Coming soon:

People Make Plans:

 A Heart Dog* and a Castle in Hawaii 

       Novella Inspired by True Events

You only get one heart dog in your lifetime,
                      the one who grabs your heart so tight he changes your life.

    *What is a heart dog?
We often hear the word soulmate used for humans, but for many of us, our truest soulmate has four legs and a tail. That is a heart dog. While we can love many dogs throughout our lives, a heart dog lives on a different frequency, a connection that feels less like a choice and more like fate. For me, that dog is Ray. A heart dog is the dog you don’t just own, you belong to.
Some call it a soul dog or spirit dog, but the meaning is the same:
a bond that doesn’t need proof or explanation.

Preface

I wrote this book because I made a promise to Ray, my German shepherd. He was my heart, my soulmate. Ray suffered from lumbar spinal stenosis (cauda equina syndrome), a cruel condition where the nerves at the base of his spine compressed until every step became agony, until even the simple things like standing or relieving himself turned into battles he could no longer win.

His deterioration mirrored my own struggle with losing control, forcing me to confront what it meant to stand, to endure, and to keep moving forward even when the ground shifted beneath me, like when the earthquake hit, and the lava started to flow.

The day finally came when I had to end his suffering. Truth be told, I probably waited two weeks too long. I promised him I would tell the world about him and never let his memory fade. It wasn’t until ten years later that I learned what I was carrying had a name: prolonged grief disorder. It was a real condition, not just me “failing to move on.”

You’ll also hear other voices here, some sharp, some funny, some unforgettable. Some of it is written in authentic Hawaiian pidgin. It’s not slang, and it’s not broken English. It’s a living language born in the plantations, stitched together from many cultures, and still spoken every day in the islands. Without it, the people in this story wouldn’t sound like themselves.

At its heart, People Make Plans is a Hawaiian story. Yes, there’s a castle. Yes, there’s drama. But underneath, it’s about belonging and identity, and how fiercely people fight, love, and sometimes lose over all of them.

There is always a disclaimer, which usually reads: This story was inspired by true events. To respect the privacy of individuals and maintain the integrity of the narrative, names, identifying details, and certain events in this book have been altered or fictionalized. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, is entirely coincidental. Ray, however, is not fictionalized. His presence is as real here as it was in my life.

So if the rhythm feels different, trust it. If the story takes you places you don’t expect, follow it. And if you feel your throat catch when Ray’s spirit shows up between these pages, then you’ll know why I had to write it.