<Begin Segment 26>

TI: So Brooks, I want to jump to 1976, which is a, which is a very difficult year for you. So why don't we talk about it, 'cause this was the year that your father died. But let's talk about 1976 --

EBA: Okay.

TI: -- and some of the things that went on in your life in '76.

EBA: Okay.1976, my wife and I at that time divorced. And it was also the year that my father died. And so there was a huge loss for me in both instances, personally and on a family level also, with my father. My dad was living in some, a triplex that he owned on Eighteenth Avenue, not far, about a block from Providence Hospital. And I was living in one of the units next to him. And one morning I heard a knock on my door and the occupants, the person at the door said that my dad had suffered a heart attack and they took him to the hospital during the night. Nobody told me about that until after the event happened, so he spent his last week of his life at Providence Hospital and since I was so close by, just every day walked to the hospital and spent some time in the hospital room with him. But because he had such serious heart damage and loss of oxygen to the brain, he really wasn't in any lucid frame of mind. And I spent every evening there with him. And one night I stayed all night with him, but knowing that he would not survive but a few days longer, I tried to engage in some sort of relationship, intimacy, on an intimate level with him. And of course, being in his state of mind that was difficult to do, but for me it was, it was a time in which I could talk to him about the things that we had done in the past. And when I say "we," we the scouts, we the youth group or something like that. But talking about those things with him, especially the hikes around Mt. Rainier and the time we spent there, that's been a rich experience for me but I know it was something that was a huge part of his life, too, and I would ask him questions, and, "Do you remember this?" and, "Do you remember that?" and he would give some sense of recognition of that. And so after spending about, I don't know, five, six days in the hospital there, I was there with him one evening after dinner, sitting by his bedside and I looked over at him and realized that, that he was dying. I mean, he just, his monitor flatlined and he took this one last gasp of breath and then he was, he was silent. There were no words or anything, no outburst of anything from him, but it was just this silent passing. And to me it was, I guess the first thing that entered my mind was what effect this would have on the Japanese community, knowing that this giant in the community is, is no more. I wasn't thinking so much about my own personal relationship with him, but it's strange, it went to the community and what a loss that was going to be in my mind to the community.

TI: At this point, was the community aware that he had had a heart attack and he was at Providence?

EBA: There was some awareness in the community, yes. I don't know how extensive it was. And Paul Nagano was the pastor at Japanese Baptist then. I remember I called him and told him.

TI: This is after the heart attack you called him?

EBA: After he died, after he died, yeah.

EBA: And I called Paul Nagano and told him and I remember his saying just this sigh of, "I'm so sorry." And, it makes me emotional now to think about that moment and, but it's, it was just a, now that I think about it, it's strange how my thoughts went to the loss for the community and not for myself.

TI: And then what happened next? I mean, what...

EBA: My dad had already written down things he would like to, or people that he would like to participate in his funeral. He had done this at some time in the past. And he had listed people he wanted in there, songs that he, or hymns that he wanted sung, and so it was a matter of sitting down with Paul Nagano and others in the church and in the community and planning this service, what it would look like.

TI: Because this really fell onto your shoulders? You were...

EBA: Yeah, I was the executor of his estate, and so it fell upon my shoulders to do that. And in talking with some of the board, I think, at Japanese Baptist we decided that we would have it at First Baptist Church simply because Japanese Baptist Church would not be large enough to hold a service that, of the magnitude of people that we thought would be there. And so we had it at First Baptist Church.

[Interruption]

TI: Okay, so Brooks, we had just talked about, your father had died.

EBA: Uh-huh.

TI: And you were, you've talked with Reverend Nagano about some of the plans for the memorial service, and you just mentioned how there was a decision to do this at First Baptist.

EBA: Correct.

TI: Before the memorial service, I'm just curious, were there very many visits from people in the community that you received after your father's death? Just more, like personal visits, did you have any of those?

EBA: Yes, we had several people visit, visit our house, my house and it was either personal visit or it would be flowers. I mean, we had flowers everywhere, sent from florists on behalf of someone. So there was, there was that whole outpouring of love and support from the community, yes.

TI: Can you recall anything that you learned about your father that you didn't know before during this period?

EBA: I'm not sure I learned anything different, but it was reinforced to me from the things that people said, how much they loved my father, how much they did for him, or they would recall personal instances where, "Oh, you know, your father married me in Twin Falls," or, "Your father baptized me," and that type of thing. So it was just a big, big group hug. [Laughs]

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.