“No man is an island, entire of itself … Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in all mankind, therefore never ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”
— John Donne, 1572-1631
Last week, a young man woke up and put on his police uniform. He hugged his wife and his kids and drove to work in order to protect us. He answered a call in Mountain View. It would be his last.
We live on an island, we should take care of each other.
One evening in 1991, a young woman named Dana Ireland got on her bike on the Red Road in Puna. She started pedalling toward Kapoho, a mile away. She was going home for Christmas, her family was waiting. She looked up seeing the colors of the sunset melting over the distant cinder cones. It was her last sunset.
We live on an island, we should take care of each other.
It’s graduation night at Kealakehe and Konawaena High, and other high schools. Hundreds of joyful graduates are dressed in their blue or green gowns, Waveriders and Wildcats, happy and hopeful for the future. Leis up to their chin, shakas, their families all around.
Some will sail the seas following their dreams or build rock walls, become politicians, businessmen, grocery clerks, bums, or presidents.
We live on an island, they are in the ohana, we should take care of each other.
A Hilo man went to work one day and lost his job and is stuck with nothing. A woman in Kona is on the street with no way to make a living. A poor soul in the old industrial is mentally ill and can’t fill out food stamps forms and he’s hungry.
There are veterans who fought for your freedom, sisters, brothers out of luck, standing beside the road asking for help. Like you, they are pushing shopping carts. Like you, they get hungry and need shelter for the night.
We live on an island, they are in the ohana, we should take care of each other.
There are kupuna with a hard time walking, a girl with a backpack hitch-hiking on the highway, people standing around a stalled car on the road.
And there are so many causes at work for our people: the steak frys for firemen, for schools, for trips to places that will boost our kids forward; The Food Basket, where you drop in canned foods to feed the poor.
We live on an island in the same ohana, we should care for each other.
The eruption in Puna is where our friends and neighbors lost their homes and are wandering around wondering, hoping, hiding their tears. Some lost all they had in the world.
They are our ohana, too.
Policemen on our island put their lives on the line everyday to keep us safe. Last week they were put to the test and got battered and wounded, just for us.
Everyone who is reading this, please take a moment and send your aloha and healing to the family and friends of Hawaii police officer Bronson Kaliloa.
He gave it all taking care of us, protecting our island ohana.
Dennis Gregory writes a bimonthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your thoughts at makewavess@yahoo.com