Losing a Friend

I suppose at our age, it is rather inevitable that we will lose some of our friends and older family members. It doesn't make it any easier to know this. Just a few days after I finished scheduling all our posts about the European riverboat trip we received the awful news about our dearest friend in Japan.

"Sam" (a nickname he acquired in college) met Art at Bradley University in Peoria well over 50 years ago. Sam had been sent to the U.S. to learn English.

Sam and Art have been close friends throughout the years, visiting each other in Japan and in Illinois. We've hosted two of his children at our home during the summers.

With the advent of computers and email, it became easier for them to share their thoughts weekly, sometimes daily.

We'd told Sam that we'd be coming to Tokyo this June and he'd been excitedly planning what we could do together.

He knew about our spring European trip and told us that he and his wife would also be taking a similar riverboat trip just two weeks after us.

Then in January, his esophagus ruptured after a terrible cold. The doctors couldn't understand it because Sam doesn't drink or smoke. Both his parents lived into their 90s. He was healthy and so full of energy, still working part-time. His daughter emailed us that Sam would have to stay in the hospital for a month.

We were shocked. However, we still thought he'd be healed and be able to go on the riverboat trip in April.

But February and March came and went and he was still in the hospital. When we returned from our riverboat trip, we learned that he had fallen into a coma.

But still... there was hope.

And then... suddenly he was gone.

It didn't seem possible. Sam with the laughing eyes and infectious laugh. 

The funeral would be in a week's time.

Art walked about the house in a daze and then said, "Shall we go?"

I told him we had to do what he felt he had to do.

I sent a quick email to Sam's daughter asking if it would be all right for us to come and she said they would appreciate it.

However, going to a funeral in Japan is different from funerals in Hawaii. We were quickly learning just how different it was.

In Hawaii, men will wear subtle colored aloha shirts to funerals and women will wear darker hued clothing. People don't pay a lot of attention to the clothes.

In Japan, men must wear black suits with a matte black tie and matte black shoes. Women have to wear black dresses that go below the knees, be modestly covered, wear shoes with very low or no heels, black nylons, and possibly a string of pearls, but no other jewelry.

It took a bit of doing to go shopping for attire, buy tickets for the flight, book a hotel, make arrangements to leave and pack in less than a week. Luckily, Hawaiian Airlines was having a bundle package for a trip to Japan which worked out perfectly.

And then we were on our way.

We left at 3 PM on Mother's Day (Sunday) and arrived in Tokyo at 6:15 PM Monday after an 8 hour flight.

We were pleased with our accommodations. The room was small, but there was a queen sized bed, free breakfast buffet coupons during our stay and this amazing free use of a smartphone. They said we could use it for local and international calls and carry it with us during our entire stay.

I felt as though Sam was still looking out for us as he always did when we came to Japan.