SPECIAL

TITLE: Healing Waters

Words: Stewart Coleman

Images: Stewart Coleman

Pull Quote: "The cure for anything is salt water—sweat, tears or the sea."

—Isak Dinesen

If Israel Kamakawiwo’ole was the soulful voice of Hawaiian culture, Rell Kapolioka’ehukai Sunn embodied its beating heart.  Though saddened by Israel’s death on June 26, 1997, Rell had been inspired by his fierce spirit and playful personality, and she was determined to fight for her own survival.  Even though her doctors had told her that her cancer was incurable, she had refused to believe it.

"I’ve heard stories of people being terminal for twenty years," she said. "It’s how you make your body fight and tell your body it’s not going to die.  That’s why I never think of my cancer as terminal.  It would take a lot more than that to finish me off." Even close friends like Kathy Terada, a nurse who worked with cancer patients on a daily basis at the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, wanted to believe that she could still beat it. "She fooled us enough times where we thought she was going to outlive us all."

Her friends admired her positive attitude, though some probably wondered if she was in denial.  But Rell was fully aware of what she was going through and actively worked with other cancer victims at the "Waianae Comp" to help them cope with the ravaging effects of the disease and the debilitating side effects of the chemo and radiation treatments.  Along with being a "surffragette" and pioneer in women’s professional surfing, Rell had also become a leader in breast cancer awareness.  As a counselor, she promoted mammograms and helped many young women deal with their cancer.  She used her bawdy sense of humor to cheer them up.  Encouraging them to stay active, she would joke about how she often lost her "prosthetic boob" in the ocean while surfing.

Henry Kapono’s ex-wife Pam Ka’aihue used to visit "Rell’s Motel" with her two daughters.  Rell had so many friends and visitors that Pam was just glad to have a chance to be with her. "Whatever time you got with her, you were just blessed to get and thankful for it," Pam recalls. "She made a big impact on me and my children." The women would go to the beach and to swap meets together to collect glass fishing balls, Hawaiian tikis, and rattan furniture.  At night, they would rent movies, play board games, and talk into the night.

"She had a lot of energy," Pam says. "Last one to bed and first one up.  You know, who wants to waste time sleeping? They say when your time is measured, you make the most of every minute, which she did!" She would get up before dawn each morning, ride her bike to Makaha to check out the surf, and then call in the surf report.  She would lead breast cancer counseling sessions in the mornings and hold geriatric exercise classes in the afternoons.  Rell still held her annual Menehune Contest at Makaha and had helped launch the careers of pro surfers like Rusty Keaulana, Sunny Garcia, and others on the Westside.  She seemed to have love and energy for everyone, from the young kids at the beach to the older folks at the senior center. "They meant a lot to her," Pam says. "She just did things to help so many people in so many different ways."

 After 1995, Rell had lost faith in most of the invasive medical treatments, saying, "I’m not treatable now because they consider me terminal.  There’s nothing more they can do." From that point on, she took the process of healing into her own hands.  She received herbal remedies from Evangeline "Momi" Keaulana, using the traditional Hawaiian practice of lapa’au.  And she surfed almost every day. "Surfing frees everything up," Rell told Surfer magazine. "It’s just the best soul fix." When she was born, her family must have somehow foreseen that this child would grow up in the ocean and fulfill the true meaning of her middle name: Heart of the Sea.

Watching her glide down the face of wave after wave, her closest friends wanted to believe that Rell had beaten her cancer—at least for a while.  With the return of her long, flowing hair, she looked like a vision of health as she gracefully danced across the water with a big smile on her face.  But the cancer was still there like a hungry shark prowling just beneath the surface.  Despite that, Rell and her friends believed that surfing and being in the ocean had a healing effect and comforted her body and soul. "Some call it salt water," Momi Keaulana likes to say, "but we call it holy water."

 During Rell’s last month, her closest friends began making pilgrimages to her cottage to say their final goodbyes.  Jennifer Lee begged her parents to drive her out to Makaha to see Rell. The pretty hapa girl had been a former Menehune champion and was one of about twenty kids whom Rell had taken to the annual Biarritz Surf Festival in 1995. After traveling to Biarritz together, Jen had become like one of her children.  Only in her early teens at the time, Jen had heard about her cancer, but thought it was all gone. "She looked healthy and had long hair," Jen recalls. "She was just beautiful and glowing as usual."

Even though Rell was still very sick at that point, she had insisted on going to France with her menehunes, whom she referred to as "future legends." While teaching them about French culture, she also gave them hula and ‘ukulele lessons so they could share their culture with their hosts.  She had also asked them to bring vials of water from their favorite ocean breaks as part of the opening ceremony.  Brian Keaulana and other Hawaiians led a procession to the beach, where people from around the world poured their samples of ocean water into a big koa bowl.  Then, the menehunes joined these famous watermen and paddled out into the surf.  In the ocean, they formed a big circle and joined hands to form a living lei to bless the festival. "It was really special," Jen recalls, "a chicken skin moment."

Now that her mentor and idol was approaching the end of her life, Jen couldn’t understand why her parents wouldn’t drive her out to Makaha to see Rell one last time. "I just had to see her, but they wouldn’t take me," Jen says. "I knew she was sick, and I was like, ‘Let me go.  Take me.  I need to see her.’ But my parents were like, ‘She’s sick.  You shouldn’t see her like that.  Just remember her like the last time you saw her when she looked healthy.’"

After making it through Christmas, Rell vowed to hang on until New Year’s.  That year, Brian and the Keaulana boys paddled into the surf on New Year’s Eve at 11:45 p.m. and caught the last wave of the old year and the first wave of the new one in honor of Rell.  Coming in and out of consciousness, she could hear the fireworks in the distance, and she lived to see the dawn of a new year.  But on the evening of January 2, 1998, at the age of fory-seven, Rell Kapolioka‘ehukai Sunn finally took her last breath and passed from this world to the next.

That same night, Jen had tossed and turned in bed, crying and worrying about Rell. "I get up in the morning and call the house, and someone says, ‘Hello?’" she recalls. "And I said, ‘Aunty Rell?!’" She sounded like her old self, young and healthy, and, for a moment, Jen thought that she might have recovered. "’Oh, no, this is Nell, her sister…I’m so sorry, but Aunty Rell passed away last night.’"

Jen cried and felt sick for days, as if one of her own parents had died. "I dreamt about her like crazy when she passed away.  This one dream I had was of her in Waikiki.  I was walking in Waikiki, and I saw this lady in a red mu’umu’u, and she was passing out flyers by the Duke statue.  I was like, ‘Aunty Rell!’ and she kept looking at me and looking away. ‘Aunty Rell, Aunty Rell!’ I’m crying and trying to make her look at me.  She just looked at me and said, ‘I’m okay, just go on.’ And she gave me a hug, and I walked away.  I woke up crying."

Two weeks later, on January 17, Rell’s memorial service was held at Makaha.  That morning, a cool mist hung over the green mountains, and gray clouds covered the sky.  The intermittent rain was considered a blessing in Hawaiian lore, marking the passing of an ali’i.  Friends and family had set up a big tent on the beach and had been working hard all week to decorate it with pictures of Rell from different times in her life.  There were photos of her surfing, diving, fishing, dancing hula, paddling canoe, and posing with the menehunes.  Her surfboard, fishing spear, throw nets, and mementos were placed all around the tent.  In the center, her ashes lay in a glass fishing ball, which had been carved with images of fish, waves, and an octopus, along with the words "Aloha, Queen of Makaha."

When Rell was just a girl, she had found a glass ball washed up on the beach at Mahaka and asked her father what it was.  He had explained that it used to be tied to a fishing net, probably from Japan, and had floated all the way across the ocean.  Years later, Rell would remember his words and wonder if he was telling her what her life would be like. "She symbolized herself as the floating glass ball," said her daughter Jan,"fragile yet strong, surfing the best spots but always coming home." And now, she was going back to the sea.

Thousands of people from the Westside, across the Islands, and all over the world began arriving for the service, filing into the tent to pay their last respects.  The sound of the conch shell filled the air.  At the end of the formal service, Brian Keaulana organized a ceremony where people could make an offering of "surf, sand, and sound." He said, "Bring sand from your beaches, water from your surf, and a conch shell for the sound of a thousand blowing at once." People brought sand and water from all of the Hawaiian Islands and from places as far as Australia and Fiji, and they mixed them in a big, wooden bowl on the beach.

"Because Rell has touched so many people, she also touched many shores and many oceans," Brian said. "This is a way of giving back…like an ocean community around the world."  The conch shells sounded like the deep, mournful bellowing of the wind, sky and sea.

For the scattering of her ashes, Rell had asked Brian months before to take charge of the ceremony.  They were surfing one day at Makaha, and she looked at him and said, "You know, it’s not if, but when I pass away.  Brian, just remember, this is where I want to be."  It was a specific area right near the blowhole, which was her favorite take-off spot when she was surfing.  Brian made sure that no one was in the water at the time. "The only person who is going to be surfing will be Rell Sunn.  We’re putting her to rest at the Makaha Blowhole."

Steering from the back of her outrigger canoe, Brian paddled with Rell’s daughter Jan, her brother Eric, and her husband Dave into the four-to-six-foot surf.  After almost being swamped by a large set of waves, Brian tried to find the exact spot where the blowhole was when he received a sign. "All of a sudden, the boil just erupted right there in front of us.  It was like she was playing games with us, hide-and-go-seek.  When Dave poured her ashes out, it was like this big bloom of ash—she got her wish." They caught a wave in the canoe and rode it to shore, and then friends were invited to paddle out and catch a last wave in honor of Rell. 

Rather than dwelling on Rell’s death, Aunty Momi later said her memorial service was a celebration of life.  Just as the turtle was her ‘aumakua, she had become one with the ocean and was now at home with the other ancestral spirits of the sea. "She loved life, she loved surfing, and she loved people," Momi said. "Now every year at the Menehune Contest, we all say, ‘Thank you, Auntie Rell, for the waves!’"

Eleven months later, on New Year’s Eve, 1999, Brian, his brothers, and several friends paddled out into the black water for their annual midnight surf session.  The last year and a half had been difficult for Brian and the entire Makaha community after losing Israel and Rell.  Both friends were weighing heavily on his mind as he glided through the liquid darkness, waiting to catch the final wave of the old year and the first wave of the new one. 

Sitting on his surfboard, looking up at the sky, Brian saw fireworks exploding above.  Watching them streak across the sky, he thought about Rell and Iz.  Like shooting stars, their lives had burned out all too soon.  But both friends had left behind an enduring legacy of light and love.  Their ashes had become one with the healing waters all around him, and their memories would live on in the hearts of his people.  Comforted by their presence, Brian caught a wave in the darkness and rode it toward the lights on the shore.