<Begin Segment 27>

TI: And then the, the house, whatever, what happened to the house?

RM: The house finally got cleaned out. My father got, my brother, Arthur finally got my mother moved out, setting up a system where he could take his part of the, his share of the estate and my share of the estate and give her an allowance. I think he did take out shares from Victor and Margaret as well, but for the most part it was Arthur and mine and he invested it himself in order to give my mother an allowance, because she was entitled to what they call a dower. I think it's one third of the estate, the real value of the estate, for life, so there is a time, time element involved in that calculation. But the actuaries who got that thing all set up, they know how to figure that out.

TI: So, so she was taken care of for the rest of her life, from the...

RM: Yes. And then she moved to a place on Keanu Street, I think it was, in Kamuki, and she had a real good, real good, or tolerant landlord. Like after she died, the landlord found out, he said, "Mr. Mori, just take your time, just take your time and clean up and don't worry about the rent."

TI: Towards the end of her life she took up smoking, which contributed to her death. It's sort of, in some ways, ironic that she would study cancer and take up then smoking.

RM: And she'd be a doctor on top of that.

TI: A doctor and she would take up smoking.

RM: Out of nostalgia for my sister, because my sister used to smoke a lot. Maybe that was the one of the ways she got it out of her system, but because of that my mother decided to smoke. And she'd watch, she was a critic for cinema, Japanese cinema that came through here, so she'd go out and see the first, first movies that came in and then she'd write a critical essay on that. And they'd publish it for her. That's why I was tellin' Brian that Brian's grandpa was, no, Brian's father was the editor of Hawaii Hochi, so probably knew her quite well, personally.

TI: So it'd be his grandfather, not his father.

RM: Is it grandfather?

TI: Grandfather.

RM: It is, grandfather. Okay, the ages match better that way. We have a connection, but our connection's even better now that he's got all the records over there.

TI: So whenever you want to see it you just go visit Brian.

RM: Yeah, I can't really, once you, once they become the trustees to the, what do you call that, the memorabilia that comes in on that, you have to, I think, be an educator or somebody that's doing, doing biological work -- not biological, biographical work on a family --

TI: To get, to get access to it.

RM: Yeah, actual writer or somethin' like that. But I asked him, he says, "Make sure you come see me." 'Cause I really haven't had a chance to take a look at my, what my sister wrote. Most of her personal stuff I helped her burn, which is, which is sad to say, because I'd really like to see the stuff she burned, but she burned it and I helped her burn it. That's part of the irony.

TI: And the irony, too, that you think your mother, you think, picked up smoking in memory or as a memory of...

RM: Yeah. But see, I don't feel that too much because by that time she was just too big a conflict for me. She had been nothing but conflict.

TI: And the conflict was, explain that. What was the, the main reason for that conflict at this point in her life?

RM: Well, I'd say right off the bat that, the fact that she wanted to take me back to Japan to live there and be a Japanese. It just never worked. But in the process she did some really hateful things. Like she'd call my friends' mothers and say, "Well, you're, you shouldn't play with, you should tell your son not to play with my son because he's a very bad influence on him." That kind of stuff. And she'd do everything possible to keep me from seeing my other, other delinquent friends.

TI: Well, but at the end of her life, I mean, as you're, as you're, essentially cleaning up the estate and doing things, that was difficult for her and that, I think, caused conflict. As you were doing that she would sort of resist that process.

RM: I was throwing away everything, I was trying to take away everything that meant anything to her and take her away from the environment that her memory that she dwelled on were... and it got to the point where one time I really thought I was gonna, in the evening, late evening when I was tired and of course she was bein' about as ratty as she could be, I just got to the point where emotionally I had the feeling that I would destroy her. And that scared the hell out of me. I think I write in my story that I went out and walked all night long, walked the streets, trying to get a grip on myself, and then when I got home I hopped in my car and took off, all day drove around, and then when I was finally tired enough I came home and went to sleep. And then, of course, when I tried to put it all back together again later I think I physically could have physically destroyed her. No telling how, but... so not just a conflict. It was a huge conflict, yeah.

TI: And so after that, that evening where you had that and you --

RM: I think she realized that I had reached a point which was no longer tolerable, so I think we both realized it to the point where we were a little more hesitant to create any further, any further incidents.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.