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<\/p>\nI\u2019ve been to enough funerals. I\u2019d just been to one. I put it down on the kitchen table very, very gently. Behind me, my mother made a sound. I turned around. She was standing by the counter with both hands over her mouth. Staring at the quilt. At the note. For Linda. From Malia. She was crying. Not the way she cried at the funeral, which was quietly, with a tissue, standing up straight. This was different. Her whole body was shaking. She slid down the cabinets until she was sitting on the kitchen floor. \u201cShe finished it,\u201d she whispered. \u201cOh my God. She actually finished it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I sat down on the floor next to her. I didn\u2019t say anything. I just waited. The way Dad used to wait for me when I was upset. He never pushed. He\u2019d just sit there until you were ready. It took a long time. \u201cI need to tell you something,\u201d Mom said finally. \u201cSomething your father wanted me to tell you a long time ago. Something I should have told you when you were sixteen and you hated me.\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t hate you.\u201d \u201cYou did,\u201d she said. \u201cA little. It\u2019s okay. I deserved it.\u201d She wiped her face with her sleeve. \u201cYour dad used to say, If she knew the whole story, she wouldn\u2019t be angry with you. And I\u2019d say, Then let her be angry. I can\u2019t talk about it.\u201c She looked at the quilt on the table. The deep red pattern hanging off the edge. \u201cI\u2019ll talk about it now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was nine,\u201d Mom said, \u201cwhen my father left.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrandpa Patrick,\u201d I said. \u201cYou said he died. When you were little.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t die,\u201d Mom said. \u201cNot then. He died in 2009. In Galway. In Ireland. Where he was born.\u201d She swallowed. \u201cI told you he died when I was nine because it was easier than the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s the truth?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe came to America when he was twenty,\u201d Mom said. \u201cFrom a little town on the west coast of Ireland. He met my mother in Portland. They got married. They had me. He worked at the shipyards.\u201d She was looking at her hands. \u201cAnd he missed home. Every single day. He talked about it constantly. The green. The sea. The rain.\u00a0The rain at home is soft,<\/em>\u00a0he used to say.\u00a0Not like this hard American rain.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n I felt something go cold inside me.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019d sit at the kitchen table at night,\u201d Mom said. \u201cWith a photograph. Of a harbor. With little boats. He\u2019d turn it over and over in his hands.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMom\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother used to get so upset when he talked about it,\u201d Mom said. \u201cShe\u2019d leave the room. She\u2019d say,\u00a0Why can\u2019t you just be happy here? With us?<\/em>\u00a0And he\u2019d say he was happy. He\u2019d say he loved us. He\u2019d say it was just a place.\u201d She closed her eyes. \u201cAnd then one morning, when I was nine, he packed a suitcase. He kissed me on the forehead. And he said,\u00a0I\u2019m sorry, Linnie. I have to go home.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n The kitchen was very quiet.<\/p>\n \u201cHe went back to Ireland,\u201d Mom said. \u201cHe sent me a birthday card every year until I was fourteen. Then he stopped. He married someone else there. Had other kids. I met one of them once, at his funeral. My half-brother. He had my eyes.\u201d She opened her eyes. \u201cMy father loved us. I believe that. But he loved home more. And when he had to choose, he chose home.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo when I married a man from an island,\u201d Mom said, \u201cwho missed it every day, who stood in the rain with his eyes closed, who sat at the kitchen table at night turning a photograph over and over in his hands\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t finish.<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time he talked about Hawaii,\u201d she said, \u201cI heard my father. Every single time.\u00a0The rain at home is warm.<\/em>\u00a0The rain at home is soft.<\/em>\u00a0Same sentence, Annie. Different island. And I\u2019d feel nine years old again. Watching a suitcase by the door.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid Dad know?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe knew,\u201d Mom said. \u201cI told him on our third date. I told him everything. I said,\u00a0If you\u2019re ever going to leave, leave now. Before I love you.<\/em>\u201d She laughed. It came out broken. \u201cHe said,\u00a0I\u2019m not going anywhere, Linda Doyle.<\/em>\u00a0And he didn\u2019t. Not for thirty-one years. Not once.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s not all of it,\u201d Mom said. \u201cIs it?\u201d<\/p>\n She looked at the note on the quilt.\u00a0For Linda. From Malia.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYour father took me to Hawaii once,\u201d she said. \u201cRight after we got married. To meet his family. It was the only time I ever went.\u201d<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t know that. Nobody had ever told me that.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was beautiful,\u201d Mom said. \u201cIt was everything he said. The rain was warm. You could smell the ocean before you saw it. His family was so loud and so warm and there were so many of them. They threw a party in their backyard with a whole pig cooked in the ground. His cousins sang. His uncles played ukulele. His grandmother put a lei on me and kissed both my cheeks.\u201d She smiled a little. \u201cI\u2019d never seen your father so happy. He was a different person there. Lighter. Like he\u2019d taken off a heavy coat.\u201d<\/p>\n The smile went away.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the last night,\u201d she said, \u201cI went to get a glass of water. And I heard his mother talking to him. Out on the lanai. In the dark. She didn\u2019t know I was there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did she say?\u201d<\/p>\n Mom closed her eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cShe said,\u00a0Kainoa, you are not happy over there. I can see it in your face. You belong here. Bring her home. Or come home without her. But come home.<\/em>\u201d Mom\u2019s voice cracked. \u201cAnd then she said,\u00a0They always come home, our boys. They always come home in the end.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n I put my hand over my mouth.<\/p>\n \u201cThey always come home,<\/em>\u201d Mom said. \u201cThat\u2019s what she said. And I stood in her kitchen in the dark and I was nine years old again. And my father was packing his suitcase.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did Dad say?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t wait to hear,\u201d Mom said. \u201cI went back to the bedroom. I packed my bag. When he came in, I was sitting on the bed with my suitcase. And I said,\u00a0I want to go home tomorrow. And I don\u2019t want to ever come back here. Promise me.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n She was quiet for a long time.<\/p>\n \u201cHe promised,\u201d she said. \u201cThat night. Without asking why. He just looked at my face and said,\u00a0Okay, Lin. I promise.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n \u201cHe kept it,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe kept it,\u201d Mom said. \u201cFor thirty-one years. He never went back. Not for his grandmother\u2019s funeral. Not for his uncles. Not for his cousins\u2019 weddings. Not when Lani had her babies.\u201d She pressed her hands against her face. \u201cNot when his mother got sick.\u201d<\/p>\n I stared at her.<\/p>\n \u201cHis mother got sick?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTwo years ago,\u201d Mom said. \u201cCancer. Lani called. I answered. She asked for Kai. I gave him the phone.\u201d She shook her head. \u201cHe stood in that hallway right there for forty minutes. And when he hung up, he came into the kitchen and he looked at me. And I knew he was going to ask. I could see it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid he?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d Mom said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t ask. He kissed me on the forehead and went out to the garage. Because he\u2019d promised.\u201d She was sobbing now. \u201cAnd I let him. I let him keep a promise I made him make when I was twenty-two and scared. I was fifty-two and I was\u00a0still<\/em>\u00a0scared. And I let him not go home to his mother.\u201d<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t know what to say. I sat on the kitchen floor next to my mother and looked at the quilt hanging off the edge of the table.<\/p>\n Deep red on white. Thousands of tiny stitches. Thirty-one years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe cards,\u201d I said slowly. \u201cThe red envelopes. Every Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFrom his mother,\u201d Mom said. \u201cTo both of us. Every year.\u00a0Kainoa & Linda.<\/em>\u201d She looked at me. \u201cI threw them away. Every single one. Unopened.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Dad took them out of the trash.\u201d<\/p>\n Mom stared at me.<\/p>\n \u201cYou saw that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnce,\u201d I said. \u201cWhen I was eleven.\u201d<\/p>\n She closed her eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew he did,\u201d she said. \u201cI never said anything. He never said anything. We both pretended.\u201d She shook her head. \u201cThirty-one years of pretending. That\u2019s a marriage too, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n I picked up one of the bundles of letters from the cardboard box. The one on top. The most recent year.<\/p>\n I looked at Mom.<\/p>\n \u201cCan I?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n She nodded.<\/p>\n I untied the string. I opened the first one. It was from January. Dad\u2019s handwriting. Blocky and neat, the way engineers write.<\/p>\n Mama,<\/em><\/p>\n Got your letter. I\u2019m glad the treatment is going okay. Lani says you\u2019re still bossing all the nurses around. Good. Keep doing it.<\/em><\/p>\n Annie\u2019s class is doing a unit on oceans. She asked me to come in and talk about Hawaii. About the reef and the fish and the sea turtles. I said yes. I didn\u2019t tell Linda. I\u2019ll tell her after.<\/em><\/p>\n I stood in front of twenty-two seven-year-olds and told them about Makapu\u02bbu. About the turtle island. About how you can smell the ocean before you see it. One little boy asked if I missed it. I said every day. He said why don\u2019t you go back. I didn\u2019t know what to say.<\/em><\/p>\n How\u2019s the quilt? Lani says you\u2019re almost done. Don\u2019t rush it. Take as long as you need.<\/em><\/p>\n I love you. I think about you every day.<\/em><\/p>\n Your son,<\/em><\/p>\n Kai<\/em><\/p>\n I put the letter down.<\/p>\n I remembered that day. Back in January. My ocean unit. Dad came to my classroom on his lunch break in his work boots. He brought a shell. A big pink one. He let every kid hold it up to their ear.<\/p>\n A boy named Mateo asked him if he missed Hawaii.<\/p>\n Dad said, \u201cEvery day, buddy.\u201d<\/p>\n Mateo said, \u201cThen why don\u2019t you go back?\u201d<\/p>\n And Dad laughed and ruffled his hair and said, \u201cBecause my best girls live here.\u201d<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t know he\u2019d written to his mother about it. I didn\u2019t know he\u2019d been writing to his mother at all.<\/p>\n I opened another one. February.<\/p>\n Mama,<\/em><\/p>\n Lani called. She says you\u2019ve stopped eating much. She says the doctors want to talk about hospice. I\u2019m sitting in the garage writing this because I can\u2019t stop shaking.<\/em><\/p>\n I want to come. You know I want to come. You know why I can\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n I keep thinking about the night on the lanai. What you said. I know you didn\u2019t mean it the way it sounded. I know you just missed me. But she heard it, Mama. She heard \u201cthey always come home.\u201d And she heard her father.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to break her heart the way he did. I made her a promise. I have to keep it. Even if it means I don\u2019t get to say goodbye to you.<\/em><\/p>\n Please don\u2019t be angry with her. If you knew the whole story, you wouldn\u2019t be.<\/em><\/p>\n I love you.<\/em><\/p>\n Kai<\/em><\/p>\n Mom was reading over my shoulder.<\/p>\n When she got to\u00a0I made her a promise. I have to keep it. Even if it means I don\u2019t get to say goodbye to you,<\/em>\u00a0she made a sound I\u2019ll never forget. A sound like something tearing.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know she was that sick. He never told me. He never told me it was hospice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t want you to feel like you had to let him go,\u201d I said quietly. \u201cHe didn\u2019t want you to have to choose.\u201d<\/p>\n Mom put her face in her hands.<\/p>\n \u201cI would have let him go,\u201d she whispered. \u201cIf he\u2019d asked. I would have. I would have driven him to the airport myself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWould you?\u201d I asked. Gently. \u201cTwo years ago?\u201d<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t answer. She just cried.<\/p>\n The last letter in the bundle was from three months ago.<\/p>\n It was shorter than the others. The handwriting was shakier.<\/p>\n Mama,<\/em><\/p>\n Lani called. She told me you\u2019re gone.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m sitting in the car in the parking lot at work. I can\u2019t go inside. I can\u2019t stop crying. I didn\u2019t get to say goodbye. I kept my promise and I didn\u2019t get to say goodbye.<\/em><\/p>\n Lani says you asked for me at the end. She says you said my name. She says you weren\u2019t angry. She says you said, \u201cTell Kai it\u2019s all right. Tell him to tell her I\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m going to tell her. I promise. I\u2019m going to tell Linda everything. And then I\u2019m going to ask her to come with me. Not to stay. Just to visit. Just to put flowers in the water for you.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m going to do it the right way this time. I\u2019m going to ask her. Not tell her. Ask.<\/em><\/p>\n I love you.<\/em><\/p>\n Kai<\/em><\/p>\n That was the last one.<\/p>\n No more letters after that.<\/p>\n Because there was nobody to send them to.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was going to ask me,\u201d Mom said. Her voice was hollow. \u201cHe was going to ask me to go to Hawaii with him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe was,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe never did.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t get the chance,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n Then I remembered something. Something the police officer said at the hospital. When they gave Mom Dad\u2019s things. His wallet. His watch. His phone with the cracked screen.<\/p>\n There was an envelope in the glove compartment, ma\u2019am. We\u2019ll release the vehicle contents to you once the investigation\u2019s done.<\/em><\/p>\n Mom remembered at the same time I did. I watched it happen on her face.<\/p>\n \u201cCoburg Road,\u201d she whispered. \u201cHe was on Coburg Road.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s a travel agency on Coburg Road. Right before the light where the truck hit him. Pacific Wings Travel. A little office in a strip mall next to a nail salon. They have pictures of beaches in the window.<\/p>\n We drove to the impound lot that afternoon.<\/p>\n Dad\u2019s car was in the back. Crushed on the driver\u2019s side. I couldn\u2019t look at it. Mom couldn\u2019t either. She stood there with her hand over her mouth.<\/p>\n The man who ran the lot was kind. He was older, with gray hair and a limp. He\u2019d seen a lot of families come out to that lot. He went and got the bag with the contents of the glove compartment for us so we wouldn\u2019t have to open the car ourselves.<\/p>\n Insurance card. Registration. A tire pressure gauge. Napkins from Dutch Bros. A pack of gum.<\/p>\n And a white envelope.<\/p>\n With a little blue airplane logo in the corner.\u00a0Pacific Wings Travel.<\/em><\/p>\n Mom opened it with shaking hands.<\/p>\n Inside, there were three tickets. Printed out. Round trip. Portland to Honolulu. Leaving the eighth of June.<\/p>\n Mom\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n Three names.<\/p>\n Kainoa Akana.<\/em><\/p>\n Linda Akana.<\/em><\/p>\n Annie Akana.<\/em><\/p>\n And clipped to the tickets, there was a yellow sticky note. In Dad\u2019s handwriting.<\/p>\n Lin. Happy birthday. Will you come with me? Just to visit. Just to put flowers in the water for Mama. I\u2019ll understand if you say no. I\u2019ll cancel the tickets and we\u2019ll go to the coast instead like always. Either way, I\u2019m not going anywhere. I love you. \u2014 K.<\/em><\/p>\n My mother stood in the middle of an impound lot in the rain and read that sticky note over and over.<\/p>\n Will you come with me?<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ll understand if you say no.<\/em><\/p>\n Either way, I\u2019m not going anywhere.<\/em><\/p>\n The man who ran the lot had walked a little ways off to give us privacy. But I saw him turn around when Mom sank down onto the wet gravel.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t come back over. He just took off his cap and held it against his chest.<\/p>\n That night, we opened the last envelope.<\/p>\n The one taped to the lid of the wooden box.\u00a0Kai. Open this one last. \u2014 Lani.<\/em><\/p>\n Mom and I sat at the kitchen table. The quilt was folded on the chair next to us. The letters were stacked in bundles. The wooden box sat in the middle of the table. Polished. Gold and brown.<\/p>\n I opened the envelope. I read it out loud.<\/p>\n Kai,<\/em><\/p>\n By the time you get this, you\u2019ll have the quilt. Mama finished it two days before she died. Her hands were shaking so bad the last few weeks she could only do a few stitches a day. But she did them. Every single day. She said she had to finish it before she could go.<\/em><\/p>\n She started it the week after you and Linda left. The honeymoon. Thirty-one years ago. You remember? She felt so bad about what she said on the lanai. She knew Linda heard. She saw her face at breakfast the next morning. She tried to say sorry, but you were already loading the car.<\/em><\/p>\n So she started a quilt. For Linda. You know what Grandma always said. You can\u2019t say sorry in a hurry. If you want to really say it, you sew it. One stitch at a time. Until it\u2019s done.<\/em><\/p>\n She picked the \u02bbulu pattern. The breadfruit. Same as the first quilt every Hawaiian girl learns. You know what it means. That the house it covers will never go hungry. That there will always be enough. She said Linda was afraid there wasn\u2019t enough of you to go around. Enough for here and enough for there. She wanted to tell her there was. That a heart is like a breadfruit tree. You can feed a whole village off one tree and it still grows more.<\/em><\/p>\n She addressed the box herself. Years ago. She kept it in her closet. She said when the quilt was done, I should send it. So I did.<\/em><\/p>\n The other thing in the box is Mama.<\/em><\/p>\n Half of her. The rest we\u2019re putting in the water at Makapu\u02bbu on her birthday next March. She asked for that. She said half of her should go home to the ocean. And half of her should go wherever her son is.<\/em><\/p>\n She said, \u201cA mother should be where her son is. Even if he can\u2019t come to her. Then she\u2019ll go to him.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I know you can\u2019t come home. I know about the promise. I\u2019m not asking you to break it. Mama wasn\u2019t either.<\/em><\/p>\n But Kai. If you ever want to bring her back. If you ever want to put both halves of her in the water at the same time. We\u2019ll be here. All of us. We\u2019ll always be here.<\/em><\/p>\n Tell Linda the quilt isn\u2019t a guilt trip. It\u2019s an apology. And an invitation. And it\u2019s okay if she only takes the apology.<\/em><\/p>\n Your sister,<\/em><\/p>\n Lani<\/em><\/p>\n P.S. Mama\u2019s last words were your name. And then she said, \u201cTell Linda it\u2019s all right. He\u2019s a good boy. He kept his promise.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I put the letter down.<\/p>\n I looked at the wooden box on the table. My grandmother. Half of her. Who I\u2019d never met. Who\u2019d sewn a quilt for thirty-one years for a woman who threw her Christmas cards away.<\/p>\n Who\u2019d crossed an ocean in a cardboard box to be with her son.<\/p>\n Three days too late.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are we supposed to do with this?\u201d I whispered again. \u201cWith her?\u201d<\/p>\n Mom didn\u2019t answer for a long time.<\/p>\n She reached out. Slowly. She put her hand on the lid of the wooden box. Flat. The way you\u2019d put your hand on someone\u2019s shoulder.<\/p>\n \u201cHello, Malia,\u201d she said quietly.<\/p>\n Then she stood up. She went to the hall closet. She came back with a phone book, an old one, from the bottom shelf, and a small spiral address book I\u2019d never seen before. Dad\u2019s. With a rubber band around it.<\/p>\n She\u2019d known where it was the whole time.<\/p>\n She flipped to the L\u2019s.\u00a0Lani.<\/em>\u00a0A number with an 808 area code.<\/p>\n She picked up the phone.<\/p>\n \u201cMom,\u201d I said. \u201cIt\u2019s eleven o\u2019clock at night.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s eight o\u2019clock in Hawaii,\u201d Mom said.<\/p>\n She dialed.<\/p>\n I only heard Mom\u2019s half.<\/p>\n \u201cLeilani? It\u2019s Linda. Linda Akana.\u201d A long pause. \u201cNo. No, honey. I\u2019m so sorry. I\u2019m calling because\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n She couldn\u2019t say it.<\/p>\n I took the phone from her. I\u2019d never spoken to my aunt in my life. I didn\u2019t even know what her voice sounded like.<\/p>\n \u201cAunt Lani?\u201d I said. \u201cThis is Annie. Kai\u2019s daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n There was a silence on the other end. Then a soft voice. Warm. With an accent that sounded like the way Dad said certain words when he was tired.<\/p>\n \u201cAnnie,\u201d she said. \u201cOh, Annie. I\u2019ve seen your pictures. Every year. Your dad sent them to Mama.\u201d Her voice changed. \u201cAnnie. Why are you calling and not him?\u201d<\/p>\n I told her.<\/p>\n She made a sound I\u2019ll never forget. Then I heard voices in the background. Many voices. A man\u2019s. A child\u2019s. Someone saying her name over and over. Someone else crying.<\/p>\n Then my aunt came back on the line.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen?\u201d she asked. Barely a whisper.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo weeks ago,\u201d I said. \u201cA car accident. He was coming back from the travel agency. He bought tickets. For all three of us. For Mom\u2019s birthday. To come see you.\u201d<\/p>\n There was a very long silence.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was coming home,\u201d Leilani whispered.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was going to ask her first,\u201d I said. \u201cHe wrote it on a sticky note.\u00a0Will you come with me? I\u2019ll understand if you say no.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n My aunt started to cry.<\/p>\n Behind me, my mother took the phone back.<\/p>\n \u201cLani,\u201d Mom said. Her voice was shaking but clear. \u201cI\u2019m saying yes.\u201d<\/p>\n We flew to Honolulu on the eighth of June.<\/p>\n Mom\u2019s birthday. On Dad\u2019s tickets. Pacific Wings refunded his seat and let us use the other two. The woman at the travel agency on Coburg Road cried when we came in to ask. She remembered him. She said he\u2019d sat at her desk for an hour picking out seats. He wanted Mom to have the window. He said she\u2019d never seen the islands from the air.<\/p>\n We carried two wooden boxes.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been to enough funerals. I\u2019d just been to one. I put it down on the kitchen table very, very gently. Behind me, my mother made a sound. I turned … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,21,22,1,5,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aita","category-daily-article","category-reddit-stories","category-story","category-story-daily","category-viral-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6264,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261\/revisions\/6264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nCLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING THE NEXT \ud83d\udc49PART 3- After My Father Died, I Received a Package From Hawaii That Made My Mom Freeze the Moment She Saw It\u00a0<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"