We are the Bridge Between Heaven & Earth
Prayers for Maui, honoring loss, and welcoming resilience
Earlier this week, I was about to publish a story commemorating the 49th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s resignation when I heard the news that Maui, my childhood home, was ablaze.
I immediately joined the millions worldwide who were struck dumb with horror at the streaming images.
My heart broke—and breaks—at the phrases being uttered over and over, the litanies of disbelief.
“It’s like a bomb went off.”
“We lost everything.”
“There’s no home to return to.”
Since I am so often reading and writing about the “Vietnam Era,” my mind instantly compared these words to sentiments expressed after the Fall of Saigon when tens of thousands of South Vietnamese fled what had once been their homeland.
The pain strikes right to the center of one’s being.
In my original August 9th post, I used an excerpt from my mother’s August 7, 1974 letter:
It’s almost embarrassing to lay this sentiment next to the horror of the apocalyptic scenes taking place on my island home, but as I watched the following phrases repeated in my head, their despairing tone matching mine:
. . . it makes one want to weep. Ah well . . . what is there to say?
Shock and disbelief inhabit the human soul much the same way no matter the circumstance.
In the face of it, what is there to say?
Community leaders are already speaking of rebuilding the historic town of Lahaina and I’ll admit that it’s a necessary sentiment to keep despair from taking hold.
Still, it’s a concept hard to wrap one’s head around when the damages—including the loss of human lives—have not yet even been fully assessed.
I think this may be why many people are turning to the image of the venerated banyan tree that, for over a hundred years, has stood at the heart of Lahaina Town.
It was thoroughly scorched in the fire, of course, but there are reports that its roots are still alive. I know from my 2022 training as a Wildland Firefighter, that many plants can recover quickly from fire, and so I am holding out hope for this old tree, as I think many are.
Earlier this summer I came upon this tiny sign of resilience.
It is growing on the decaying remains of a long-abandoned pier on the Hudson River.
The river was once heavily polluted and now, though far from pristine, again pulses with life. This shoot, unlike the banyan, is not deep rooted—and yet it seems to have weathered many seasons. The woodiness of its stem suggests that it is over a year old, and has survived not only the heat of this summer but the ice of a New York winter. It is situated such that, due to the Hudson River tides, is dunked twice a day into brown murky waters.
And yet it still pushes new leaves skyward.
Vietnamese proverb
Lá lành đùm lá rách
“The green leaf covers the broken one.”
In 2012, nearly three decades after so many South Vietnamese fled their homes, a Pew survey revealed that they were the happiest and most successful Asian community in the U.S. Indeed, my recently found friends who accompanied my father on his evacuation are among the most vibrant and healthy people I know.
So, after all, what is there to say?
After a breathless moment of silence, it seems that there is so much. Even as the tears are shed and the weeping fulfilled, the seeds of new growth are watered:
a sprout rises from the waters of a maligned river, a banyan stands with deep roots amid rubble, and communities begin to find their heart in places anew.
We cannot change what has happened but we can see how our attention to these things opens doorways. In the words of the late Kapuna Auntie Nani of Maui: “We are the bridge between Heaven and Earth.”
Thank you for reading and may you find strength to kokua (help) in the way that strengthens you and gives rise to resilience for all of us.
❦
For timely updates and information on how to help, please see Maui Information Guide, Fire Updates.
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The goal of “Stories of Vietnam” is to tell the Welch family saga of life in Vietnam in 1974-75 as well as to share a wide variety of stories about Vietnam, the country as well as the war.
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I can’t imagine. It’s just devastating. I’m glad to find you and your writing here too. I look forward to reading more.
Kat, what a thoughtful and hopeful tribute in such a horrible tragedy. We too have been to Lahaina and enjoyed the lovely banyan tree. I hope it survived and provides inspiration and comfort as the survivors of this terrible event mourn their losses and begin to rebuild their town and their lives.