(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.
***
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..."
No comments:
Post a Comment