Grandma Tutu

My Grandma Tutu a.k.a Harumi "Dustie" Sasaoka Waggoner

Has been staying at my papa's house for the past couple months.

She has lung cancer.

We love her so so much.

Everyone who has met her loves her.

They can't help it though.

She is so genuinely sweet to everyone.

She is a hoot to be around.

Her smile and laugh is infectious.

Although Grandma loves a lot of people, there are few she loves more than Levi.

Whenever she sees him she says "Smile for me. Give me a big smile...A bigger one!"

And Levi never lets her down.

He always gives her the biggest smile.

Which melts Tutu's heart.

Lately Grandma hasn't been doing too well. She hasn't eaten or really even opened her eyes to acknowledge people.

But

When me and Levi came to visit, Janice leaned over and told her Levi was there to see her.

She opened her eyes and said

"Levi? Give me a smile."

She then tried to reach for Levi.

I brought Levi close to her and he giggled and held on to her finger.

Those two love each other.

When we first found out that Grandma had cancer I decided I wanted to make a book of her life.

She is pretty amazing.

And has some good stories.

The family has been spending the past couple weeks asking Tutu questions and writing her history.

One of my favorite stories has to be about her experience living in Hawaii as a Japanese American during WWII.

She lived near Pearl Harbor when it was bombed.

She said on the morning it was bombed she was at a Japanese Buddhist school doing the morning prayers outside.

She looked up and saw a fighter plane flying low.

She saw the Japanese flag on the side of the plane.

It flew so low that she saw the man in the plane.

He was waving at the kids, telling them to take cover.

The teachers told the kids to hurry and run home.

Grandma remembers taking her time walking through the sugar cane fields.

She doesn't remember too much after that.

She never had to go to a internment camp for Japanese Americans during that time.

She said it was because they were pions. Not important enough.

Her family was discriminated on constantly.

She said that people would say "A good Jap is a dead Jap."

She also told us about her own Rosa Parks story.

It really shows how tough my Grammy is.

She said that in Hawaii the whites would sit in the front of the bus, everyone else sat behind with the Japanese Americans in the very back. Tutu being the rebel she is decided she wasn't going to sit in back anymore and sat in the middle. The friend that was with her asked her what she was doing and that she was going to get in trouble. Grams just said "Im going to sit here and if they want to make something of it then let them."

Seriously. She is tough.

It has been so awesome to hear stories of my Grandma and her family.

We are so blessed to have her in our lives.

We love love love her!