I was born at 9:03 a.m. on Monday, August 16, 2004 at Kaiser Medical Center – Moanalua. I weighed 7 lbs., 3 oz., and measured 19 inches long. I have a big sister named Katie and a big brother named Zac.
My full name is Alexander Mori Kekūanaō‘a Ozawa. "Mori" is my paternal great-grandmother's maiden name, and is in fact a link to a prominent and well-respected family in Japan. Kekūanaō‘a means "the standing projections," as in the mast of a ship, and was the name of a prominent Hawaiian leader in the mid-1800s. (It is also the name of a street in Hilo on the Big Island, where my parents met).
For the first several months of my life, I was an extremely quiet, pensive baby. Just as everyone predicted, though, I soon found my voice. By my first birthday, I could make a fair number of basic baby noises, but set myself apart with my ear-piercing shrieks.
To be continued...