Holiday Memories

I’m not sure why, but I always get to missing my dad around the holidays.  Maybe it is because he tried so hard to make sure that they were special for the family, and always succeeded.

My father passed away in 1991.  I remember I made a point of visiting Shirata sensei because I always found his presence both uplifting and healing somehow.  It wasn’t long after that sensei became ill with cancer too.  I invited him to my dojo opening and he responded saying that he was sorry to say he couldn’t come, but that he had turned down Ni Dai Doshu as well.  Not long after that sensei passed.  My Shodo sensei helped me as Shirata sensei had, but he too succumbed to cancer.  With all of my father figures gone is such quick succession, it made quite an impact upon me.  I delivered my father’s eulogy as well as my Shodo sensei’s.  Even though I was a young man with my own house and wife at the time, I felt a bit thrust into maturity beyond my years.

I’m guessing it was my father that first turned me on to Martial Arts.  He introduced me to swashbuckling movies and epics like Ivanho.  When Kung Fu movies became popular he would take me to the “rough” side of town where they played such flicks and we would lose ourselves in rough and tumble fantasy.  We even caught one or two yakuza flicks.

I began studying karate and he would pick up second hand books for me. My first martial arts books about Judo came from my dad.  He loved Westerns and I grew up on westerns and later spaghetti westerns.  I’m please to be re-visiting those films with my child Cassidy now.  (He chose to be called “Cassidy” btw.  But it is a good name!). My dad also taught me how to shoot.  When I got into my first street fight, he talked to me about it.  He said I should avoid getting into fights when possible.  Finally he asked me who won.  I said the other guy did.  He told me he was happy that I made it home in one piece.  But that if I have to fight, I should fight to win because one never knows what loosing is going to cost.  With that in mind, I avoided fighting when I could, and I never lost a fight I couldn’t avoid.

Our house had more guns and rifles in it than one would normally expect, especially in the city.  But it was my dad’s WWII sword that interested me.  It was a custom made sword that had been remounted for a lower Japanese Imperial Naval officer.  I would sneak into my dad’s closet where it was hanging to give it a look ever so often.  I wasn’t interested in six shooters, or the cap and ball pistols and rifles, much less the more modern fire arms.  But I was mesmerized by that sword.

In college I switched from Karate to Aikido.  I decided it was time to learn to control my anger.  That wouldn’t actually happen for about another decade.  But it was that goal that attracted me to Aikido.  Of course I told my dad about Aikido and he used to kid me about “using my Ki.”  Nevertheless, after I became first Dan in Aikido and it was my birthday my father gave me a present in a long skinny box.  I couldn’t guess what it was since it was too light to be a rifle.  You can imagine my surprise when I uncovered the end of what I recognized to be the handle of the coveted sword.  My dad said, “Something told me you might like that!”  I probably turned a couple shades of red realizing that my father was well aware of my covert missions into his closet in the past.

On my fathers last Christmas (he was dying of colon cancer) he gave my mother, sister, and wife a ring.  To me he gave a three piece Japanese lantern.  While we were inside, my parent’s steep driveway, the sidewalks and streets all became thickly covered with ice.  Somehow I managed to get all three heavy pieces of the lantern down to our car.  I was just lifting the last piece in when I lost my footing and fell along with he capstone of the lantern.  I didn’t think too much about the fall, but I was making distress noises over having dropped the capstone and chipping the corner.

I was on my hands and knees assessing the damage when heard something and looked up to find my dad standing over me concerned that I had seen me fall and not get up.  I couldn’t imagine how on earth he had gotten down to me.  But there he was.  Only now that I am a father, can I understand.  No cancer or ice can stand in the way of a parent’s love of their child.

I love you Dad!  Merry Christmas!

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