<Begin Segment 21>

TL: To change the topic a bit, you mentioned earlier that your son died shortly after you left camp. And if you don't mind telling us a little bit more, I think that would be important to know about -- a very big part of, that part of your life.

YB: It was -- you mean before he passed away?

TL: Yeah.

YB: Well, camp life was -- he had a very interesting life there. But funerals were held, but it was cremation. No burial, 'cause we couldn't leave them behind, unless the Catholic people would take them and bury them elsewhere. But whenever they say, "cremation," the children would say, "Mommy, I don't want to get burned. When I die, I don't want to get burned." I said, "Oh my, Ken. There's nothing to be scared of." "How come?" So I says, "Let's take an orange for example. What do you do with an orange?" "Eat it." "Skin and everything?" "No." "What do you do with it?" "I peel it first, and I eat the orange." I said, "What's inside of the orange? Do you eat everything else in it?" "Oh, no," he said. "I don't eat the seed." "What do you do with the seed?" "You plant it." I said, "Okay. Your body is just like an orange. If and when we die, God has already taken the best part of our body, the seed that's inside of the orange, the soul, and it goes to heaven where God is. And you're at peace and you stay there forever and nothing will ever (harm) you again. And the rest of the skin, it's not gonna' hurt you anymore, 'cause the best part is gone. So if they burned you, it doesn't make any difference." So he says, "There's nothing to be frightened about." He says, "Freddy, Jimmy, don't be afraid if you get burnt after you're dead, because it's not going to hurt you."

And so the children were relieved with that. But they were frightened about cremation, and that was the only way I could describe it to them. But they seemed to have understood, 'cause he wasn't afraid of death, when he was so close to death. That I was very relieved about, 'cause when I was putting the rack from his bed off so that we could sit beside him, and I went to put it up against the wall, he was talking to Daddy. And I thought I heard him say, "Don't be afraid, Daddy. I'm not scared to die." And I said, "Ken, what did you say?" "Nothing, Mommy. I was just talking to Daddy," and he didn't want me to worry. 'Cause I always talked about death and angels. "And if ever you're sleeping or closing your eyes or dream of an angel, and she puts her hands out to you, take her hands 'cause she's God's messenger. She's the one that takes care of each one of us, and takes us to him when we have to go there." He says "Oh." So when he went to Sunday school he'd bring all these little cards that the church gives you at Sunday school, and he had 'em all pasted up above his pillow. And, so he was extremely religious, and I was glad for that because it seemed to have made it very easy for him, and he understood it all.

[Interruption]

TL: You mentioned that Ken had cancer. Do you think that -- or was that diagnosed in camp or after?

YB: They weren't sure in camp until we came back to Seattle, and he complained of headaches even in camp. So this friend, a lawyer friend of ours who was financially well-off, wanted to send him back to Mayo Clinic, but Ken wanted to go back to Seattle. So we brought him back to Seattle and put him in the Children's Orthopedic Hospital, the old one that was up on the Queen Anne. And my friend whom we stayed with -- that is, my second husband's wife then of another person. [Coughs] Excuse me. And we stayed there and Ken got so bad, from bad to worse, that we had to put him in the hospital.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.