Tim Horton, CERT board member, shares a small gift of love and respect nearly one year after horrific island fire
They were on their way to the Maui airport to catch a flight back to Malibu when The Malibu Times called them after reading this post on social media: “I did a fun thing today. While traveling in Lahaina, Maui, I presented a ball cap from The Malibu Fire Safety division of the City of Malibu to the personnel at the Lahaina Station of the Maui Fire Department. They were very gracious and appreciated the gift. I explained that this was a gift of solidarity as we also have in our recent history a devastating wildfire.”
What a loving idea to share such a wonderful memento of resiliency shared by two small communities waging war against the devastation of wildfires.
“Can you tell me about giving the small gift to the firefighters who were on duty at the Maui fire department’s Lahaina fire station?,” this reporter asked.
Tim Horton, a board member of Malibu’s Community Emergency Response Team, and its social media assistant paused before responding.
Had he orchestrated doing that beforehand, perhaps with a camera crew in tow just to catch the right shot? Nope.
Rather, he just thought he’d stop by and share some love and caring, brother to brother, to express support for Lahaina.
“I just felt how poignant it is that they are recognizing the one-year anniversary of their devastation which is still so terribly rampantly visible as you try to visit Lahaina Town,” Horton said.
Then, we two people — a reporter in Malibu and Horton and his wife on their car phone driving to leave Maui — shared one of those long moments of silence where people in the conversation try to process remembering a trauma.
Finally, Horton sighed sadly and said, “As you drive through the part of the area where the fire burned that folks are allowed to enter, it’s reminiscent of driving through Pt. Dume or our other fire-ravaged neighborhoods after the Woolsey Fire — so many lots where houses once were are just barren and burn-scarred.”
Many reading this well know the reporter’s quite predictable next question — uttered with fear about what I would hear in the answer.
“How is the beautiful old Banyan tree in the center of Lahaina Town?,” I asked.
“We wanted to go see her but that part of town is fully closed off,” Horton responded. “The entire neighborhood where the tragedy was is still walled off, but locals told us that the tree will survive and she’s at approximately 70 percent of what her health was and a team of arborists are working to help her heal.”
Honor. Hope. Respect. Reverence
The Hortons shared details about the moments of their visiting the memorials depicting pictures of some of the approximately 100 victims.
“Lahaina Memorial is a place of honor, hope, respect and reverence,” a memorial sign states. “Divisiveness and politics have no place here — this is a place to walk humbly, to grieve, to seek peace and reflect on all that we have lost.”
Horton and his wife shared, “We could tell that they are setting up a stage for some sort of ceremony on Aug. 8 to recognize the one-year anniversary of their terrible fire.”
In the meantime, the world’s second-largest banyan tree, planted in 1873 in Lahaina Town, which has for more than 50 years also been a place of honor, hope, respect, and reverence, just by her multitudinous branches have embraced thousands in Lahaina, is slowly healing and even beginning to sprout new leaves. No doubt she does so with the hope that the humans who love her, both locals and adoring visitors alike, can continue to help Lahaina, its upcountry and all of Maui, sprout new hope.
Join her — and the Hortons — in the worldwide moment of silence at noon on Sunday, Aug. 11, during an Interfaith Day of Hope and Prayer that will be led by faith leaders of the churches and temples that were lost in the fire.
