Molokai History:
(from “The Separating Sickness: Ma’i Ho’oka’awale: Interviews with Exiled Leprosy Patients at Kalaupapa, Hawaii” by Ted Gugelyk and Milton Bloombaum, Ma’i Ho’oka’awale Foundation, Honolulu, HI, 1979)
(continued from yesterday)
Male
Part-Hawaiian
Partly Disfigured
48 years of age
37 years in Kalaupapa
Leadership
My Early Life
When we arrived at the Kalihi Receiving Station, we drove through the big gates into the open compound. We were greeted by many patients who were already confined. They crowded around the car, curious as to who the newcomer might be. I was introduced to the head nurse. I stepped out of the car, but my mother remained within. I noticed there were many children there, but none so young as I. At six years of age, my admission to Kalihi made me the youngest child confined at the Receiving Station. So the patients crowded around, young and old, curious who the newcomer was. That’s how it was. We drove through the gate and suddenly I found myself inside. The nurse instructed one of the children to escort me around the buildings, to give me the tour, so to speak. Then my mother and I had one last embrace. She grabbed me and hugged me. I still remember her tears. She didn’t want to let me go. The car door began to close, and they pulled us apart. They shut the door, and the car slowly moved away. I stood along the roadside as they drove her off. Then I was alone. And so it began, February 15, 1937.
Blessings, pono and much pule!
Fr. Brian, ss.cc.
Priest
Molokai