My Dad was raised Catholic, but geography prevailed over religion. He was more afraid of Pelé, the vengeful goddess of fire and the mother of Hawaii than he was of the Devil or the Church. He swore he had crossed paths with her when he was younger at Wailea Beach. A young woman with long dark hair and a white lace dress. She looked over at him with coal-red eyes.A regular reminder he was a believer was in every pre-flight ritual back to the mainland. He thoroughly checked our bags for stowaway pebbles or rocks that could incite Pelé’s curse for those who take what belongs to Hawaii.Meanwhile, my likewise devout Catholic Grandma, a Sunday service regular, told us that geckos were messengers from the other side, watching over us and reporting back to our ancestors that we were safe. My mainland-raised Mom’s dry take was, “That’s when you call the nursing home.” But I still found it comfortingevery time we came home, turned on the porch light, and geckos rushed out of sight around the house's stucco siding.To this day, I question if it was a creative excuse or procrastination, but it took us two years to find a final restingplace for my Grandfather’s ashes at sea where Nanue, the shark god, wouldn’t torment him for eternity.When I was twenty-seven, my Dad’s stories stopped. His voice disappeared.He’d developed a bad bout of pneumonia that many weeks and many doctors later was still stubbornly in place. It took two months for the diagnosis to come back: Stage IV metastatic cancer.A retired nurse, my Mom’s voice broke while reading me the first diagnostic lab report over the phone during my lunch break.I walked away from my New York high-rise office and across Central Park, a carnival merry-go-round blur I only resurfaced from when I was on the subway and a stranger was handing me a Kleenex because I was sobbing on the downtown A train.My Dad claimed to be an atheist - that we only live on in memories and in the impact we have on others while we’re here. But when we talked post-diagnosis about what happens at the End, he had a faraway look in his eye, foreign to his usual stoic facial expressions as a career scientist.“And then you wake up,” he said.Somewhere else.Somewhere new.