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As we near the anniversary of the Maui wildfires, the remembrances of what was lost will soon be inescapable. 

We are all still trying to process and comprehend what exactly happened and what was lost, including and beyond 102 lives. 

Obviously, life on Maui changed as the fires displaced thousands, but it also cost the island a certain way of life. A way of life that happened to be captured on Aug. 3, 2023. That evening, more than 100 people packed the in Kihei to hear five Maui residents tell 10-minute true stories about their home. “Maui: Where I Live” was a part of Civil Beat’s ongoing community storytellers series. 

Days later, Maui was forever changed. 

The poignancy of the Maui event has gone beyond the quotidian moment that it seemed to be on Aug. 3, and takes on a dark profundity for today’s viewer. 

This is what happens to moments that are captured just before a catastrophe. For me, it brought memories of a project that I worked on just before Labor Day 2001.

David Dunlap, a New York Times colleague, and I were visiting sites in Lower Manhattan for a story celebrating . As we criss-crossed the warren of narrow alleys and lanes around Wall Street, I went out of my way not to film the Twin Towers. I was trying to avoid overt signs of modernity. 

Sadly, a week later Lower Manhattan was covered in ash and the towers were gone.

I wish I had included the towers in every shot. Like Maui Storytellers, the project was quietly released without the planned fanfare.

Civil Beat films these events and the stories were scheduled to be posted on YouTube on Aug. 9. My colleagues decided to postpone for a day, then after the scope of the catastrophe was understood the stories stayed shelved until they were quietly posted in October (they can be found in the Civil Beat Storytellers queue on YouTube.)

To prepare our storytellers for on Aug. 9 at the Palace Theater, I’ve been sharing videos of past stories, especially the ones from Maui.

It’s heart-wrenching to watch those five stories now, just five days before lives were lost and the Lahaina landscape decimated.

When I spoke with Malika Dudley last week she said, “I figured that you guys weren’t going to post (the stories) because the fire happened the next week and then it just wasn’t relevant or appropriate anymore.”

With time, the stories have become more appropriate and relevant.

When I bumped into Archie Kalepa at FestPAC last month, I told him I had shared with my students at the University of Hawaii Manoa last semester as they prepared to tell their own 10-minute stories as part of their end-of-year assignment. I wanted to highlight his patient and clear delivery.

Lance Collins opened the evening talking about his passion for bon dances. Dudley talked about her life as a mother on Maui, including a harrowing story about her daughter choking on a hair clip. Kalepa spoke of learning the ways of the ocean and Madame Donut explained the origins of her moniker.

But the story that best captures what was lost was a story about what had already been lost. leaned hard into the theme of “Maui: Where I Live” and he shared his thoughts about life on the island.

“A lot of memories came flooding back,” he said. “A lot of memories of different time periods on Maui, different places on the island, a lot of memories of things that are no longer here, smells that I haven’t smelled in decades. Buildings and stores gone and replaced by new boxes, people from my life gone. But hearing that refrain of where I live, brought back memories, wrapped in a song.”

After professing not to have a great singing voice, Horcajo warbled Peter Moon’s “Hawaiian Lullaby.”

Where I live, there are rainbows

With life and the laughter of morning and starry nights

I can smile when it’s raining

And touch the warmth of the sun

I hear children laughing in this place that I love

Horcajo said Moon and the Sunday Manoa were singing about a Hawaii that was already lost and the song has “become the tearful nostalgia and the mere regretful longing of the Hawaii that once was.”

Horcajo told stories about riding bikes and the days when the sugar cane fields were burnt to make way for the next crop, and how everywhere his parents went “they were always waving, always stopping to catch up, talk story like time didn’t exist, nothing else to do after. Always a smile, a hug, a kiss on the cheek, an offer of help.”

Then his story took a philosophical turn. After all, the world keeps spinning no matter the changes we experience.

“That the things that I dislike the most about Maui today are somebody else’s core memories in the making,” he said. “And that they’ll look back on these things today with the same tearful nostalgia as I do from mine decades ago.”

The thoughtfulness of his moment on Maui was a harbinger of the work Horcajo would be plunged into a few days later. All the Maui storytellers were very active in the relief efforts in the days and months after the fire.

In his story, Collins shared his passion for bon dances even though he’s not of Japanese ancestry and how he brought his grandmother to a bon dance for the first time. She was raised in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation of the islands and Collins was trepidatious about bringing her to a dance. She loved the communal activity.

Collins said the character of the dances on Maui has changed since last year — the dances are now part of the grieving process.

Collins has for a bon dance to be held on Aug. 10 in Lahaina. Lahaina Hongwanji Mission, Lahaina Jodo MIssion and Lahaina Shingon MIssion are joining together to continue the tradition of honoring the spirits of ancestors through dance and music.

It’s heartwarming to hear that people on Maui will gather in their own special way to remember all that was lost. As the anniversary nears, it’s worth taking the time to revisit these stories that must not be lost, and more poignant and relevant than ever. 

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.