Playing bingo is not for Walter Kaloheaulani Kawaa Jr. — singing is his game.

The 81-year-old would rather make his way about the Palolo Chinese Home in his wheelchair, strumming his ukulele and singing old melodies to pass the time. Sometimes he stops in to visit someone in need of company at the long-term care residence.

“I know pretty much everybody in here. … I know who is stuck in the room because they have a problem moving or sitting up. I look at their faces and I see they’re uncomfortable,” said Kawaa.

Discomfort is something Kawaa is well familiar with, trudging through myriad health problems since he entered hospice care at Palolo in December in the aftermath of a severe fall. He can get about using a walker, but most of the time he makes his rounds in his wheelchair. One of the youngest residents at the facility, Kawaa said he can take care of himself for the most part, although he tires easily.

Brenda Johnson, his nursing assistant under Bristol Hospice for about a year, said Kawaa is very alert and has “a tender heart for people.”

“It’s a treat to have him play … His Hawaiian music is untouchable. What he brings to the Palolo Chinese Home residents is a lot of encouragement, hope for the others. They bring out instruments (in the common room) and he kinda leads the group, and everybody participates. They’re singing folk songs, from Chinese to Japanese, all ethnicities, not just Hawaiian music,” Johnson said.

Expressing his feelings and finding solace in song comes as naturally as talking, Kawaa said. Even when bedridden in the past, he managed to sing lying on his back. He was raised singing hymns a cappella with his five brothers and sisters on Molokai, where they grew up on a taro farm in Halawa Valley.

“Our family sang at home, at church, at school, at funeral services … We grew up singing, that was our life,” said Kawaa.

It became natural for them to sing in six-part harmony, first in Hawaiian, then learning the English translation of songs.

After moving to Oahu in 1957 to attend Kamehameha Schools, Kawaa became a Honolulu police officer in 1967 and retired as a detective in 2003. He participated in the choirs of several United Church of Christ congregations, where Hawaiian is often spoken and sung.

His wife, the late Audrey Napua Brown, was Catholic and attended Saturday Masses, but she accompanied him to Pearl City Community Church on Sundays, where they sang in the choir.

“I love church; I love singing, my wife and I,” said Kawaa, who was married for 47 years to Brown, an English teacher. They have a son, daughter and five grandchildren.

Brown succumbed to cancer and a heart attack in 2016. “I wanted to die with her,” Kawaa said, recalling the heartbreaking day. “September is not a good month for me.”

The memory prompted him into a mournful rendition of “Have You Any Room for Jesus?” in Hawaiian and English, while tears flowed down his face. He sang that song at her funeral service and said it was hard to sing for a long while after she died.

Later, he joked, “My voice is like a flat tire.” But it didn’t stop him from sliding easily into the classic “Amazing Grace,” and then, “Pane Mai (Answer Me).”

Kawaa has become accustomed to the routines and familiar faces at Palolo — “I love living here. The staff is good, the food is great, but not enough salt,” he said.

Family and friends are always coming to talk story, mainly old pals from the police department and people from church, who might join him in song. Gardening also keeps boredom at bay.

At first, he went outside just to get some sun whenever it peeked out in the cloudy, rainy area. That’s where he noticed a raised planter box at the building entrance, holding flowers and a few vegetables that had become ugly from neglect. He got some of his garden tools from home and began to repot and trim the the plants, drawing from his experience on the family farm.

Pots of flowers, orchids and other greenery given to residents have been added to a collection that is neatly tended under his watchful eye.

“Now people stop and look, because they remember what it looked like before,” Kawaa said.

In the warmth of the garden, he leaned back in his wheelchair, content. He stroked his ukulele, the headstock labeled with the name “Kanoe” in honor of his granddaughter, Kanoe Kaaa, to commemorate her birthday — Sept. 12, 1993. He recalled the date as easily as he summoned other names and important dates throughout his life.

“My body is not doing so well but my brain is still sharp,” he said.

Then he added, “If I didn’t have a uke, my life wouldn’t be OK.”