard a loud thump, as if someone dropped a bag of rice on the floor. I went to check what was going on and found Grandma on the floor unconscious. I tried to wake her, yelled, shook her for a little bit, and she wouldn’t wake up. I checked her pulse (she was still breathing), and I yelled for my sister to call 911. I tried to lift her but I was 13 years old and my body was far smaller than hers. Luckily uncle Tino woke up, got grandma to wake up, and brought her to the E.R. later to find out that the reason she fell was because she had a heart problem and passed out. It took awhile but she got better from the condition and in a couple days returned home without any major complications. Had we not been home or awake, we would have had this gathering 18 years ago. This moment changed me forever as it taught me that the little things you do for others can make a big difference. I was 13 and I didn’t know that merely staying up just a little bit longer could be a life or death situation for my Grandma.
In 2008, I moved home for a year before going to graduate school and I came home one evening to find the house eerily empty. I called everyone but no one was answering. I felt something was wrong - I get a call from my mom saying “come to the hospital, Grandma is in the I.C.U.” I rushed over and learned that Grandma was hit by a car and they needed to rush her to Oahu to make sure she didn’t have any brain damage. The only way to Oahu was a 5-seater propeller airplane where 1 pilot, 2 nurses, grandma, and one family member could go. I went and when we got to the hospital and Grandma settled in the doctor came out and had me read and sign a waiver that stated if Grandma was unable to respond or make coherent decisions, I would have to make decisions on her behalf. I was 22, they woke her up every hour for 24 hours and she passed all her tests and miraculously, she walked away alive and well at age 86. This moment changed me forever, as it taught me that in every decision we make, whether big or small, it will always be a decision towards or away from life. At that moment I always chose to make the best of what I had, and to never regret anything.
On May 14, Monday, 2018, I woke up to my brother Adrian banging on my door - I got up and looked at him, and he said “Grandma”. Grandma passed on this day, and once again reminded me and hopefully everyone here today, that choosing life, is worthwhile. She always wanted the best for us, rooted for us, and loved each one of us. She shared this love through her time, attention, and memories. So Grandma, with your permission, I will share with everyone today, some of the things you would say.
Grandma would say “Never mind, cannot help, don’t worry about it!” Whenever we would go to her about our problems -work, family, or just life, she would share this with us to help us understand that some things aren’t worth dwelling on. Life goes on, so do you, if you focus on what’s wrong you’ll never get to a solution.
So never mind. Let it go in your mind.
Cannot help. This situation is beyond you.
Don’t worry about it. Let it go in your heart.
Grandma would also say “If God Permits” she started saying that after Grandpa passed away. Whenever we’d talk to her about trying new things or doing things with her - she’d share this with us. Reminding us that we are all binded by a power beyond us.
If God Permits.
And lastly, Grandma would always say “Go home go home everybody, bare bare bare bare” whenever we use to go somewhere, as we were leaving she would share this outloud to help our spirits come home with us wherever we go. It’s a reminder that there is a spirit within us all, that we are traveling through this life as a passenger in a physical body, with the permission of God, to experience what we call life. Grandma reminds us that, God calls upon us to live fully, meaningful lives. And when its time, to return home, go peacefully, with no regrets. Grandma has been called to go home, to spend time with those who have passed, and most importantly, grandma returns to where she first met all of us, she returns to us all in our hearts.
Love you Grandma. - Dr. Addison Bulosan
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