IN MEMORY OF
I am huge on providing attention to anyone, but even more so about those that have left us far too soon. Throughout my life, I have made friends that suffered significant losses - children, spouses, or family members. They deserve to be remembered at more than just a one-day funeral, memorial or obituary. Their lives mattered and made a difference in this world. I hope that in some way, this section helps those in grief - even if just for a few mere moments.
Tragically, the first two tributes are both those who left this world by their own hand. So, to anyone reading this right now: If you are feeling hopeless or suicidal, please remember that you matter, you are seen, and you are not alone. You are loved and needed. Reach out anytime for help - there are resources available. Please do not give up.
CHASE
The words below were offered to me by my friend, Kurt Ken Kaminaka. He is an incredibly gifted actor, writer, filmmaker and musician that I had the great fortune to meet through my film festival, Art is Alive. He is also a father, who lost his son, Chase. I hope you enjoy a small glimpse into a ginormous young man.
Chase was a sweet boy and surprised me in so many ways. From a young age, he learned very quickly. He learned to juggle very proficiently and was fifth in the state for tennis. He ended up being fourth best in the state in a French competition, and second best in sales at Cutco. However, his greatest love was music. He picked up the guitar at age fourteen and shortly thereafter, flourished and was the only high school student playing with adults in major theater plays in Honolulu. Chase then got into the jazz guitar program at the New School in New York City. Only seventy-five individuals were accepted from applicants all over the world. He finished one year and then got severely depressed. He tried again and got into Wesleyan (ninth best according to Forbes) and made an attempt at creative writing. While heading back for his second semester, he called his mother while waiting for a connecting flight to Connecticut and said he couldn't do it. I then had to go to get him and bring him back to Honolulu. He then tried again at the University of Hawaii, but after one semester, said it was too easy and that they didn't have courses that he wanted.
Since that time, his condition had deteriorated. He started hearing voices and was diagnosed with the condition schizophrenic psychosis. The psychiatrist tried every drug and combination that he could. It helped somewhat, but not enough. On May 29, 2024, he ran and jumped off a bridge. He was in a coma for thirty days. His mother and I visited every day. He fought to come back but did not make it. He was twenty-seven years young. His celebration of life took place on July 27, 2025.
He wrote a song when he was sixteen that was magical, and it is entitled "If this is Goodbye". This is now the title of my fourth, and most important, feature film. This serves as the theme song of the movie and will feature Chase singing & playing guitar. Writing this and making this tribute to Chase is very healing. Chase will be, without a doubt, the star, sharing his talents with the world.
Direct contact to Chase’s father, is here: Facebook
HUNTER
A Mind Like Fire, A Heart Like Home
Some people arrive in your life like a lightning strike—brilliant, startling, and impossible to forget. Hunter Bateman was like that. Only, he didn’t burn everything down. He illuminated it.
From the moment I met Hunter, I knew his mind worked differently. It wasn’t just intelligent—it was symphonic. Ideas didn’t sit on the surface for him; they burst forth like constellations rearranging themselves midair. He could find poetry in a parking lot, theology in a campfire’s crackle, and entire fictional worlds waiting behind a single glance. We’d spend hours lost in conversation—half-spoken stories that lived between our sentences, characters we built from dust and dared to breathe life into.
His mind was a gallery, and I was one of the few lucky enough to hold the key. Even that brilliance would have meant little without his heart. Hunter’s heart…..it was something holy. Not in the stained-glass, unreachable kind of way, but in the way he saw people—really saw them. He could talk to a homeless man with the same reverence he’d show a seminary professor. He walked barefoot more often than not, almost like he didn’t want to stand too heavy on the world. He carried peace like perfume, but he wielded truth like fire. He was a modern-day evangelist, preaching Jesus not with perfection, but with presence. He had a way of loving people without flinching—without asking them to be anything but exactly what they were. He loved me that way.
Ours was a friendship born in creative chaos—half-serious debates over plot twists, cast lists, and character arcs that melted into soul-deep conversations about faith, pain, and purpose. He never made me feel like I had to earn his love. It was just… there. Steady. Unreserved. I think he understood parts of me that I hadn’t even figured out yet. In a world that often felt like it demanded my performance, he gave me permission to simply be. In his gentle, knowing way, he called out the best in me—my art, my faith, my fierce and fragile heart.
So, when I say the world is dimmer now without him, I mean it. Hunter died by suicide at the age of 37. As I write that, the sentence feels like it belongs in someone else’s story. Not his. Not the boy with the spark in his eye and the gospel in his bones. Not the man who carried other people’s pain like sacred offerings, who believed in the light even when shadows closed in. Yet, mental illness is cruel like that—it tells lies in a voice that sounds like your own. Sometimes, even the brightest stars collapse under the weight of their own gravity. I won’t let his story end in that darkness.
Hunter was not his ending. He was every moment he chose to stay. Every person he poured truth into. Every late-night text that said “I believe in you.” Every barefoot sermon on sidewalks, every story idea scribbled into a journal, every child who laughed at his silly voices and every soul that looked up because he saw them first. He changed me, and I will carry that change for the rest of my life.
To those who knew him—thank you for loving him. To those who didn’t—I wish you had. To you, Hunter… my brilliant, barefoot friend—thank you. For the light, the laughter, the loyalty. For seeing me. For showing me that I, too, am worth being seen. You were a fire, and your warmth still lingers.