Disrupt Aging: Ross Shimabuku comes home to care for mom and dad

New KHON2 morning anchor Ross Shimabuku’s career has taken him across the country from Hawaii to Phoenix, San Diego and New York City, covering four Super Bowls and the 2001 World Series along the way.

But as his parents aged and his father began suffering from dementia, Shimabuku knew it was time to come home and help with caregiving.

“Your priorities change in life and you realize what’s important,” he said. “I want to be there for my mother, keeping (my father) happy and healthy and having a comfortable life.”

When the Al Jazeera America network, where he was working, shut down in 2016, Shimabuku spent several months at home helping his mother take care of his father.

“It really opened my eyes. I was always living on the mainland. I just saw it from afar,” he said. “You really see it. You see what sacrifices are made.”

After interviewing with KHON, he got a job offer and started in May as a co-anchor on “Wake Up 2Day,” where he also reports for and produces the station’s Kupuna Caregiver segment, which profiles other Hawaii caregivers.

“Everything happens for a reason,” Shimabuku said. “The opportunity came up. It was a blessing.”

Shimabuku started his career in Hawaii as a sports anchor on KGMB but left in 2001 when he was offered a job in Phoenix.

His mother, Gladys Shimabuku, is happy that her youngest son, the baby of the family, is back in Hawaii.

“I’m really glad that he came home,” she said. “He’s been on the mainland and I hadn’t seen him for a while.”

Gladys Shimabuku, 86, and her husband, George Shimabuku, 88, watch the KHON morning news faithfully to see Ross.

“I never did watch (‘Wake Up 2Day’) before. But now I watch,” she said. Her husband watches on a second television set and some mornings he’ll recognize his son and call out, ‘Mom, come. Ross is on the TV,’” she said. “He gets excited.”

The morning news shift allows Ross Shimabuku to spend more time at home with his mother and father.

In the afternoons, he helps watch his father and cooks or buys dinner. Ross Shimabuku goes to bed at 6 p.m. so he can wake up early for the morning show.

On weekends, Ross Shimabuku takes his parents to Kahala Mall to walk and exercise with other walkers.

His siblings help with caregiving. But for now, Ross is living with his parents in the Kaimuki house where he grew up.

“It’s a big house and we only have my husband and I,” Gladys Shimabuku said. “We help one another. It was lonesome without him.”

“I’m there in case something happens,” Ross Shimabuku said.

“(Caregiving has) been tough,” he said. “I don’t know how people do it. I give my mom a lot of credit.”

Ross Shimabuku enjoys coming home and seeing his mother smile. There are moments being around his father that make the sacrifice and hard work of caregiving worth it.

“I took him to W & M (Bar-B-Q) Burger because he used to take me there as a kid,” Ross Shimabuku said. “He loves to eat teri burgers. He was just whacking it.” And then, Ross Shimabuku said, his dad remembered their trips to get burgers when Ross was a child.

“It’s like the circle of life,” Shimabuku said.

Barbara Kim Stanton is the state director for AARP Hawaii, an organization dedicated to empowering people to choose how they live as they age.