Hong Kong, We Hold You in Our Hearts
Over the past days,
the Tai Po fire has torn through Hong Kong’s
collective nervous system.
The stories emerging online are beyond heartbreaking.
They are raw, unfiltered, and brutally human.
A father trapped in his flat as smoke swallowed the room…
A husband coaching his wife to stay alive over the phone as flames climbed twenty-three floors…
A woman died alerting neighbors and saved 5 lives…
A foreign domestic worker shielding a newborn with her own body…
A young mother whispering, “My baby is gone… I don’t know how to go on…”
A firefighter, weeks away from marriage, who ran into the inferno and did not return.
It claimed over 150 lives and counting.
Lives changed in minutes.
And it is impossible to read these stories
without feeling the weight of them in your own chest.
This dimension tests us through experiences
we would never willingly choose.
It strips us down to the bone,
forcing us to confront fear, grief, uncertainty,
and the fragility of everything we take for granted.
For those directly affected,
It is loss.
It is pain.
It is life shattered.
We honor that truth.
We sit with that suffering.
And yet, at a deeper level,
when we step back from the heartbreak,
something else begins to reveal itself.
Some souls come into this life
carrying a tougher curriculum than others.
They are the advanced souls
who choose the hardest paths
so the rest of us may see, remember, and awaken.
The ones we lost.
The ones rebuilding life from ashes.
The ones who leapt into danger to save strangers.
Their experience is a way-shower.
Their courage awakens something in us,
a remembering of who we are beneath the noise:
We are interconnected,
as humans and as souls,
feeling what others feel,
and caring for one another.
When devastation cracks us open,
something else becomes possible:
a new consciousness
a new standard of care
a new commitment to each other
a new social fabric woven with empathy.
And Hong Kong responded
in a way that shows this awakening has already begun.
Within days, over HK900 million poured into relief.
Community halls, churches, gyms, and schools
transformed overnight into shelters.
Thousands of volunteers arrived with no instructions needed,
bringing blankets, hot meals, chargers, toys for children who lost everything.
Aunties cooked for strangers.
Teens sorted supplies past midnight.
Taxi drivers ferried survivors for free.
Counselors sat with families through sleepless nights.
Hong Kong rose for its smallest souls too.
Volunteers arrived with oxygenated pet carriers,
rescuing cats, dogs, turtles, birds, and fish,
proving that in our darkest hours,
nothing alive is left behind.
And on Sunday,
thousands walked quietly to the site,
carrying flowers, candles, drawings, and prayers,
a deep, instinctive need to stand with one another.
This is what awakening looks like.
A city remembering its soul.
And for all of us who have been watching,
let this be the moment we remember
how deeply connected we truly are.
May the lives lost in Tai Po not be in vain.
May their sacrifice mark the remembering
of our awakened consciousness in Hong Kong.
May love hold this city.
May light guide every soul.
May every soul find peace.
May every survivor find strength.
May every community member find courage.
May everyone awaken.
With love to all.
With respect to all.
Ryion P.
Author of Awakened Purpose
Grab your copy of Awakened Purpose here.
