Prints in the Sand: My Journey with Nanea

I finally work up the nerve to tell Nanea I want to attend the Honolulu Helpers meeting. But then I remember I don’t have any cookies to hand out, and my stomach drops. Nanea brushes off my worry. She and Lily packed extra, enough for soldiers at the Royal Hawaiian and more for those at Queen’s Hospital.

I look down at my clothes and realize I’m not dressed for a meeting like this. Mortified, I shuffle back a step. Nanea laughs, admitting she isn’t dressed for it either, since she expected to spend the morning doing hula. Still, she offers to sit beside me so neither of us stands out.

Lily points out that we both wear shell necklaces, and Nanea holds up her own strand for me to see. Tutu Kane, her grandpa, strung it for her tenth birthday, telling her it was time to wear one since she was growing into someone full of aloha. Her voice drops as she shares that last part, cheeks flushed with pride. I still could not tell you exactly what aloha means. Part of me hopes she never asks where my necklace came from, since I doubt she would believe her own dog led me to it.

Lily beckons us into the meeting room, joking that we can’t miss the best snacks, especially her mom’s mochi. Her mother is helping run the cookie giveaway. Across the room, Nanea nods toward an attractive dark-haired woman near the front. She’s standing next to the same nurse who stepped out of the old car outside the hotel.

I ask why a nurse is with Lily’s mother, and Nanea says the woman is from the Red Cross. She’s here to teach bandage rolling. My stomach knots up the same way it did earlier. War posters in the lobby, a Red Cross volunteer at a girls’ club meeting, and now bandages.

Lily murmurs that she would rather not think about bandages at all. Nanea won’t let it go, pointing out that the island is still full of injured soldiers since the attack on Pearl Harbor, so thinking about it’s exactly what they need to do.

Pearl Harbor. I recognize that name from social studies, the surprise attack that pulled the country into World War II in the 1940s. Then it clicks: the calendar in the hotel lobby read 1942. So it really is true. Somehow I’ve landed in the middle of that very war. A ringing fills my ears, and my chest tightens until I can hardly breathe.