Our 23-year-old daughter flew across five time zones to spend a week with us. She moved to New York to live her Carrie Bradshaw dream. We moved to Honolulu to live our hard-earned, empty-nester island life. I’m in denial that, after raising my one and only, my child and I find ourselves on separate life paths.
But she’s here now, standing, sleeping, snacking, laughing with me for six whole days.
I feel pressure to make memories and default to my in-living-color tourist traps. I drag her to Waikiki to take in the curve of bright lights, island city development along an iconic postcard stretch of sand. I ignore the historical fact that Waikiki was originally swamp land until mankind and money found ways to dredge sand from California to create a white sandy beach.
Chloe waves dismissively at the view. “Ma! I live all this every day in New York. I just want suburban!” She motions to the dense cluster of high-rises, crowds of tourists, and traffic backed up along Kalakaua Avenue. She wants suburbia.
We head to the mall. The Mall!
“How will you remember me when I’m gone some day? Just holding up a 70%-off blouse at Nordstrom Rack?” I huff. We can do better, I think.
Later, I suggest an “easy hike” for our little family of three on the Manoa Falls Trail. “It’s only .8 miles to the waterfall! And it starts in a local neighborhood. Can’t be that hard.”
My husband, the kind of man who cleans his sneakers every day with 409 spray, eyes me suspiciously.
Chloe, snipping the tags off her discounted fashion haul, gives me a guilty look and nods, which translates to “Ugh. If it makes you happy, Mom.”
I had Chloe at 42. Now that she’s 23, the math feels more consequential. How much time do I have to solidify her mental picture of me? How many experiences will it take to ease her memories of me raising her as a single, widowed mom, then remarrying and bringing us into a new family, and the hectic childhood of her moving nine times before she turned ten? The hike to Manoa Falls is part of a rebranding of another new “us.” Cool mom. Hiking mom. Mom who values nature more than Nordstrom.
It turns out, the trail to Manoa Falls is not an “easy hike.” Wet, muddy, it is a rain-soaked trail filled with rocks and boulders that our city sneakers and untrained ankles must navigate with care. The dirt that soaks our shoes is the color of melted dime-store chocolate ice cream. I can see my husband, Mike, wincing.
The slow pace of keeping ourselves from breaking a bone makes the .8 mile to the waterfall feel more like a Sebastian Junger lesson in resilience. We settle into a quiet rhythm to focus on our footfalls. The sign at the trailhead cautions hikers to turn off audio devices. No podcasts or pop music on this trail, no sir.
“Enjoy the sounds of nature. Silence Please.” it reads.
And then we realize silence is not silent. The flutter of wings through trees hints at the surrounding lush forest teeming with hidden life. Birds sing. The squish of muddy slush under our shoes draws our attention to the trickling stream below the path. I look up, and Chloe is standing under a single giant frond of a prehistoric-looking fern. In comparison, she looks as tiny as when I first held her in my arms at the maternity ward.
Click. Photo.
Mike trails further behind to stop and point his phone at the different plants
and use Google’s Lens feature to identify the different species. Technology in this setting serves to connect us more closely to nature.
By the time we reach the waterfall summit and take a family selfie, we realize the trail itself is the reward. The waterfall simply marked the literal turning point to head back and experience all the trail has to offer, only in reverse. The unknowns, a little more known: where to sidestep the biggest boulders, where the trail narrows, where to best grip to keep from slipping- an earned wisdom. We have a new family memory, pictures that add to our family iCloud, and in this, small life lessons that last beyond the trail about navigating slippery roads and the ever-present unexpected.
This Week’s Contributing Author:
Carol Lin, Author of When News Breaks, A Memoir of Love and War (2026)
Thank you @jencox for publishing and for this Substack. You’re making the outdoors feel accessible for my family. A little mud and a lot of nature goes a long way for the soul.
Beautiful and as an empty nester, very relatable! Now I want to go on that hike.