Letter from the Director: Dear Ones | Vol. 134, August 2024

By  Renée Tillotson

Only a few of you know that I have a sister, Melanie. Fewer know that she’s my half-sister on my dad’s side, that she is half-Chinese, and that she was born when I was 40 years old. By that time I had long-relinquished my hope for a sister… 

Now I suddenly had a sister, but she was only a tiny baby. We lived 300 miles apart and when I first began seeing her she needed diaper changes and baby food. Super cute. She was younger than all of our kids by at least 7 years. 

The new situation was not exactly the stuff of ‘girl time together’ and laughing and shared confidences between sisters. 

As YoYo – Melanie’s Chinese name, meaning “swing” – went through childhood, we’d see each other at family gatherings. She’d hang out with all her nieces and nephews within the same 10 year age bracket.

I’d converse with the adults of my generation and older, and maybe read little Melanie a story before bedtime.

Going back and forth between two very different world’s had to be a pretty tough way to grow up. Sometimes YoYo was doing homework at the barbershop of her Chinese mom, who is younger than I am. Sometimes she was taking piano lessons at the house of our much, much older Caucasian dad. Parental tensions were running high by her teen years. Cliff and I were living in Hawai’i when Melanie – as she now preferred to be called – telephoned me one night, sobbing, begging to come live with us in Kaneohe.

In the face of a difficult childhood and now teenage years, I admired Melanie for her resilience in bouncing back from difficulties. Cliff and I agreed to take her in, give her a bedroom, and find placement for her in a good private school nearby. I knew that she was a “spirited” teen, yet I thought that with our agreement of terms for living together we could spend some good times bonding. 

Well…. THAT did not work out. I found myself turning into a strict parent-figure with a defiant, wayward youth. We could not live peaceably under one roof with this young girl who seemed so rebellious to me. Everything I did, every choice I made with Cliff to try to benefit Melanie, seemed to be the wrong one. Three Outward Bound – type programs later, Melanie felt as if I had completely betrayed her. And I had absolutely no idea how to relate to her, even though she was my sister.   

Fortunately our youngest son and his girlfriend (now wife) insisted on taking Mel in to live with them. They were close enough in age and experience for her to be able to communicate with. Living in their rental with them, she managed to graduate from high school. Our dad flew over from San Francisco to Honolulu for us all to celebrate her graduation. How do I spell “RELIEF”?!?

I had very little involvement in Melanie’s next decade of life, feeling the whole time like the Big Bad older sister who had failed her.

Sometimes doing the best we can just isn’t enough. Maybe that’s why I’m so dedicated to “lifelong learning”. At 68, I have so much more to understand about the world and the people in it – and that becomes ever more evident to me. 

After high school, Melanie moved to Los Angeles to seek fame and fortune in the big city. We’d see each other occasionally at family get-togethers, and have brief chats. She was very beautiful, very distant.

By 2023, we had completely drifted apart. I, and indeed the rest of the family, only got occasional reports of her whereabouts and doings.

The change came after she was hit by a car in the street and had to get emergency spinal surgery to repair the damage. Finally, Melanie reached out again to family. 

Oh my gosh. I was so relieved to reconnect with my sister. We made arrangements so that she could move back to O’ahu. It’s a long road back to recovery. I took her to her first physical therapy session, more than half a year after the accident happened, and she is making progress on that front. I’m proud of her for her life-long resilience, which she has put to good use. Her lomilomi massages with Kumu Mālia at Still & Moving are her favorite!

And guess what? I finally have a sister that I can hang out with. 

She and I love attending Mālia’s last Friday of the month music nights, sometimes even singing along. Mel has a great voice.

Mel made a big professional decision recently, enrolling in a cosmetology school here on island. She has a tendency to worry a lot, such as fretting that she would fail every test at hair school. Then she goes and aces them! And we laugh about that.

In addition to being a smart student, Melanie turns out to be quite a comic and does great impersonations. She’ll often share stories and replays of interactions with her chihuahua-like instructor at hair school – who used to be her nemesis and now turns out to be something of her champion. 

She and I meet at her condo sometimes and get to do silly stuff – like pool dancing. Yes, I did spell that correctly!  We “dance” in her condo pool! No one else from the condo building has yet decided to join us – they just don’t know how much fun they are missing out on!

We share in common that we were both our dad’s dear little daughters – at different times in his life, of course. Now that our handsome, vivacious dad is getting so elderly and frail, we have each other to talk with when we think of how sad we will be at that inevitable time when he won’t be around for us to call or see him.

Mel and I often get together and make dinner at our house for Cliff and sometimes friends. Our signature activity – besides the pool dancing – is pie baking. I have to say that our pies are rivaling even my mother’s, whose pies are hands down the best pies I’ve ever eaten. Watch out, Mom!  

Melanie and I are trying one new pie recipe after another, and we’ve found a Butter Crust recipe that’s light, crispy, and never fails. I’ll share it with you below. We have so much fun laughing and baking together, I look forward to it every week.

I’d always wanted a sister I could be buddies with. I guess sometimes we have to wait a long time, and learn a lot, to get something we really want.