By Jill Steele
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| Luna on the 1959 Kapoho Lava Flow |
This morning my husband and I were reminded that the beauty of Kapoho grew out of a similar eruption as the one now happening in Leilani. This morning we went for a walk to the ocean on land that was formed as a result of the 1959 Kapoho lava flow. That eruption began in much the same way.
Ironically for a few weeks now I have been reading “Kapoho: Memoir of a Modern Pompeii” by Frances H. Kakugawa. There is a chapter called “Once there was a Kapoho.” Kakugawa writes about her grandmother standing on her lanai seeing “shapes like Rorschach inkblots in red, shooting up into the sky more than ten miles away.” She shouts to her son, “I can see the lava so clearly from here Tashika mon.” “She didn’t know that what she was calling ‘spectacular’ was going to cover her house in less than twelve hours.”
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| University Pond and Beyond |
I took many pictures and videos as we walked to send to our children who are away at college but wishing to be home with us during this uncertain time. As expected, they are having a difficult time remaining focused on studying for their finals, instead preoccupied with worrying about us, out home and their friends who have had to evacuate.
The picture that tugged at my heart most was that of a coconut palm planted when they were keiki and now provides shade as a mature tree. As hard as I try to live in the now, fear of the unknown comes creeping in....
I will have to try harder.
By Jill Steele
Author "Blood on the Orchids"
A Novel of Murder and Mystery on the Big Island
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