“Ua ola loko i ke aloha.”
— Hawaiian Proverb

National Police Week honors the courageous men and women who sacrifice their lives so we can be safe.

My friend Ronald Koon Leong Ng was a police officer in Honolulu, Hawaii who lost his courageous battle with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in 1997. He was 49.

When loved ones battle a disease, you battle it with them in your heart. And you pray that they find the courage to hear that little voice at the end of the day—to try again tomorrow. Ronald and his wife Annette—my Jazzercise friend who lived down the street—battled his cancer with courage and heart.

As a cancer survivor and former staffer with the American Cancer Society in Hawai‘i, I was often the one friends turned to when cancer touched their lives. When Ronald was diagnosed, I walked beside him and Annette—offering what comfort I could. He was strong, but the illness was stronger. Yet, even in his final days, he showed us what courage looked like.

I wrote a poem for Ronald when he died, and we read it as we threw his ashes into Kaneohe Bay on an overcast, windy morning.