Family pleads
for return of journal
Irreplaceable messages from
By Pat Omandam
a son now deceased were in
a stolen briefcase
Star-BulletinWhen doctors diagnosed 23-year-old Todd Shinno with leukemia a year ago today, his mother felt he was going to fully recover and started a journal to record her son's progress against the disease.
"I felt he was going to get better and one day I would give him this journal," said his mother, Pauline Pavao. "So I just kept writing in it, and how we went through it all, the chemotherapy, the bone marrow transplant.
"I kept a journal of all the events. He used to e-mail me; he used to write poems and short stories. I used to take copies from my printer, and I pasted it all into the journal."
After a seven-month battle, Shinno -- who was to graduate this summer with a business administration degree from the University of Hawaii-Manoa -- died Dec. 30 from complications due to his radiation treatment.
His mother, however, continued with her journal entries. She had just four pages left to fill in the red 150-page book when it was stolen last weekend.
"I was really heartbroken," said Pavao, administrator of the Salvation Army Interim Home in Hilo. "I was real upset because I know those things could never be replaced, especially the messages he sent me that I took copies of."
Pavao and her husband, Steven, were in Honolulu to visit Shinno's grave during the Memorial Day holiday when someone broke into their rental car while they were having lunch at Ala Moana Center on Monday.
The thieves stole her new briefcase, which contained the journal, a datebook/planner that Shinno gave her as a Christmas gift, and interisland airline coupons and vouchers.
The Big Island couple now is pleading for the return of the journal and datebook, the closest ties Pauline Pavao has with her eldest son, her husband said yesterday.
He said the journal contained a detailed history of the family's traumatic experience. Also in it were "cherished conversations with God" and special conversations his wife had with their son, he said.
"My wife is a very religious person," he said. "She wrote journal entries, not only to herself and to Todd, but to God -- the conversations she would have with God for her own strength and peace, and just being appreciative for everything else."
Theft reports were filed with Honolulu police and Ala Moana Center security, but there are no leads.
Hawaiian Airlines reissued the couple's travel vouchers, although the coupons could not be replaced.
Steven Pavao added the crooks can keep the $700 briefcase, which he gave to his wife on Mother's Day, but return the priceless datebook and journal.
They can use the address in the datebook to mail it back or call him at work at (808) 933-0350. He is a unit supervisor for the state Child Protective Service Intake and Investigation Office in Hilo.
"If they have any ounce of compassion, they should turn it in somewhere where it can find its way back to us," he said.
