Incense and Peppermints, or should it be Candles

My mother thinks she is Christian now, but is she really?
A close friend of my mother’s she met while living in senior-assisted living is her legal guardian now – her caregiver with power of attorney. Because I live in Alabama, her guardian in Los Angeles is number one on her emergency list, and I am number two (just makes sense; what can I do from a distance?). Because of this, I didn’t learn of her passing until the morning after, and I learned the news from the guardian – the hospice care called me first, but when I returned the call we were disconnected.
What actually surprised me was that, during that conversation with my mother’s legal caregiver, I learned that my mother had told others that she was Christian...thus the question as to whether I need candles or incense for the funeral service. At first that surprised me, I never would have expected her to make such an assertion. But as I thought about it, things began to make sense, and it brought heartfelt tears to me, as I know why she said this. One could ask why Mitsue and Jimmy took me to a Christian chapel back in 1978 (why not go with Elvis, right)? But more importantly, it provided an explanation for a series of events that brought me closer to my mother after Jimmy passed in June 1994.

After Jimmy's Funeral
My mother was devastated to lose Jimmy, and as the two of us struggled adjusting to life without him, I told her I wanted to start going to church; my real reason for attending – it was getting lonely living in Gardena without any friends my own age. While being closer to my mother again was nice for a while, it was beginning to get old fast. My mother suggested that the two of us begin attending a Christian church in Gardena within walking distance, the Garden Valley Baptist Church, that provided services in both Japanese and English. We became regular attenders…every Sunday she would go off to the adjoining room to the right for Japanese service, while I went to the English service. It was convenient to hold them at the same time, and we weren’t the only family that split itself up this way. I also became active in the young adult Sunday school group that met early Sunday evenings; made some Japanese-American friends there. All this time I thought my mother was doing something new to her, going to church to keep me company…now I suspect otherwise.
You see, my mother knew the Japanese pastor really well, and I now believe that Gardena Valley Baptist was Jimmy’s church for a long time. After all, he and his mother had lived in Gardena for a long time, probably since World War II ended (I will explain more later). My mother was never a church-going person before, but Jimmy was probably very active at one point in time. I never gave it a second thought this was the pastor that came to Jimmy’s funeral as well. I was so worried about getting the eulogy right…it just never registered.

Two Religions in One
This bifurcation in religious affiliation on the part of my mother is something I will need to address in my mother’s eulogy…initially I was a little perplexed as to how to explain it. It is kind of like my mother having two citizenships, or not even one in many respects…confusion may be my mother’s middle name. But after presenting a Sunday School lesson at the First United Methodist Church of Jacksonville (member since 2008), I think that my mother has always been a Buddhist; at least with respect to her beliefs and past culture. She has relied heavily on Buddhist traditions (such as Obon) whenever she remembered and honored her father or Jimmy. This included the Buddha, the Buddhist chime bowl, three sticks of incense, and prayer beads, in a place set up in our duplex. She also brought Buddhist things to Jimmy’s grave – food, water, and Japanese coins – things the spirit would need when they came back to share a day with us. But so far as her life and place of worship outside the home, I think she embraced Christianity to be closer to Jimmy. And she wanted to always stay close to him, including being buried next to him – which meant remaining a Christian, even after his death.