What’s your most memorable Halloween experience?

Perhaps the masks we wear every day are the hardest ones to see. Halloween is when I feel most like myself. My most memorable Halloween was Hallelujah Night in Hawaiʻi: candy passed out inside the church, stories of God/Devil & legends of torchlit Night Marchers beyond its doors. I grew up on ancient land, in a house where things really went bump in the night. Between scripture, spirits & experiences I still can’t explain, Halloween never felt like make believe.

Tell us why you would make it to the end of a horror movie.

I was given up for adoption, then death took the parents who chose me. Lupus took two sisters, Hawaiʻi’s ice epidemic took my nephew. As a child, I heard whispers and felt my bed shake in the dark. Seventeen years married to a military sergeant taught me endurance. Raising two daughters alone taught me to sleep with one eye open. When the lights go out, I don’t scream. I find my girls, scan the exits and prepare for whatever’s coming. Horror isn’t entertainment to me. It’s training.

What would you do with the unlucky $13,000?

I don’t see the number 13 as unlucky. In numerology, 1 means new beginnings, 3 is creativity & together they make 4: a foundation. Tarot’s XIII is Death, not a curse but transformation. Astrology and angel numbers remind me that endings can become beginnings. I’d use the money to build security for my daughters and a future of my own making. The world is changing fast. I’d rather learn its language than fear it. $13000 isn’t bad luck but maybe a turning point.

Who is your real-life hero who you would want to survive a horror movie with?

My mother was my real-life Sarah Connor: a mother's heart with the endurance of a machine. Born during the Great Depression, she witnessed Pearl Harbor and survived the devastating 1946 April Fools' Day tsunami as a schoolgirl. She later endured the loss of two children and widowhood. And if a horror movie gave me one more adventure with her, I'd take it, monsters and all.