[ MAUKA MAKAI ]
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Jackie Cash dances along with Kaleolama at the Moana on Monday nights. Kaleolama calls Cash "queen of the Moana."
Perfect courage
Jackie Cash spreads
aloha through hula from her
wheelchair at the Moana Hotel
Courage is grabbing hold of a passion integral to your happiness, even if your grip isn't perfect.
Courage is depicted in a woman named Jackie Cash, who loves Hawaiian music so much that being paralyzed from the waist down doesn't stop her from traveling across the island to enjoy a live performance almost every evening. It doesn't stop her from doing the hula, even if it means staying in her seat and using her one good hand.
If anyone has "fingertips that say aloha," described in that classic song, "Lovely Hula Hands," it is Cash. The music is the high note in her life, as essential to her well-being as food and water.
This passion has been the reason she takes the Handi-Van from Ewa Beach to the Sheraton Moana Surfrider hotel in Waikiki five times a week. For the last 10 or so years, she has made the hour-plus trip on the bus in the afternoon, returning home the same way at night.
Most of the musical groups that perform evenings at the Moana invite her to do a couple of numbers, and Cash, always parked at the edge of the stage in her motorized wheelchair, gladly obliges.
Tau Greig, leader of Ka Moana Trio, introduces her as "a very good friend who comes to visit us."
"She takes that hot-rod wheelchair over the freeway to come here -- we love you, Jackie -- she's going to do a couple of songs for you."
Tourists in the audience give her warm smiles and polite applause after her performance, which involves waving her arm to the rhythms of the music. Afterward, Greig urges audience members to "stop and say 'hi' if you see her in the lobby -- she loves to talk."
THE MOANA, Waikiki's first beachfront hotel that caters to an upscale clientele, has become Cash's second home. She's as much a part of the scenery as the palm trees lining the property. The courtyard next to the stage under the historic banyan tree has always been one of the most romantic spots in Hawaii, where local performers sent the music of aloha all around the world via the famous "Hawaii Calls" radio show from the 1930s to the '60s.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Jackie Cash has found a second home at the Sheraton Moana Surfrider hotel in Waikiki, where she enjoys Hawaiian music -- and dancing hula -- every night.
The striking hula dancer Kaleolama, who performs with Ka Moana Trio Monday nights, said: "When Jackie's not here, I wonder what's wrong. She's faithful. ... She's a special lady ... the queen of the Moana."
Cash might find it easier to sit at home and bemoan her handicap, but she is dedicated to enjoying life, Kaleolama said. "She never complains about her limitations; she's always got a smile on her face. She loves kids, loves people."
Kaleolama smiles encouragingly as Cash tries to imitate her hand movements on stage. The dancer said she realizes Cash does the hula through her vicariously.
"I know she feels the songs. She can interpret the songs," the dancer said.
Cash's mobile features so easily express her emotions -- she rolls her eyes, grins warmly and mouths the words to songs -- that they compensate for the lack of fluidity in her hand.
Yet she raises her impaired hand into the air without apology, waving it to the rhythm to "Pearly Shells" and "Pupu Hinu Hinu," her favorite songs. She pumps her fist at the end of a number, flashes the shaka sign at friends or flourishes it like a conductor on the final refrain and holds it still, suspended in the air, on the final note of a song.
DRESSED IN a muumuu, her short salt-and-pepper hair is covered with her favorite lilac-flowered baseball cap embellished with a Honolulu Fire Department patch ironed onto it, something a friend at the hotel gave her. Her neck is laced with a half-dozen kukui nut and shell leis.
On her good hand are two kukui nut and two gold Hawaiian bracelets. She can't use her right hand, and it hangs, curled into a ball, at her side. Hot pink booties cover her feet, always cold, which are stretched out in front of her.
Piled on her lap are a couple of plastic bags full of everything she might need for the night, including snacks and a big squirt bottle full of Pepsi, compliments of the hotel.
A case manager once told Cash she had to give people tips for service, but she said: "When I give a tip, they no like. They don't want it. ... They're really nice, really, really nice."
It was Charles (she doesn't remember his last name), her case manager long ago, who first proposed the idea that she go to Waikiki to listen to music. The first two times he urged her to go, she said, "NO! NO!" her eyes imitating the wide-eyed horror of the idea.
"I didn't like to go nowhere, but my case manager said, 'Go, Jackie, go!'
"I never, never been to Kalakaua before. This was my first hotel. I never been to a hotel before," she said.
But after a while she decided to give it a try because her passion for the music overrode her fears.
"I came because of the Hawaiian music. I really enjoy it. I can relax myself. When I sit, my body (gets) so tense. ... I never get tired at this hotel. I get tired when I stay at home."
Cash usually arrives about 6 p.m. and leaves a bit after 8. On some days she arrives earlier in the day, about 11 a.m., and watches the surfers.
Cash, 49, lives in a care home in Ewa Beach, but before that lived at Waimano Home for the disabled, where she says she was "well trained" in personal caretaking skills. She still needs help with bathing and getting into bed, but is proud that she can make her bed and do her laundry. She can't chew very well and has difficulty with speech.
Cash said she isn't afraid to go to the Moana by herself because she is among friends who will help her if she needs it. When she's not at the hotel, she listens to Hawaiian music on the radio.
Ben Gouw, a young front-desk service agent, is Jackie's oldest and best friend at the hotel, according to the several thank-you notes (written with help from someone) made of construction paper she has given to him.
"Everybody here loves her, from security to the baggage guys," said Gouw, who has known her for five years, from the time he started as a valet and would help prop her up in her chair.
"Thanks for always cheering me up and being such a good friend to me," is one of Cash's messages to him.
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