HONOLULU (KHON2) — Friends and neighbors are remembering the elderly woman who lost her life in this weekend’s fire in Maili as a kind soul who never asked for anything. Now, they are reaching out to the public for help to reunite her with her family.
Neighbors did not know much about her. Some didn’t even know her name. But they knew her smile and knew she had aloha.
“She had a big heart,” said JB Hillen, who grew up next door. “Barely could understand English, but you could just know what she was talking about, which is her hand gestures, her smile. Her smile was beautiful. Always had a smile with her no matter what she has a smile on her.”
Friends identified the victim from Sunday’s fire in Maili as 94-year-old Maria Pascual.
Residents say she lived in an old bus in the back of Kaukamana Road. They say she was living there for about 30 years with her brother.
“They didn’t have much but they had each other,” said Hillen. “That’s the most important thing.”
“Always smiling,” said another neighbor. Every car comes past them, she always like hunchback with her basket and then every time my car come pass you just smile thumbs up to him.”
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On the day of the fire, neighbors say it was chaos with flames as tall as the light pole and smoke everywhere. They say Pascual was at home and they tried to help her get out.
“Oh she would’ve made ’em for sure,” said Hillen. “My dad said that she was right over here trying to help her out just couldn’t get to work cause the gate was locked.”
Pascual was eventually rescued by EMS and taken the hospital, where she later died after suffering smoke inhalation. Neighbors say her brother wasn’t home at the time.
They call the news of her death heartbreaking. They say Pascual never asked for anything, but everyone wanted to help her.
They saw her walking down the hill, making the long trek to Farrington Highway to catch the bus, dragging her basket.
“I think we could sense that she was just a beautiful person inside,” said Hillen. “I think that’s genuine from myself and I think that’s what it is.”
“They used to ask us to buy fish,” said a neighbor. “Uncle used to be like ‘$10 boy?’ and I used to laugh, I used to tell Uncle ‘no here just take the fish. Uncle you hungry, here just take.’ We used to give ’em all the time.”
A friend has started a GoFundMe to help send Pascual back to the Philippines to be laid to rest. Back to her family which includes 11 children.
“Yeah, I’d like to see her go back home to her family, her kids,” said the neighbor.
“That’s the right thing to do,” said Hillen. “That’s where her roots started off so that’s where she should be.”