My friends and even my family believe it will be impossible for me to retire, but I don't agree. Retirement to me does not mean not doing anything interesting and meaningful and just waiting for death. There have been many things I've wanted to do, but I have never been able to devote the time and attention that are needed to do them fully and well. For example, I would love to try my hand at painting, and when I told this to my sister Aiko, who was an artist, she sent me all of the necessary equipment, including a how-to-get-started book, but I've never even removed the wrapping. Many years ago, when I expressed regret that I had never learned to read music or play an instrument, Joane bought a beautiful recorder for me, but I never touched that either.
To follow these pursuits seriously, I couldn't just put in an hour a day or every other day; I want to be able to focus on them without distractions of time or other commitments. Maybe it's just a rationalization for doing nothing, but to me, retirement means having the time to do a few of the things I want to do — paint, learn Spanish, do some carving, study geology — before I pass on and the atoms in my body are returned to the natural world from which they came.
HUMAN BEINGS BEAR THAT terrible burden that self-awareness has inflicted on us — the knowledge that we, like all other creatures on earth, will die. That's what religions attempt to provide solace for, the unbearable thought of our disappearance forever. Belief in a life after death is one way to bear this truth, although it pains me to see people who seem to care little about this life because they believe they will live forever after they leave it. It even seems that blowing oneself up is preferable to a life fully lived if the promise is seventy virgins in paradise (over eternity, those virgins won't satisfy very long). I have been an atheist all my adult life, although as a teenager, I desperately wanted to believe in a god.
I don't like to even think of death because it makes me very uncomfortable, not because of fear about the process of dying, although any form of dying other than from instant death in an accident or from old age strikes me as a crummy way to go. No, what I don't like is the idea that this guy looking back at me in the mirror, this person locked into my skull full of memories that make him who he is, this fellow who has known pain, joy, thoughts, having existed for such a brief flash in all of eternity, is going to vanish forever at his death. Forever is such a long time, and seventy, eighty, ninety, even a hundred years is such a tiny interval in all of time.
As an atheist, I have no illusions about my life and death; they are insignificant in cosmic terms. That's why I have turned down requests to name schools after me, to let my name stand as a candidate for the presidency of a university, and to run for chancellor of another university. I don't have time to try to pad my curriculum vitae or take a position that is merely honorific.
I attended a potlatch, a ceremonial gathering, for Haida Chief Watson Price's hundredth birthday. As I pondered the significance of his birthday, I found it overwhelming to think of the world he was born into, a world without planes, refrigerators, television, computers, or even cars. He grew up in the tradition of his people, which had its roots thousands of years ago. And in remembering the stories and lessons of his grandparents, he represented a living memory going back to the early 1800s. For most of us, we will be remembered far more briefly. In the end, as we reflect on the meaning of our lives and our legacy to the future, what more could we ask for than to be remembered with affection and respect by a few people who will survive a decade or two further, by our children and grandchildren? I hope when it's my time to die, I do so with the dignity of my father.
After my mother died, Dad met a woman named Fumiko Gondo, who had come from Japan to live with her daughter, Naoko, who worked in Vancouver. Fumiko was a Korean who grew up in Japan, and she did not speak English. She and Dad began to take walks together, and Dad enjoyed the opportunity to brush up on his Japanese. Eventually they started spending all their time together, and Dad even gave away Naoko when she married in Japan.
Fumiko was a lovely woman, and she and Dad were a great pair. In the early 1990s when Dad developed a cancerous tumor in his abdominal cavity, Fumiko was devastated. Although he had no pain, he lost his appetite and began to lose weight and strength, and it became clear he was dying. Dad had always said he had no great fear of death. “I've had a great life and I have no regrets,” he would say.
Fumiko boiled large quantities of rice over and over to produce a thick gel of rice concentrate, which Japanese consider extremely nutritive with medicinal properties. As I encouraged him, Dad would doggedly try to get a few spoonfuls down but often gagged with the effort. Finally, a neighbor who was a doctor told me that at this stage of his cancer Dad would not die of starvation, so we shouldn't worry about feeding him if he couldn't eat. It was a huge relief.
I moved in with Dad to be with him in his final weeks of life. He was still alert and interested in what was happening in the family. Each night, Tara and the girls would come over, and they sometimes brought slides of one of our trips, often ones we had taken with Dad and Mom. He would greet Tara with, “Well, what adventure have you got for me tonight?”
In the last week, my sisters arrived, and we reminisced about our lives. What struck me was that at no point did we complain about how hard life had been or all the things we had missed out on. Instead, we laughed and cried over stories about family, friends, and neighbors and the things we had done together that had enriched our lives. There was no boasting about possessions or wealth or accomplishments, only human relationships and shared experiences, which are what life is all about.
Dad's great achievement each day was to get out of bed and walk to the bathroom, where he would try to have a bowel movement. He had grown so painfully thin that the skin around his buttocks hung in sheets, and he was so weak that getting to the bathroom and back became quite a feat. Sometimes, in the effort to get his legs off the bed and onto the floor, he would leak a bit, causing him huge embarrassment. We bought rubber mats to go under the sheets, and I finally suggested diapers would solve everything. He was adamant that he would not wear them. Finally, when he had had a particularly messy accident, I called Tara and asked her to get some diapers for Dad. He overheard me and again objected weakly that he wouldn't wear them. Within hours, he slipped into a coma, and his breathing became more erratic and finally stopped. I still think the thought of being made to wear diapers was the final indignity, and he simply checked out, a peaceful death at eighty-five.
As he was dying, I wrote Dad's obituary and he fine-tuned it. “Don't say ‘passed away,' ” he said. “Say ‘he died'.” Here's what the obituary said:
Obituary, May 8, 1994
Carr Kaoru Suzuki died peacefully on May 8th. He was eighty-five. His ashes will be spread on the winds of Quadra Island. He found great strength in the Japanese tradition of nature-worship. Shortly before he died, he said: “I will return to nature where I came from. I will be part of the fish, the trees, the birds — that's my reincarnation. I have had a rich and full life and have no regrets. I will live on in your memories of me and through my grandchildren.”