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022b0ff
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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.
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Alan Brennert |
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8ab7031
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The difference between Old Honolulu and New, she would come to decide, was the difference between a beautiful woman who was simply being herself and a beautiful woman calling attention to herself: a little vain perhaps, but you couldn't say she wasn't attractive.
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Alan Brennert |
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f492e8b
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Summer in Honolulu brings the sweet smell of mangoes, guava, and passionfruit, ripe for picking; it arbors the streets with the fiery red umbrellas of poincianta trees and decorates the sidewalks with the pink and white puffs of blossoming monkeypods. Cooling trade winds prevail all summer, bringing what the old Hawaiians called makani 'olu' 'olu--- "fair wind"."
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honolulu
tropical-paradise
summer
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Alan Brennert |
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b4230b8
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Moloka'i. It was not a name spoken lightly in these islands. Sometimes it was called "Moloka'i of the potent prayers," known for centuries as the home of powerful sorcerers capable of praying men to death, of sending giant fireballs hurtling across the sea, fiery planets of destruction seeking out hapless victims. Today the island was still an object of fear and fascination; but for very different reasons."
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Alan Brennert |
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a3938dd
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Legend holds that seesaws became popular with girls because on the upswing they were able to catch a glimpse of the world beyond their cloistered walls.
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seesaws
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Alan Brennert |
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09238a4
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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.
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korean-saying
square-peg
uniqueness-of-individual
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Alan Brennert |
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6bd6a18
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Okasan,
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Alan Brennert |
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85efde7
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But no - I was his wife, and it was my duty to share his pain as I shared his success. I walked out the front door and joined him on the sidewalk, slipping my hand into his like a thread into a needle; and together we looked up at this sign, once the embodiment of a dream, now merely a remembrance of it.
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marriage
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Alan Brennert |
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09f6ef4
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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.
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love
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Alan Brennert |
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3be446a
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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.
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Alan Brennert |
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f23e8ea
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Hawai'i has often been called a melting pot, but I think of it more as a "mixed plate"--a scoop of rice with gravy, a scoop of macaroni salad, a piece of mahi-mahi, and a side of kimchi. Many different tastes share the plate, but none of them loses its individual flavor, and together they make up a uniquely "local" cuisine. This is also, I believe, what America is at its best--a whole greater than the sum of its parts. I" --
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Alan Brennert |
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86ff893
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An empty cart rattles loudly," she said, meaning, One who lacks substance boasts loudest."
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Alan Brennert |
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9d3724c
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I liked the fact that the happiest night of my life was followed by a day like any other. It seemed to say that such happiness, so long denied, was now a part of my everyday life.
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marriage
love
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Alan Brennert |
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c626eef
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kapa cloth,
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Alan Brennert |
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aa7d7ba
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Let the things of long ago drift away on the water
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Alan Brennert |
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aff9073
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Ruth marveled at how two souls-- two completely different species-- could make each other so happy. If you were kind to animals, they repaid that kindness a thousandfold.
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kindness
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Alan Brennert |
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8257dd4
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The weeping of grown men and women, cries of hopelessness and loss, separation and misery. And in that collective lament, Ruth heard one closer by, muted in its shame: the sound of her own father's sobs, shocking in its newness, his familiar strength and solidity, like a once-sturdy oak, now riven with such grief and despair that it broke his daughter's heart.
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Alan Brennert |
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c585689
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We are together, all else can be endured.
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strength
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Alan Brennert |
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5467faa
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I am secure in the knowledge that I am the mother of your heart," Etsuko said, smiling. "But she is the mother of your blood. She deserves to see what a fine woman you have become"
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Alan Brennert |
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183b975
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She listened to a life's story that was, she discovered, richer than it was sad.
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Alan Brennert |
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d43cc9d
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She learned what 'ohana truly meant, and that she was a part of it. She began to understand that none of this could replace or usurp the family she had always known, but only enriched what she already possessed. With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized: I am more than I was an hour ago.
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Alan Brennert |
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9279377
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It is enough for me to know that I left something of beauty behind and that it has thrived. I am content.
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life
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Alan Brennert |
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ae4306a
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There might be more to the universe than any one religion could explain.
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Alan Brennert |
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a1e2b11
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I'm lucky, you see: I had two mothers. One gave life to me; one raised me. But they both loved me. You know, some people don't even get that once... There's only one disadvantage, really, to having two mothers. You know twice the love... but you grieve twice as much.
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loss
love
mother
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Alan Brennert |
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d326f8b
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She remembers the pain of losing him, but she smiles at the happiness he brought her, cherishing the joy she felt at his side.
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Alan Brennert |
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72af32b
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It was disquieting to Eddie, this jarring contrast between the bright, cheery atmosphere inside Palisades and the slowly darkening world outside it. As calliope music played and diapered babies crawled in derbies, bombs fell on the other side of the world, which no longer seemed so comfortably distant.
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Alan Brennert |
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bd8f1e5
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Unemployment in America became, almost overnight, a thing of the past as the Federal government pumped billions of dollars into defense.
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Alan Brennert |
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ce9b9a4
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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?"
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Alan Brennert |
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eb8be2b
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When we are young, we think life will be like a su po: one fabric, one weave, one grand design. But in truth, life turns out to be more like the patchwork cloths--bits and pieces, odds and ends--people, places, things we never expected, never wanted, perhaps. There is harmony in this, too, and beauty. I suppose that is why I like the chogak po.
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Alan Brennert |
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4a70f1c
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I listened, rapt and silent, as he conjured from the cold black type the image of a woman of many years past, shivering in the chill predawn light as she waited for the sun to rise.
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Alan Brennert |
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21d514a
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population of Hawai'i was more than a quarter of a million people; a hundred years later, it had plummeted to fewer than sixty thousand.
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Alan Brennert |
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a290301
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Good-for-nothing rascal, where you been the last eight months?" And she kissed him with a ferocity that quite belied her words."
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Alan Brennert |
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9fc3437
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Before Cook's arrival the native population of Hawai'i was more than a quarter of a million people; a hundred years later, it had plummeted to fewer than sixty thousand.
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Alan Brennert |
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2bbe504
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No cat is bad luck
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Alan Brennert |
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06b78a2
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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
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Alan Brennert |
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2d16e05
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People disappointed; animals never did.
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Alan Brennert |
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ca4984d
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Kindness is scarce in the world
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Alan Brennert |
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621f63b
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Love and a cough cannot be hidden.
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Alan Brennert |
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fb31ab6
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Her grief was a storm, a driving rain falling too fast to be absorbed
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Alan Brennert |
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3730e81
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Let the things of long ago drift away on the water.
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Alan Brennert |
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aa934b9
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This was life, and if some things were kapu, others weren't; she had to stop regretting the ones that were and start enjoying the ones that were not.
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Alan Brennert |
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8ce20ee
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Aloha means to see the 'uhane--the living spirit, immortal soul, whatever you call it--in everyone you meet.
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Alan Brennert |