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As I wrote earlier this week, I’ve been profoundly pessimistic about Hawaii in the year since the wildfires swept across Maui. 

I was wary of covering the paddle-out from Lahaina’s Hanakaoo Beach Park when I boarded my Mokulele flight from the Waimea airport on Wednesday night. My wife said it was good that I was going; I wasn’t so sure. 

I’ve done “year after” stories in places like Madrid after Atocha Station or Sri Lanka after the Boxing Day tsunami. As a journalist, you’re supposed to dutifully report to the site of the tragedy exactly 12 months later and assess what has and hasn’t happened, and reflect the collective “mood” of those impacted. 

That didn’t feel right to me in this circumstance because I don’t have the remove that was possible with those other stories. I keep thinking about the words of Native Hawaiian artist Boots Lupenui, “that’s not for you.” In Hawaii, Boots said, there are places that should remain for certain families and peoples. They’re connected to that aina and if you’re not invited in then the place is “not for you.”

I understood and respected when he said this when we were talking story this spring. There are places in Hawaii that I will respectfully stay away from unless invited. A Colorado friend was surprised that I hadn’t been to a place of renown in Hawaii. 

As a tourist, this was a place they felt they were free to visit. As a resident, I needed an invitation. 

I’m not from Maui. I’m from Hawaii island. I came to Lahaina a year after the fires with trepidation.

As I drove up past Olowalu, as I have on previous reporting trips, I listened to the “Maui Waltz” and “The Sands of Old Lahaina” and thought about how I was in a helicopter above Ground Zero a few nights before the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. 

That story was different from the Madrids and the Sri Lankas because New York was a place I lived. All of Hawaii has deeply felt the loss on Maui. 

A year after, this was to be a commemoration, a remembrance and not an anniversary. 

After I parked, I saw a shining sign of hope: My younger cousins from Kaimuki, Leimaile and Kepa. 

As I immediately and joyfully say when I unexpectedly cross paths with family, “There’s no such thing as a coincidence in Hawaii.” The spirits of our ancestors guided us to be where we were. I felt happiness to see them and to know we’d paddle out together. 

While we share Hilo roots, they also have deep Maui connections and since the fires they have been on Maui helping with recovery efforts through the nonprofits they work for. 

Their regular return to Maui has given them the opportunity to rehabilitate their family lands in Waihe’e. They worked to get their ohana’s auwai flowing again and there are strong dreams of bringing recently fallow lands back to flourishing. It’s an example of hope that could exist beyond their patch and for all of Maui, and beyond.

They were the people from Maui that I needed to see and to feel that my presence in Lahaina on this day was pono.

One of the many things that makes Leimaile and Kepa special are that they are among the oldest of the new generation of fluent Hawaiian speakers. 

They are generous with their knowledge and helped a reporter from a struggling local news organization with the words and meaning of the “,” a chant recited during the pre-paddleout ceremonies observed by a delegation of Hawaii’s top elected officials.

Then came an opportunity to partake in Hawaii’s greatest medicine: saltwater.

Sadly, none of the official state or federal delegation jumped on a board or paddled in one of the many canoes. We are a saltwater people and it would be a blessing if our leaders were saltwater people too. 

That’s why it was a true blessing to have the spiritual embodiment of the Hawaiian renaissance, Hokule’a, on hand as the focal point of the water-borne ceremony.

One of the wonderful stories shared on the shore was that the Starlink connections intended for the Hokule’a (which was in Alaska at the start of the Moananuiakea voyage when the fires raged) was quickly sent to Lahaina to be set up at the home of Archie Kalepa. Kalepa is a noted captain of the Hokule’a.

Leimaile and Kepa skillfully glided across the kai maumau, or neap tide, a time when the tide is neither high or low and the waters were gentle. We could easily see the bottom of the sea. They spoke to each other in olelo just as my grandfather (their great-grandfather) did with his siblings.

As the pu, or conch shells, were blown, Leimaile paused. As we sat on our boards facing Lahaina, she said that an oli had been in her mind all week and she realized that this was the moment to say it. It was a mele hookuu, a chant that releases pain and anger and makes room for good things. 

It was a quiet moment of reflection as flowers, dropped by a helicopter, floated in the waters around us. 

Space was made for the good things we hope will come for Lahaina, Maui and Hawaii.

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