Molokai History:
(continued from yesterday)
(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)
Male
Part-Hawaiian
Partly Disfigured
48 years of age
37 years in Kalaupapa
As we were leaving [the Kalihi Receiving Station] for Honolulu Harbor, again we said our last alohas to our friends who remained behind at Kalihi. What was especially sad was that some sick children’s familied did not come to say goodbye. It happened that way in families. There was still love between them, but in some families, life began to go on in separate directions. Gradually visits by parents diminished. One Sunday they would not show up, or maybe not the next either. Mothers had other children to take care of, and new children were born in the family. Separate lives began to be lived. So on that day of departure, because of the “Hookaawale” … the separating or pulling apart of families, some children did not have their mothers or fathers to say goodbye to. Actually, because of the loss of contact, parents did not know their children were being banished on that day. For some children, the final alohas were to fellow patients left behind at Kalihi.
Blesings, pono and much pule to all!
Fr. Brian, ss.cc.
Priest
Molokai