Beyond the grief, Don Ho’s family embraces memories

The voice in her ears was more than the echo of an old recording. It was vibrant. It was warm. It was the voice of her father — singer Don Ho.

Dondi Ho-Costa still thinks of that song, nearly a year after she heard it at on the porch of her Hanalei home, as a farewell from her father on the last day of his life. She feels it was more than coincidence.

“I believe he visited us,” Ho-Costa said recently. “That may sound strange to people, but it is very, very private and precious to me. It was so powerful. I was overwhelmed at hearing it. It was so full of love.”

The power of memories isn’t taken lightly among family members of the late entertainer. As they prepare for tomorrow’s first anniversary of his death, memories are the comfort they wrap around their grief like a blanket.

They have struggled to cope with their loss, thought about Ho almost every day and prayed.

They have dreamed about him so fiercely that they woke up with aching hearts.

And when they missed the sound of Ho’s voice, they listened to one of his many albums.

When Ho-Costa visits her father’s home on the flanks of Diamond Head, it often feels as if he is about to come walking into one of the many rooms, she said.

“I miss him, but it is amazing that I feel his essence and his love,” said Ho-Costa, a 51-year-old clothing designer who lives on Kaua’i. “It’s like a perfume. There is a lingering thing that is still with us.”

Ho died April 14, 2007, shortly after collapsing in his home. He was 76.

It was not unexpected, but it still caught family members by surprise.

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(Source: Honolulu Advertiser)