My father was in bed, his face ashen. His sunken cheeks made him look dead. Standing there, I remembered my Grandmother Yamada’s death when I was three. She raised eight children and began smoking cigarettes in camp. Her health grew weak in Idaho and three years later, she died of a heart condition. I do not recall much about Grandmother Yamada, except that my brother and I were playing and making noise when she was ill. Our mother told us to be quiet because she needed rest.

For years, I carried the burden of believing that we killed her. Periodically, I would ask my mother how Grandmother died, but she would never answer.

We remained quiet for a while, but resumed playing cowboys and Indians. Grandmother died shortly thereafter. I asked about the cause of her death, but Mother would not say. I felt guilty because I was convinced our loud noises caused her death. For years, I carried the burden of believing that we killed her. Periodically, I would ask my mother how Grandmother died, but she would never answer. When I was about fifteen, I realized that we did not kill her, but might have contributed to her demise by disturbing her peace. Finally, when I became an adult, I concluded that Grandmother was so near death that she probably could not have heard us, no matter how much noise we had made.

So as a seven-year-old looking down at my sick father, I kept quiet for fear of killing him, too. With closed eyes, he rested motionless in bed. Mother said he had a bleeding ulcer and collapsed at work. I imagined his stomach fill with blood and felt a strange sense of detachment almost as if the situation were happening to someone else. I wanted him to get well so things would be normal again. Over the years, he would be in and out of the hospital.

As an adolescent, I found it difficult to adjust to his illnesses and recoveries. It was as if my life was a series of one parental health crisis after another up to my late teenage years. Going to the hospital became routine; I felt caught in a vaudeville show where the protagonist falls dead and then resurrects himself to speak one more line only to collapse and rise again. As if by a miracle, both my parents began to enjoy relatively good health when I was about eighteen, and they remained that way until they passed away in their eighties.

Grandmother used to say she had an advantage because she was small, and it did not take long for messages to travel from her hand to her brain.

After Dad recovered from the ulcer, he spent most of his free time on weekends with his mother, Grandmother Matsuda, a very domineering and shrewd businesswoman. Grandmother used to say she had an advantage because she was small, and it did not take long for messages to travel from her hand to her brain. One of her messages was to attempt to convert my brother and me to Buddhism. My mother took immediate defensive action. She told us to wear our best clothes on Sunday. She brought us to the big Japanese Presbyterian Church building where the older generation worshipped and children did not attend except on special occasions. The minister sprinkled holy water on us, and my mother was happy that our souls were safe.

Baptized as Christians, we remained out of Grandmother’s religious grasp. Nevertheless, she tried to bribe us with money to join the Buddhist Cub Scouts. When money did not work, she told us that there were many pretty girls at the Buddhist Church. We were horrified because in our minds she was asking us to deny Christianity and take a heathen road to hell. Still, she was persistent because her afterlife was in jeopardy. Who would take care of her grave and honor the ancestors if we did not?