The Sambika Christian

"Kowai... Kowai..."
(I'm scared... I'm scared...)

Those were among the last coherent words my father spoke to me as he looked at me in his dying hours. It came as a slight shock to me that his faith didn't give him comfort in the face of his own death.

***

My father was baptized in his teens and belonged to a church in Imabari, where he lived at the time, but as far as I know, he was not a regular churchgoer no matter where he lived. In fact, he expressed a healthy disregard for church in general. Back when we all lived in Fullerton, on a few Christmas Eves, we went to what was then called the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove to attend one of their grand services led by Robert Schuller, sing a few carols, and soak in the vibes of the season - and Dad would later point out that money (made of our offerings!) was being wasted to put on such an epic but cheesy production for dramatic effect - not to mention the upkeep of the glass-walled architectural monstrosity that thousands of people were flocking to.

Later on one of those nights, we happened upon the televised broadcast of the Christmas service at the Vatican. To me, it was another display of excess in the name of God, with so much of the interior and garments covered in gold, and I might have made a disparaging, smart-ass remark about it. Dad's reaction, however, was neither scolding nor sympathetic. He said, "Well, here we are, almost 2000 years later, and we're still making a big deal out of it. Something must have happened that night."

I was bemused by this comment at first. Was that really the extent of his faith? It turns out this straight-laced man, who I thought was a devout Christian, was a skeptic - which (as it dawned on me later) is perfectly reasonable for an intellectual like him.

There is no doubt Christian teachings formed the core of his values as a human being. Among the many lectures he gave us sons as we became adults and entered into relationships, there were stern warnings against "living in sin." It made him sound like a prude, and made us and our significant others roll our eyes, but in hindsight, I think he was trying to mask his discomfort in talking about love and sex - which certainly is one distinct way Christianity can make its mark on a person.

He also instilled in us the sense that we were being watched by God, and that we should therefore always strive to be the best that we could be, to choose right over wrong, and that acting in the interests of others over your own was a virtue. I grew up assuming these values were universal, and it has been painful to find out that they were not. Still, I thank Dad for instilling these values in me.

When I was a child, and into my teens, Dad nudged me more than a few times to go to church myself - probably for me to gain the same core values as he had. It wasn't necessarily because of this, but there were two separate periods during my childhood in which I went to church. The first was when the family was living in Japan, and I went to the local church in Kunitachi, where a few of my elementary school classmates went to as well. The second was when we were back in the States, and I was in my teens, having started playing guitar, when a friend invited me to form a band to play Japanese heavy metal - at a Japanese church. Nobody accused us of playing the devil's music - in fact, all the adults were supportive because they thought it would help get more young people to join the congregation. Neither experience made me a believer to the point that I wanted to be baptized.

There is a part of me that yearns to believe, that wants to be able to lose myself believing in something so fervently and devotedly to the point that I could dispose of all of my earthly fixations. I have even briefly entertained the notion of becoming a priest. I thought to myself, if I'm devoting any part of my life to religion, I might as well go all in. As I found out later, Dad had once thought of the same thing when he was younger. But ultimately, my reasoning against further involvement with church was probably similar to what Dad was thinking - that for religion to truly matter, it had to be a personal experience, not a group activity.

But in his youth, he was a participant in one group activity, and that was singing hymns. His love of hymns was so deep, he went so far as to say he might not be Christian if it weren't for hymns. Hymns in Japanese are called sambika. He thus referred to himself as a sambika Christian.

***

What kind of horrors do people feel when they know they are dying?

Dad was hospitalized for the last six months of life. He fought hard on multiple fronts, but when his legs got weak from being bedridden for so long, he went through weeks of rehabilitation to start walking again. The stoicism with which he engaged in it was a remarkable show of spirit, of an indomitable will to live. He was on the verge of being released, and preparations were underway for him to go home, when his condition deteriorated in a single week. Pancreatitis was fast, violent and merciless. During the last conversation I had with him by phone, he wept, not just because he was in pain, but it was as if his spirit was finally broken. He was having difficulty speaking by then, but he pretty much said he was too tired to fight anymore. It became so bad so fast that we didn't have time to confirm with him directly (I don't know how I would have asked him, anyway), but I think he knew he was dying.

Years ago, Dad had told me about uncle Noboru, aunt Reiko's husband, when his health was failing. He had told Dad about how he feared death. And he was a very religious man as far as I know. And now, here was Dad, saying that he was scared of dying.

I honestly never shared that sentiment. I have always been afraid of how I was going to die - and I have long hoped, however it is, that it be quick and painless. It's the potentially long and painful suffering, up to the moment of death, that I feared the most, but as for the actual moment of death, I thought I was pretty cool with it. But now, with my own father's death, and as I have gotten older, death has become more real than ever before. And I do feel a tinge of fear towards death itself.

Could Dad have been feeling the same fear as I do now - except it was exponentially amplified because he knew he was almost there?

My older brother - who was baptized by choice in his youth - sang hymns to Dad many times over the course of three days since we gathered until Dad died. I didn't sing; I can only hope that it provided the sambika Christian with a measure of comfort in his last moments.

But I think I will be haunted for a long time by the way he looked me in the eyes when he said "Kowai... kowai..."

Genes, Tears, and Spirits

https://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/tetsuya-takagi

(English entry to follow)

「これなに？」

「グランパのビデオだよ」

「え？」

驚きの表情で映像を凝視。そういえばこんな映像があった事を話していなかったかも知れない。

生前の親父に娘はあまり懐かなかった。親父とお袋がまだアメリカに住んでいて、一番頻繁に実家に連れて帰って会わせていた頃の娘が当時はまだ2歳。大きな手術をした直後の親父はいかにも病人のような顔をしていて、少々気持ち悪かったかも知れない。その夏、両親の金婚を祝った頃には、親父は比較的元気そうにしていたが、その頃の思い出が多少はあるのだろうか。翌年に日本へ帰国した後の親父に娘は片手で数えられるくらいの回数しか会っていない。

昨年11月の下旬に妻と娘は日本の田舎に行く予定を立てていたのだが、 お袋から親父の危篤の知らせを受けて、訪日の予定の無かったボクが彼らより一日先に日本へ行く事に決めた。翌日に親父の病床を訪れた娘。学校に行き始める前は、お年を召した病人の世話をしていた義母に付き添う事が多かったせいで、同年代の他の子と比べてそのような状況に慣れてはいたのかも知れない。だが娘が来た頃には親父は膵炎による痛みのあまりに顔も体も歪んだまま硬直しており、強力な痛み止めのせいで口もきけなくなっていた。それを見た娘は怖かったであろうに、それでもその手を握りながら話しかけて、親父の5人の孫を代表する大役をこなしたのだった。

死の瞬間には立ち会わなかった娘。死亡確認後、娘を連れて田舎に帰っていた妻に連絡を入れた所、親父の死亡時刻に娘は「おなかが痛い」と訴えたらしい。周りの大人に「霊感の強い子だね」と言われたと言う。

その後、葬式に参列し、火葬場にまで同行した娘には、棺桶の中の痩せ細った親父の顔が記憶に残っているのだろうか。娘の生まれた年に撮影された映像に見られるような、肉付きの良い元気な親父の顔は知らなかったと思う。

その映像をボクの膝の上に座って見ながら、娘はボクのシャツで涙を何度も拭いた。見上げた顔を覗いたら目が真っ赤で、その生々しい反応にビックリしてしまった。

「もう会えなくて悲しい」

愚直な言葉は不器用な芝居ではなく、小学校2年生の限られた語彙で純粋な感情を表した表現だったと思う。

気難しくて頑固で本を読むのが好きな所がグランパにそっくりな娘である。

***

"What are you watching?"

"It's a video of Grandpa."

"Huh?"

She seemed genuinely shocked. Only then did I realize that I hadn't told her about this video.

My daughter didn't always connect with my dad. She was only 2 years old during the time my parents were still living in the States, and I was taking her to see them most often. After major surgery, he looked like a sick man for a while, which may have freaked her out. But later that summer, when we celebrated my parents' golden anniversary, he was looking better. Maybe she has some memory of that time. After that, over four years since my parents moved to Japan, she had met my dad no more than a handful of times.

My wife and daughter had scheduled a trip in late November last year to visit the countryside in Japan without me, when I received the call from Mom about Dad's critical condition. I decided to fly out before they did. My daughter came to my dad's bedside the next day. Before she had started going to school, she would accompany my mother-in-law who visited the sick and elderly often, so she is probably used to those situations more than her peers. But by the time my daughter came, my dad's face and body had become contorted due to the pain caused by pancreatitis. He was also no longer able to speak because of the potent painkillers. It may have been scary for her, but she admirably performed her duty representing Dad's five grandchildren, holding his hand and talking to him.

She was not there the moment Dad died. After he was confirmed dead, I notified my wife, who had taken our daughter to the countryside. She told me that around the time of Dad's passing, my daughter said her stomach hurt. The grownups supposed she must have a spiritual sensitivity.

She attended the funeral and even the cremation. I don't know if perhaps Dad's gaunt face in the casket had left a lasting impression on her. But I am pretty sure that she had never seen my dad as full-fleshed and healthy as he looks in this video, which was shot in the same year as my daughter was born.

As she sat on my lap and watched the video, she started wiping her tears on my shirt. When she looked up, her eyes were red. I was surprised by the rawness of her reaction.

"I'm sad that I can't see him again."

Such straightforward words can be construed as awkward acting, but in her case, it was probably as pure as her feelings could be through her limited 2nd-grade vocabulary.

She is sometimes difficult, stubborn, and loves to read books - just like Grandpa.

Music, Part 1 - Star Wars and Beethoven

The greatest irony in my relationship with my father was that he discouraged me from a career as a musician when he worked in the music industry himself.

In order to illustrate what music meant to my father, I feel the need to illustrate in detail what it meant to me. Music began for me with theme songs of Japanese animation on vinyl records. In hindsight, it's weird that we had so many records when we couldn't watch most of the shows on TV in the US. These were times when TV was barely in color, still years before even VHS came into existence. Looking at it another way, the records might have been one of the few ways in which we stayed in touch with contemporary Japanese culture.

Honestly, back then, it was the graphics of the robots, and even their names in flashy katakana fonts, that captured my attention and imagination more than the music. I would spend hours drawing these robots - I remember Grendizer being one of my favorites. I was a pretty good artist, and people at school told me so. As I got older, that turned into a desire to draw my own manga. But Dad told me to give that up - for one, he rarely appreciated my talents as an artist, and two, he told me that being a manga artist was not what it was glammed up to be, that I was romanticizing what is actually a hard and highly unstable life. I didn't really understand the second half of that reasoning at 10 years old; I only knew that he didn't approve of what I wanted for my own life. This, of course, would become a recurring theme.

I must have been about 8 years old, in my dad's car with the family, in Japan, when I heard the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah playing on the car stereo. I became aware that Dad was once in a chorus himself. The music was certainly gorgeous and memorable, and has stuck with me to this day.

But that didn't have as big an impact as seeing a full orchestra on a field trip. We were back in the States, and I was in 5th grade. They loaded us up on a bus and took us to a venue that no longer exists near Disneyland. I wish I remembered the name of the orchestra. They played a few classical pieces that I might recognize now but didn't know then.

Then they played the main theme of Star Wars. This changed everything.

Of course, it went over fantastically with the kids - so much so that the orchestra came out and played it again as an encore. But I don't know if anybody else was moved by it as much as I was.

That night, when I talked about the field trip, my parents asked me which instrument I found most interesting. I replied, "Instrument? I want to be the one who WRITES that music!" I meant it then, and I still mean it now. Too bad Dad didn't take me seriously.

It must have been close to my birthday, because I remember going to the record store the next day and getting my mom to buy me the two-record set of the original soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back (which I had seen. In fact, Empire was the first Star Wars movie I saw. And it was a rare occasion when my dad took me and my younger brother to a movie theater in Japan). I now realize how complex and sophisticated the music was (even the catchy hits like the main title and Darth Vader march), but I gobbled it up. I soon became a John Williams fanatic, with the E.T. and Superman soundtracks also affecting me deeply.

I was 11 years old when my dad, probably bemused by my sudden and intense interest in orchestral music, introduced me to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5. That record of the Emperor concerto was performed by Rudolf Serkin on piano and Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic. Hearing this was just as shocking as hearing the Star Wars theme was. The overwhelming emotion I felt was: "Why am I just now discovering this music that was written almost 200 years ago?" Soon I was getting into my dad's collection of classical music records. He had quite the collection, mostly of popular conductors leading orchestral works by major composers. Dad often liked only certain parts of a work - like the opening of the first movement of Tchaikovski's Piano Concerto, or mid-way through the fourth movement of Brahms's 1st Symphony. A favorite of both my dad's and mine was Beethoven's 9th Symphony with Charles Munch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In fact, I became obsessed with Beethoven's 9th, listening to it practically everyday after school. Who woulda thunk we would actually sing it almost 30 years later? But that's another story.

All this happened before I embraced rock music. And started playing guitar. Not that those two were necessarily related in the beginning. And of course, Dad didn't care much for either.

To be continued.

In His Own Words

What did my dad do? Listen to the man himself talk about the history of Yamaha in America, and how he came to join it:

https://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/tetsuya-takagi

It was two days after he had passed away when we found this footage online for the first time. Imagine our surprise! Recorded in 2010, he still looked healthy and robust. None of us knew he had done this!

The folks at NAMM are including him in their "in memoriam" tribute footage at their main stage show scheduled on January 25 at the 2018 NAMM show at Anaheim Convention Center.

After the NAMM show is done, I have been promised a full version of the interview, perhaps sometime in February. Hopefully, I will be able to share that with you somehow.

***

If you can read Japanese, you may be interested in my dad's books:

https://www.amazon.com/Tetsuya-Takagi/e/B001I7KLNK

There is also this:

http://a.co/2jj59Tt

This was not written by my father, and the subject is about his boss at Yamaha, but he was extensively interviewed, and the book does offer a clear picture of what they did.