Dad Remembered

At my father's memorial service my two brothers, my niece, my three nephews and I delivered our own eulogies for my dad. Here is a copy of my eulogy as shared on April 23, 2010 at the Pearl City Community Church in Pearl City Hawaii.


I want to start by telling a story.

When I was a little boy, my dad would take me boogie boarding out at Kahe Point. We drove to the beach with the windows down, the warm leeward breeze blowing into our old green Plymouth Valiant, swirling around the smell of cigarettes as dad took long drags from his Kools, making huge plumes of dragon like smoke come out of his nostrils while concentrating on the road. From the back seat I could see his face in the rear view mirror. A little bit of weekend stubble grew on his chin.
On AM radio K-59 Patti Page sang out asking,
“How much is that doggie in the window?”
I would “arf, arf” to myself along with the song.
The anticipation of being at the beach was so exciting.
I felt so free.
Everything was left behind.

At the beach our bags were quickly unloaded. With shirts pulled off and swim trunks on, Dad and I walked to the water, the boogie board dragging behind us like a dog on a leash. The clear water shimmered with sparkles from the sun.

It was so deep and so blue.

Dad plunged in first. The water flowed through his receding hairline as I splashed in after him.

Dad stood waist deep, as I lay prone on the board waiting for my ride. He had a gift for finding the right wave.
“OK you ready?”
I clenched tighter on the board as dad started his countdown,
“3. . . 2. . .1. . .” WHOOOSH!
He launched me down, down,—Deeper and Deeper into the face of the wave.
Ocean spray in my face; I could smell the sea and taste the salt on my lips as I slid onto the sandy beach.

I turned around and saw dad swimming out into the dark, out into the deep. He did one final stroke and rolled over on his back. His round, white, middle-aged belly seemed mountainous as he lay flat, floating at the surface of the water. His arms spread out to capture as much of the sun as he could and his ears lay just below the surface of the water so he could experience the silence of the sea. There he lay, so even, so buoyant, so anchor free. In the bright quiet of the day he just drifted, drifted, drifted away.

He was so relaxed.

Dad did a lot of things for me throughout his life. But there was one thing he never did. . .

He never fed me fear.

I grew up with the luxury of knowing that my dad would never physically punish me. It was not in his nature. He was a very gentle man.

“Ho I going get lickens from my dad” my friends would cry out when we got busted.

Any time I took a misstep in my behavior or I somehow missed the mark, I knew I would get a calm talk from my dad.

Senior Year of High School—I’m driving to the Winterball with my date. I make a right turn into the parking structure of the Ilikai Hotel—crash--car door smashed—I was in the wrong lane to make that turn. Nobody was hurt. At the pay phone I nervously dialed home—one ring, two rings, three rings—“Hello” said a low voice—thank God it was dad. He listened to my story and calmly told me to go enjoy my dance, there was nothing we could do about it then, we would work it out in the morning.

He took the time to understand situations without ever resorting to anger.

Growing up I felt confident in exploring my world without being hedged in by walls built up by fear. This kind of gentle approach carried on into college.

When it came time for me to decide on a major for college, I asked dad his opinion. He looked at me and said something very important—for him college was not a trade school, rather it was an opportunity for discovery, an opportunity to find out what kinds of things interest you most.

His advice echoes the sentiments of the Reverend Dr. Howard Thurman, an educator and theologian whose writings greatly influenced Martin Luther King Jr. Thurman wrote,

“Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.”

Dad gave me permission to follow my bliss. Whatever that may be. As a kid I joked that when I grow up I want to be a Hare Krishna dancing around Waikiki playing drums and selling flowers. He looked at me, smiled, and said—

“whatever makes you happy.”

I ‘m grown up now and no offence to any devotees of Krishna, but I have not joined up. But as far as my dad was concerned that would have been ok.

He was ok when I had long hair
He was ok when I shaved it bald
He was ok when I got an earring
He was ok when I got a belly button ring
He was ok when I got a tattoo
He was ok when I was a vegetarian
He was ok when I was a tremendous carnivore
He was ok when I was a preppy
He was ok when I wore second hand clothes from Goodwill
He was ok when I got married straight out of college
He was ok when Kim and I decided to have our baby at home
He was ok when I quit a very secure job and decided to go homestead off the grid on the Big Island

As long as I was happy.

Not once did my dad ever infuse doubt or fear into my life. He may have had a few questions to make sure my head was screwed on properly, but then he would simply sit back and watch. His open mindedness and his gentle ways have truly been a gift in my life.

Dad, I believe, truly understood the words of the American scholar and mythologist, Joseph Campbell when he said,

“Follow your bliss and the Universe will open doors where there were only walls.”

I’d like to end by telling you another story. About a week ago, I drove into Hilo after picking Bodhi up from school. I sped along going about 45 miles per hour when out of the corner of my eye, I see going in the opposite direction this guy in his 70s zooming past on a chopper style Harley Davidson. My head jerked fast.
“Oh my God!”
“It was dad on a Harley.”
Same round, shaved Asian head with a cool laid back expression.
This guy had it going on—
black leather jacket,
blue jeans
black leather riding boots
and a rugged Harley that said—I gotta go—I’m following my bliss.
I got home, got dinner going and forgot about seeing the guy until Kim came up to me and said,
“Oh my God, I almost forgot to tell you. Today as I drove home there was this guy behind me.”
I stopped her and asked,
“was he riding a Harley and looked like somebody we know?”
“Yes!”
But for Kim instead of him zooming by, he followed her for several blocks and she got a good look at him, and said he was the spitting image of dad, with a gold hoop earring.

We saw the same guy, at about the same time, at two different places in Hilo.

That was dad’s Easy Rider spirit sending us a message. “I’m free!” he was saying. “I’m free.”

We are surrounded by about 2,000,000 bits of information every second. Our minds can only take in 126 bits of information a second. So at that moment when the guy zoomed by on his Harley, out of the 2,000,000 bits of stimuli that was surrounding me, he was somehow one of the 126 bits that I actually took in.

That’s amazing—

The 126 bits of information we take in depends on our own unique beliefs and life experiences. This creates for each of us our own unique bank of memories. So your recollections of my dad are completely different from his or hers or mine. We all have our own unique individual picture of Rodney Junichi Arakawa in our minds. This is a beautiful piece of treasure to cherish.

The Reverend Sandye Wilson points out that, often eulogies are used as a time to present a person as someone who walked on water. Dad could certainly float on water, but walk—probably not. It is important instead, she says, to present the person as evidence of humanity
with all the joys and complications
and at the end we can say thank God he lived and
thank God we were loved by him.