A faithful soldier’s passing

Dear friends,

Last month Colleen, Cory, the Kashiwagi clan and our church family lost a faithful servant, Tom Kashiwagi.  Tom was the quintessential Nisei man, one seldom heard and often unnoticed, but whose contribution formed the foundation of the institutions they served: the family, the Church, the office, the Army and the Nation.  Tom was the one who sat in the furthest corner of church, as much out of sight as possible. He would have hid under the pew if his back would have allowed it. Yet it was he who turned on the heat in the sanctuary on Sunday mornings, brought food to the Betty and Eiko in the church office with his one good hand and picked up the papers I left strewn on the pulpit floor after having said everything I had to say for another week.

Tom always said he lived on borrowed time.  He once saw a German army gun follow him from the bushes around the end of the war, but the man never pulled the trigger. Blown up by a Nazi mine he spent almost a year in a German hospital until his bones were back in working order.  His eye was  popped out after some random object was thrown in his direction and was put back in. His arm was severed in an accident and put back on. “Use it or lose it,” the doctors told him.  So he used it, to Parkview’s benefit, for many years.  Toward the end Tom realized that he had borrowed way more time than he wanted or needed.  He never quite recovered from the loss of his wife Chiz.  He never shed that lost look.   So death came to Tom undoubtedly as a relief.  The task of faithful soldier to country, church and community was finally done.

Part of George Patton’s army, Tom wasn’t proud of the many things the army made him do.  That was Tom. He said what he thought and never sugarcoated it.  Perhaps that is why I felt close to him.  There was no veneer of superficiality and appropriateness. Things were as they were.  Tom and I did have a major disagreement once, but it only made us respect each other more.  In a society where people so often get alienated from each other after the slightest discord,  it was refreshing to be able to get through a disagreement and move on to a better relationship, the way it should be done.

Tom was very private.  It was a rare occasion when he let anyone visit him at a time of illness or other misfortune.  It is his desire for privacy that prompts the writing of this entry, because Tom did not even want a memorial service.   So in a way this is an attempt at honoring him in a minimal fashion he might be okay with.

Micah 6:8 says it plainly: what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”   That’s a passage that fits with Tom.  For one, it is brief enough for a man of few words.  Moreover Tom lived the humility that complemented his faithfulness.   May we remember his service and emulate it.  Thanks be to God for his life.