By David Shapiro

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Carole Medeiros' courageous battle

With your face to the wind
I see you smiling again
Spirits moving within
I know that you're gonna win
-- Peter Yarrow

Carole, human resources VP for the Hawaii Newspaper Agency, had just been through a miserable bout of chemotherapy for lung cancer, but went through with a performance as a member of the HNA halau.

Carole glided so lightly across the floor of the News Building art gallery that she truly looked as though she was being lifted by the air. The smile on her face was radiant. Her eyes had the look of a woman totally at peace -- almost beatific. Carole was fighting death by making the moments of her life eternal.

Tuesday morning, a small shrine for Carole had been set up in the same art gallery. It was built around a photo of her doing her dance. It was exactly as I had remembered. In the 4 a.m. darkness, her smile lit up the room again.

People praise the courage of anybody who fights a serious disease. But I've never seen anybody take on cancer and the hideous treatments that go with it like Carole did. She worked through most of her four-year illness -- not just showing up, but totally engaged in putting the "human" into Human Services.

She sometimes seemed more concerned about less serious maladies of others. When I was dealing with a medical problem that was nothing compared to hers, she told me the trick was to bombard myself with positive input. I said it was a hard thing to do in a cynical business. But I tried it and it helped. I was passing on exactly the same advice to another employee an hour before I heard Carole had died.

Carole could be tough, the result of banging heads in a world of male labor leaders. She sometimes made snap decisions that got her in trouble. But she insisted on fairness and never refused a reasonable request to bend the rules in the favor of an employee in need.

I suspected the end was coming one day when I saw Carole and HNA president Larry Fuller arrive at work at the same time. Larry waited for Carole to get out of her car and hugged her. They walked into the building without saying a word.

They say death after a painful illness can be a blessing. I'm glad Carole's suffering is over, but the rest of us are far less blessed without her.