‘Extremely uplifting’: Community comes together to honor light of lost loved ones during 20th annual Celebration of Life

As twilight set Sunday on Hilo, water lapped at the rocky sands along the shoreline of Reeds Bay. You could hear an oh-so-gentle splash now and then; otherwise, it was relatively quiet.

Save for the music played over the PA system, some could be heard softly singing along with tracks such as Sir Elton John’s “Goodbye, Norma Jean,” “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen and a few Hawaiian favorites.

It wasn’t somberness or melancholy — although some were visibly sad — that kept the thousands of people gathered on the bay’s shores from making a ruckus you might expect from a crowd that size.

It was reverence; a shared sense of honor and respect for fellow community members who were all there to remember loved ones — and their legacies — who are no longer with us. One glowing lantern for each of them.

The main event of the Hawai‘i Care Choices 20th annual Celebration of Life, the Big Island’s largest annual lantern float launched each year during Memorial Day Weekend, began as the soft orange hue of the sinking sun — which had blessed the bay for most of the day — gradually shifted to deeper reds, blues and purples and then into dark.

Most, if not all, of the 1,000 luminaries available to purchase and personalize for the 2024 installment of the celebration floated into the bay by the end of the daylong event that also featured music, food, bon dances, hula, local vendors and artists and the E Ola Maui ceremony, a special paddle-out to honor those who suffered extreme loss in the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfires on Maui.

Hawai‘i Care Choices CEO Brenda Ho estimated between 3,000 and 3,500 people came out Sunday at Reeds Bay Beach Park.

“I mean, there’s been a lot of people here,” said Ho, adding many visitors staying at the nearby hotels on Banyan Drive also attended the celebration or even brought lanterns from home in remembrance of loved ones who died to float alongside those from their community hosts.

It was a day filled with, yes, a sense of loss and longing at times, but much gratitude, joy and camaraderie — a connection to the community: “It has all been extremely uplifting,” Ho said.

She said it really is an amazing fundraiser. Each of the lanterns cost $25, with all proceeds going to Hawai‘i Care Choices to support Big Island hospice families and community members receiving bereavement care.

Ho said the Celebration of Life not only ties into what community members are going through when a loved one passes away, giving Hawai‘i Care Choices the chance to partner with them and hold their hands while experiencing some of the most difficult times of their lives, it also helps the hospice and palliative care provider continue to expand its bereavement programs, which are all free to the community.

“It just really helps us in multiple ways,” Ho said.

Every lantern is a memory, a family member, a loved one — our ‘ohana, said Hawai‘i County Councilman Matt Kāneali‘i-Kleinfelder in remarks before the float: “Each lantern signifies somebody incredibly important to us.”

County Councilwoman Jenn Kagiwada, whose mother died just two days after Kagiwada was elected in 2022, appreciates how meaningful the celebration is to the community.

“Keep your family, your friends in your memories,” she said. “That’s what keeps them alive.”

They might have moved on from this world, but they are not forgotten; they are always in our hearts and minds, said Hawai‘i County Council Chairwoman Heather Kimball. She added that the council is very much supportive of not just the annual celebration but everything Hawai‘i Care Choices provides to the Big Island community.

Just before Hawaiian protocol was observed to begin the float, several faith leaders from throughout the community prayed and spoke. One of them was Rabbi Rachel Short.

While she was deciding what to say during Sunday’s celebration, she spent some time thinking about her own journey and loved ones who left this plane. They leave their light, love and legacy, all of which live on within each of us.

Sunday’s event and the lantern float allow them to live on in the light of love. The light breaking through the darkness from each luminary lets us see their peace being reflected back at us.

Short told the crowd to celebrate the legacy of those who can no longer physically be with us, even though “we know they’re with us now.”