50-year love story: Mike and Joycelyn Victorino’s life full of family, public service and now a Parkinson’s diagnosis

The life that Mike and Joycelyn Victorino have shared together for five decades was on display Thursday morning in their Wailuku Heights home.

Jocelyn kissed Mike before he began an interview about serving as Maui County’s eighth mayor and his life after falling short of his reelection bid.

She went into the adjacent living room and began talking on the phone, but a little too loudly.

“Mom, mom … mom,” Mike Victorino said.

“Yes, dad?” Joycelyn answered.

“I cannot talk when you’re talking, too,” Mike said.

“OK,” Joycelyn said, lowering her voice.

Everyday exchanges like these between a couple whose primary identity to each other is as parents have been commonplace for the Victorinos, who will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on Valentine’s Day 2026. But these days the love feels a little deeper between the former first couple of Maui County.

In 2023, shortly after leaving the Mayor’s office following his reelection defeat to Richard Bissen in 2022, Mike Victorino was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurological disorder that primarily affects movement, causing symptoms like tremors, stiffness, slow movement and speech problems. 

He also is struggling with atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, vertigo and diabetes. He said he has known about the diabetes and congestive heart failure for a few years before the Parkinson’s diagnosis, “But I never listened to my doctor. You’re working like crazy. But I have no regrets.”

While there’s no cure for Parkinson’s, various treatments can help manage symptoms and improve quality of life. 

“I have good days and I have bad days,” Mike Victorino said.

He walks 4,000 to 5,000 steps per day, goes to at least two doctor appointments every week, and has Parkinson’s classes at the Maui YMCA three or four times per week.

“I’ve got a neurologist, a podiatrist, a general practitioner, a cardiologist. I got a couple others, physical therapist, too,” Mike Victorino said.

The Parkinson’s classes vary at the YMCA.

“One day it’s boxing. The next class is different drills to keep mental and physical stimulation,” he said. “Sometimes we throw balls at each other, call out names, colors. We do all kinds of different things. And then we exercise, stretch, so I like it.”

Victorino estimates he spends an average of four hours per day away from home, with Joycelyn at his side, serving as the designated driver.

“I’ve always felt that we’re close,” Joycelyn Victorino said. “Did (the Parkinson’s diagnosis) bring us closer? I think so. I think it teaches both of us to enjoy life the best that we can with what time is left.”

Mike Victorino will turn 73 on Aug. 24. Joycelyn is 67.

“I have a very grateful life, and we’ve been able to experience a lot of wonderful things,” Joycelyn Victorino said. “We have great memories.”

Mike Victorino grew up on the Big Island, where his father worked for Hilo Iron Works for 37 years, and his mother juggled several part-time jobs. After graduating from Hilo High School in 1970, he worked at Zale’s Jewelry.

It was his job that brought him to Maui in 1973 to open a Zale’s store in the Queen Ka‘ahumanu Center. He then went into management training at McDonald’s.

It was while working as an assistant manager at the Kahului McDonald’s that he met Jocelyn Nakahashi, a new employee still in high school.

“When I came up front, he told me, ‘I have a sister named Joycelyn, just like you,’ ” Joycelyn said. “And I looked at him, like, ‘Oh, big deal.’ “

While it wasn’t love at first sight, they quickly developed a fondness for each other.

“For Mike, he was attracted to me because he said I was such a good worker and I was attracted to Mike because I liked his relationship with the employees,” Joycelyn said. “They really liked him a lot. I would say loved him a lot because he was always so positive. I admired him as a manager, as a leader who was positive and made everybody laugh.”

Later, Mike asked Jocelyn multiple times if he could be her date to St. Anthony School’s junior prom, and she repeatedly said no. But eventually, he won her over with his persistence.

“When I was a cheerleader, Mike would always buy me a beautiful triple carnation lei,” Joycelyn said. “Every week he’d buy me a carnation lei. One could be red, another blue, green, yellow, every color, pink, every color you could think of. … Those were special moments for me that he did that.”

The couple married in 1976, raising two sons, Mike Jr. and Shane. Times weren’t always easy financially.

“We’re very grateful for everything that we have because he and I, everything that we have, we’ve struggled to get,” Joycelyn said. “We never wanted to ask our parents for a dime. Neither one. And so we either managed or we went without.”

Mike Victorino eventually went into the insurance industry, starting as a door-to-door salesman and making it a career for 38 years. He also has spent more than 20 years in public service, including with the Maui County Board of Water Supply, as the Maui County Fair director, and as a board member of the state Board of Education and Maui Economic Community Concerns. 

He was elected to the Maui County Council in 2006 and termed out in 2016. He defeated Elle Cochran in the 2018 race for mayor, with his four-year term including the unprecedented global COVID-19 pandemic. One of his longtime colleagues said what always stood out to her was his humor and encouragement.

“Mayor Victorino has truly dedicated his life to making our community a better place, whether in public office, through the County Fair, or as a coach and sports official,” said Council Member Yuki Lei Sugimura, who has held the Upcountry seat on the Maui County Council since 2016. “I have always enjoyed the opportunity to work together while coordinating community events and during his time as mayor.”

She added: “He always leaves me with a laugh and wise words of encouragement. I am grateful for all that Mike, Joycelyn and the Victorino family have given and continue to give to our community.”

Victorino thinks his Parkinson’s quite likely got its start during the stressful times of leading the county through the pandemic, which caused a complete shutdown of travel and tourism for more than six months and economic woes for most of the county. Like many elected officials at the time, Victorino’s decisions were not always popular and met with pushback, but he maintains that his calls were made with the community in mind.

“I was too busy with COVID, dedicating myself to the people,” he said. “Every decision I made was for the people.”

He said people pitied him for being in office during the pandemic, but he believes that “God made me to be in that place at that time.”

Three challenging moments of the pandemic stand out in his mind.

“First, when I decided to open up again (to tourists), I wanted to open up slowly, but we were overwhelmed,” he said. “I said publicly, ‘Don’t come. It’s not the right time to come to Maui.’ But we were being run over by bargain tourists so we had to open up a little faster than we probably should have.”

Victorino received plenty of criticism for the decision, with many people thinking the county should not open so soon to tourists and others thinking it did not open soon enough as some businesses failed.

The second challenge was when he got a call from an administrator of a senior living facility that he declined to identify. Due to the illnesses of some of the employees and fear of catching the virus by others, the facility was left with two people to care for 75 elderly residents early on a weekend.

After his staff contacted other facilities with no luck, he recalled reaching out to Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara of the Hawaiʻi National Guard and securing five National Guard members, four with medical backgrounds, to support the two on duty at the facility in need. They worked the whole weekend on rotation.

“My wife and I went down there the next morning, Saturday morning, six o’clock, making sure that everything was taken care of,” Victorino said.

The third challenge was the cleanup of rural places in Maui County as the deadly virus started to threaten small towns.

“Kaunakakai town, Hana town, Lahaina town,” he said. “When COVID spread into these towns, I sent in cleaning crews to clean up public facilities. And private, too. Supermarkets, like Friendly Market (Center on Moloka’i). I sent in a crew to clean up to make sure it was disinfected to keep it safe.”

Victorino said many of the COVID-era decisions had to be made on the fly.

“I was doing all of this not knowing if I could afford it,” he said. “The (County) Council gave me $9 million to work with. They just said: ‘Make sure you take care of the people.’ And that’s what I did with all the money.”

After being defeated in the 2022 race for mayor, Victorino admits he fell into a depression for a while.

But now he takes great pride in the fact that he still gets stopped when he and Joycelyn are out, with people asking him questions or his advice, and some just wishing him well.

“I feel good and I feel honored that they ask me the questions, that they still know that I’m there to help,” he said. ”I don’t have to be elected. I don’t have to have a position. I don’t have to have a title to help people. So, my life now is one of fulfillment.”

But it is hard not to recognize the decline in his health since leaving the spotlight of mayor.

He said he has lost about 75 pounds since his Parkinson’s diagnosis.

Joycelyn said he now stands about 5-foot-11 now compared to the 6-1 he once was, but he is still a giant to his sons, who have given the couple five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. 

Mike Victorino Jr. lives on O‘ahu and is the local secretary treasurer for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union that oversees roughly 16,000 members across the state. Shane Victorino played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball, winning two World Series and four Gold Gloves. He also was an MLB All-Star twice.

“My dad was a hard man growing up. He was hard on me. I’m junior, real tough, tough love, old school,” Victorino Jr. said.

It saddens him to see his father’s decline.

“It’s been rapid,” Victorino Jr. said. “It’s been hard, hard to accept as a son. We’re a really close family. We’re not a perfect family. We didn’t have much growing up. It took a village to raise Shane and I, my grandparents, aunts, uncles. And it is because my parents, my dad especially, they worked hard.”

Victorino Jr. said they weren’t a family that inherited anything monetarily. “But one thing we did inherit was love. We inherited the morals to work hard in everything we did. … You never give up, you never quit something. Those are the things that my dad instilled in us.”

Shane Victorino also gets emotional when he speaks about his father.

“If I had to describe the legacy of my father it is one that never wavered from where and what his beliefs were, the work ethic that he had and who he was and what he stood for, what our family stood for and the hard work,” Shane Victorino said. “When I speak to him, I say, ‘my work ethic was based upon watching my family.’

“My father being one of the very ones who just worked every day of his life to not only serve himself, but to serve the family, serve the community, serve the island that he loves. … His work ethic was something that I will never forget.”

The family has always had strong ties to St. Anthony Church. Joycelyn, Mike Jr. and Shane are all graduates of St. Anthony School. Mike Victorino said in his now soft voice that he is not afraid to die.

“No, but I hope the good Lord gives me enough time to watch my great grandchildren grow up,” he said. “I’ve always believed the Lord gives you what you can handle. So I figured he’s giving me that (Parkinson’s disease) for a reason. And I gotta handle it.”