Lisia Talakai has been running around telling everyone at the Women’s Community Correctional Center that she will get to celebrate Christmas with her son for the first time in 13 years, thanks to the "Star Light, Star Bright!" Christmas program.
"Oh, my God, I’m so excited! Oh, my God, I’m so grateful!" Talakai said in an interview at WCCC on Wednesday. Incarcerated on drug-related charges, she was attending New Hope Windward’s annual Christmas production, "Believe," and has been part of the inmate ministry team under New Hope for five years.
For the first time this year, the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu program has been able to raise enough in donations to bring some 40 children from the neighbor islands to visit their mothers Dec. 15 and 16 at the Kailua prison. The Star Light program has provided a holiday meal, festivities and gifts to 2,512 children, most of them on Oahu, since its inception in 2000, the diocese said in a news release.
Talakai, who is from Hawaii island, last saw her son, 15, in August, and prior to that, in 2009, but not at Christmas. She had not been a regular part of his life for 13 years.
"I made some bad choices," she said.
When she sees him in person, "I know I’m going to cry. … I want to know how he’s doing in school, what kind of grades he has. I want to know if he has a girlfriend! I want to know what he does after school. Does he go to summer school? I want to know a bunch of things!" she said in a gush.
Her previous lack of involvement in his life has not caused a rift between them, she said.
"He’s at the age that he’s more understanding, but at the same time he’s also selfish. It’s like: I want my mommy now! … But I continuously let him know why I’m in here, about the choices that I’ve made, so he doesn’t make the same choices I did when he grows up."
The program has purchased gifts for the children on behalf of the inmates for distribution Dec. 15, to which a message written by their mothers will be attached. Talakai wiped away tears as she said that on the card, "I just told him how I love him and miss him, and to just continue to do good in school, and listen to grandma and grandpa. I’m so happy, so grateful."
