“The Hawaiian Wedding Song,” or “Ke Kali Nei Au,” is being sung several times today for Valentine’s Day, traditionally one of the busiest days of the year for weddings, florists, jewelry stores and other love-related traditions. Larry Rivera will sing
“The Hawaiian Wedding Song,” or “Ke Kali Nei Au,” is being sung several times today for Valentine’s Day, traditionally one of the busiest days of the year for weddings, florists, jewelry stores and other love-related traditions.
Larry Rivera will sing the song several times in English and Hawaiian during ceremonies at the old Coco Palms hotel chapel and lagoons, as will entertainers from Smith’s Motor Boat Service and Waialeale Boat Tours, as more than 15 Fern Grotto weddings are scheduled today.
Just as the Hawaiian lyrics penned by Charles E. King in 1925 have survived the test of time, a few Kaua’i couples have enjoyed long-lasting unions.
“The biggest thing was each of us looking for, searching for, ways to make our spouse happy,” said Bruce Morehead, who has been married to Angela Morehead since 1968.
“Instead of keying on why I’m not happy, what can I do to make my spouse happy?” he said.
“We try to think how we can make each other happy every day,” said Angela Morehead.
Having children around, and then having them leave the house as adults, were strengthening points of the union, Angela said. Some of the couple’s fights were about how to raise the children, she said, and having them out of the house allowed the couple to once again concentrate totally on each other.
“We give each other space when we need it, and that’s important,” she said. They know each other so well that no eye contact has to take place, or words spoken, when that space is needed.
“We’ve had a great life together. And it hasn’t always been easy,” she said.
Both said their religion has kept them strong and together.
Do they have any advice for the hundreds of couples who will become one today?
“Just do everything in their power to love one another,” Bruce Morehead said.
Other advice he concurred with is long-uttered: Every day, you can find reasons to break apart. What you have to do is find reasons to stay together.
“It’s just really too easy to get a divorce nowadays. That’s the whole problem,” he said. “It’s just so easy that people don’t even think anything else but divorce. They don’t think of how they can make this work.”
Paul and Shirley Douglass of Lihu’e are among those rarest of people who were together all through high school and college, and knew when they were teenagers they were destined to marry and be together forever.
In August, the pair will have been married 45 years. They have five children and five grandchildren (a daughter will marry next month in San Francisco) and a love that remains so strong you can feel it.
“I knew I was going to marry him,” Shirley Douglass said of her beau. And she knew he would stay by her side for life, even when that meant moving the family from San Francisco to Japan to Portland to Honolulu to Maui to Guam, before settling on Kaua’i 20 years ago.
“Shirley’s been incredibly supportive through all of my moves,” said Paul Douglass, who spent much of his career with Matson Navigation Co.
In some ways, the union might appear too perfect. For the first eight to 10 years of marriage, the couple had zero arguments.
Their children have all been successful and haven’t caused them a day of grief, Paul continued.
They enjoy many of the same things, and there have been “incredibly few bumps,” Paul said. Like the Moreheads, the Douglasses give each other space when necessary.
The couple has been on Kaua’i for 20 years, and Paul credits Shirley for the success he has enjoyed professionally and in community service.
Their advice for those getting hitched: “Talk to each other,” he said. “Communicate,” she added.
“Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff, believe me,” Paul said.
“It’s a little of everything, to be honest with you. It’s a lot of love and attention, communication,” said Shirley.
Celebrating four months of wedded bliss today are Paul and Maria Cabral, Kaua’i natives and permanent residents of the long-term-care wing of Wilcox Memorial Hospital.
For the former Maria Deronio of Lihu’e, 78, it was “love at first sight.” For Kalaheo native Paul Cabral, who ended 73 years of bachelorhood late last year, it was time to remarry.
“I was alone. I needed a companion,” he said.
Her daughters and his brothers attended the ceremony, officiated by Judge Clifford Nakea. It was the first-ever wedding in the Wilcox long-term-care unit. The two will live the rest of their days in the hospital, but now they’re in one room instead of two.
There are no fights over the remote control at night. “She sleeps while I watch TV,” he said.
After meeting around a dinner table and flirting with each other for awhile (Paul Cabral demonstrated his winning style of flying kisses with his hand), the couple was engaged for two months before tying the knot.
“I told her, ‘What, you want to marry me?’ She tell, ‘Yeah,'” he said.
Both said it was the happiest day of their lives.
“It was a nice wedding,” he said.
“It’s kind of a nice little love story,” said Lani Yukimura, hospital spokeswoman.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
