Although they are not kin, they care for her like ohana

What Grace and Hideo Simon did for Sun Kum Medeiros is an extraordinary example of what loving people do in the name of family.

Thing is, the Simons have no formal relation to Medeiros, blood or otherwise.

About five years ago Grace’s mother put out a call for a roommate, and Medeiros answered. She and Grace’s mother were as different as Unger and Madison, but they got along well.

“She was really sweet and really good to our kids,” Grace said.

Three years ago Medeiros and a friend boarded a plane for quick trip to Las Vegas. Hours later Grace got a call from her mother. She’d received word that Medeiros had suffered a major stroke while on the airplane. Upon landing she had been transported straight to a hospital.

When Grace and Hideo went to Las Vegas to visit Medeiros, they found her heavily medicated and deeply depressed.

Medeiros was paralyzed on her right side and unable to speak or swallow. With no family to act on her behalf — her husband had died years earlier, and she had no siblings or children — she had become a ward of the state, her care left to the discretion of court-appointed guardians.

“She was abandoned,” Grace said. “She was far away from home and surrounded by strangers.”

Grace promised Medeiros that she would get her back to Hawaii.

Working through the social services agency Cardon Outreach, the Simons did all that they could to cut through bales of red tape in Hawaii and Nevada, stymied repeatedly by the fact that they had no blood ties to Medeiros.

The break came when a doctor determined that Medeiros, although still unable to talk, was competent to make her own medical decisions. That allowed Grace to coordinate a return to Hawaii, which happened last month.

Challenges remain. Medeiros needs more help than her new residential facility can provide.

Still, she is home and under the watchful eye of people who love and care for her.

Grace dismisses the notion that what she did was anything special.

“It was just a matter of knowing the right thing to do and doing it,” she said.

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.