In Memory of Masayuki Akimoto

Last week after what appeared to be a promising recovery from a horrible stroke, my ojisan (uncle) Masayuki Akimoto passed away in his sleep. Masayuki Ojisan was the oldest of six brothers in my mother's family, but as he aged, he looked more and more like her father (my grandfather) as you can see below.



(Masayuki Ojisan on far left)














(grandfather)







I spent the most time bonding with my family in Japan from the time I was born until I was about 3 years old. Ten years ago, we visited Japan for 17 days, but my loss of the language meant communicating through my mom or through gestures. Even so, this was a short trip, and I spent most of the time with my cousins who spoke a little English.

When I returned to Japan this year for my fieldwork research on Japanese summer festivals, I spent as much time with family as I could. Masayuki Ojisan, by this time, had had a stroke and was in a hospital left sitting in a wheelchair with one hand paralyzed and the other in a glove to stop him from pulling out a feeding tube. We were warned that he most likely would not respond to our presence and could barely speak. He looked up at my mother with sad eyes as she spoke to him softly in Japanese. This was very hard on my mother who visited him less than one year ago when her second oldest brother passed away from pancreatic cancer.

With dictionary in hand, I waited patiently to say a few basic phrases in Japanese, but nothing in my dictionary could prepare me for Masayuki Ojisan's reaction to me. I could not tell if this was due to my long absence or some other thought I could not read, but when my mother pointed to me and whispered my name, tears streamed down his face while he nodded. Needless to say, all of us were in tears.

On our second and last visit to the hospital, he looked at up my mother from a hospital bed and stared at her while she spoke to him. When she pointed to me this time, tears streamed down again, but this time he whispered my name. I asked how to say "Take care and get better" in Japanese and repeated this over and over.

We were in hopes that his release from the hospital was a good sign of his recovery, but Masayuki Ojisan passed away last week in his sleep late last week. I will always remember him as a hardworking man with a kind heart, and although we cannot return to Japan for his funeral, I hope my prayers at my altar at home with reach him and his family.

“Death is a part of all our lives. Whether we like it or not, it is bound to happen. Instead of avoiding thinking about it, it is better to understand its meaning. We all have the same body, the same human flesh, and therefore we will all die. There is a big difference, of course, between natural death and accidental death, but basically death will come sooner or later. If from the beginning your attitude is 'Yes, death is part of our lives,' then it may be easier to face.” - Dalai Lama