Quotes from Alan Brennert

and of course Dr. Harry Hollmann, the only familiar face among them. All wore crisp white uniforms. "I have labored against many blights in my time," Dr. Currie told them, "from bubonic plague in San Francisco to yellow fever in New Orleans. Like them, leprosy at present eludes our understanding. But by volunteering at this station you are all helping to provide us with the tools and the knowledge necessary to someday, God willing, obliterate this scourge.

We moved into Jade Moon's rooming house within the week, and slowly she and I found that our friendship, though damaged, was like fabric torn on the seam: not beyond repair.

December 22, 1980, the Kalaupapa peninsula was designated a National Historical Park and its residents were, as per Public Law 96–565, "guaranteed that they may remain at Kalaupapa as long as they wish." As of this writing, there are approximately thirty-one individuals with Hansen's disease living there in quiet dignity.

I did not know this word, "lynching," but when I asked Jade Moon about it she explained, "As I understand, it refers to a custom in the American South, where white men may punish the darker peoples with impunity by hanging them from trees. I was speechless. How could such barbarity exist in a land of freedom like America? What country was this, in which I had been living all these years?

to the late Mrs. Tsukamoto I offer my kansha—my gratitude and appreciation—for her work.

After dinner she liked to linger in the aft lounge on "A" deck, listening to music and watching couples swing dancing. She would have given all the rest of her life to be on that dance floor with Kenji, feeling his arms around her as he held her close, followed by a long walk in the moonlight with nothing but ocean and freedom in every direction.

She was simply numb, her mind having absorbed all the fear it could, like a sponge saturated with water: after a while the fear became a constant, cold companion, a simple fact of existence.

I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death . . . is the true measure of the Divine within us.

I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death … is the true measure of the Divine within us. Some, like Crossen, choose to do harm to themselves and others. Others, like Kenji, bear up under their pain and help others to bear it.

Aloha means to see the 'uhane—the living spirit, immortal soul, whatever you call it—in everyone you meet. I've done my best to live up to that.

I used to wonder, why did God give children leprosy? Now I believe God doesn't give anyone leprosy. He gives us, if we choose to use it, the spirit to live with leprosy, and with the imminence of death, Because it is in our own mortality that we are most Divine.

I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death .... is the true measure of the Divine within us. Some, like Crossen, choose to do harm to themselves and others. Others, like Kenji, bear up under their pain and help others to bear it. - Catherine in Moloka'i.

To see the infinite pity of this place, The mangled limb, the devastated face, The innocent sufferers smiling at the rod, A fool were tempted to deny his God. He sees, and shrinks; but if he look again, Lo, beauty springing from the breast of pain!— He marks the sisters on the painful shores, And even a fool is silent and adores.

Aum?kua of the night, watch over your offspring, enfold them in the belt of light.

Rachel smiled, somehow no longer afraid, and went back to bed: surrounded by darkness yet enfolded in light.

Good-for-nothing rascal, where you been the last eight months?" And she kissed him with a ferocity that quite belied her words.

You were supposed to be free [...] That was all I had to give you.

but by the time Dr. Fennel arrived in a mad rush, Kenji was no longer breathing.

Her depression had given way to a characteristic determination. "I may never leave Kalaupapa," she told Kenji, "but a part of me is damn well getting out of here." Her husband agreed. Once he'd aspired to make his mark on the world. "This," he admitted, "is the only way I ever will.

Carve the peg by looking at the hole.' Eddie looked at me blankly and I explained, 'An old Korean saying. It means, Do things to fit the circumstances.

The package contained a book Rachel had requested, The Sea Wolf. Its author, Jack London, had visited Kalaupapa a year and a half ago; Rachel had liked The Call of the Wild, and worked up the nerve to tell him so. He seemed surprised to find a fan here, but was very friendly and gracious. Shortly after, he published an even-handed, sympathetic account of his stay at Kalaupapa.

Let the things of long ago drift away on the water

Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never

Love and a cough cannot be hidden.