An Afternoon Both Sad and Joyful

People say it gets easier, which I suppose is true because the world demands attention, breaking up the wallowing. One must continue to work, pay the bills, shop, exercise, tend to the house and garden, and do the myriad things one has to do to live. This week, however, the emotions returned because the focus was on Dad.

A little over two months after he passed away, we held Dad's memorial service. After a one-hour visitation there was, in accordance with his wishes, the 15-minute Masonic ritual that honored his 54 years in the Freemasons and Shriners. Then came the Episcopal service of Holy Communion, the presentation of the flag by the honor guard, and the committal of his urn to the church's columbarium.

At the reception in the Parish Hall were relatives I hadn't seen in decades. I was happy to greet Dad's friends, some of whom I frankly thought were dead.

I was especially happy and proud of Mom, who engaged with everyone through the long afternoon.

I think Dad liked how it all turned out.

(Eulogy in written form after the break.)

Resting during track practice (1942)

My father, Alfred See Lung Yuen, had a wonderful life. Those are not my words but his. In recent years he said them and he wrote them.

But life wasn’t so wonderful in 1925, when Alfred was born. Alfred was child number six to William Yuen and Yuk Sum Tom. By the standards of today being the sixth born would make you the baby of an unusually large family. But in Alfred’s case he was only a middle child, number 6 out of 10.

Being the middle child in a poor family was no picnic. The attention and education were lavished on the older children. Uncle Jack, the oldest, became an engineer who was also a professor at UH. Walter, the second son, became a manager of a Bank of Hawaii branch. But Alfred was the fourth son. He got the clothes that were handed down from Jack to Walter to James and then to him. He was number four, in Cantonese, “see” -- See Lung, his middle name. Alfred’s clothes had patches, and the patches had patches.

When his later siblings came along, the family was doing better, as the older children began contributing to the household. So it’s more correct to say that the attention and education were lavished on the older and the younger children. After Alfred came Clarence—a lifer in the Army and the best mechanic I ever knew. Then came Allan who had a masters degree and who taught at Maryknoll and Chico State. Finally there was Robert, the seventh son, whose happy go lucky charm concealed business smarts and shrewd investors instincts. And we especially appreciate Alfred’s sisters, Bow Yin and Eva, who in addition to holding jobs and raising families of their own, lent a helping hand to everyone, their parents William and Yuk Sum and all the brothers, especially in their final years.

Alfred was the middle child, the quiet one, the least articulate one, and in his own mind the least distinguished. Please don’t misunderstand, my father loved all his brothers and sisters, but he had a belief: that education meant you were smart and that you were going to be successful. So with only a high school diploma he made his way in the world by working harder than everyone else.

Alfred graduated from McKinley and served in the Army at the end of the War. He met Doreen at her high school friend’s party in 1949. They were married in 1951. I was born in 1952, and I hardly saw my Dad during the 1950’s as he worked to save up for his own place.

He held 3 jobs at once. He had a full-time position at Pearl Harbor, moonlighted as a waiter at Don the Beachcombers and sold insurance for West Coast Life. Somehow he found the time to install the pipe organ here at St. Peter’s during the 1950’s using the knowledge gained from trade school.

In 1960 Alfred and Doreen moved into their new home. It was a five-unit apartment building in McCully-Moiliili which he built with a lot of help from his brothers, cousins, and friends, a building by the way which is still going strong after 59 years with no termite problems.

After 1960 Dad had more time to be a Dad. He attended my little league games, he taught me chess when his game was poker, and he taught me to drive on his Pontiac Tempest. I suppose I should say to impress the young folks that the Pontiac Tempest was a stick-shift, but frankly our family only had manual transmissions in those days; an automatic car cost $600 more. Which did I want, automatic transmission or to go to Punahou for a year? Today the choice is between Punahou for one year or not just a transmission but a brand new car. Yes, the Sixties were a different time.

Dad worked hard through 1980 and retired from Pearl Harbor when my youngest brother Richard finished school. Then he and Doreen settled into a life of retirement—traveling the world, volunteering at the Shriners Hospital and St. Peter’s church, playing golf, and going on gambling junkets to Vegas with friends.

His life was almost a cliché: get married, work hard, put the kids through school, retire, enjoy your remaining years. Then something happened.

Alfred was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. Even today the words are ominous, but back in 1995, when the technology was much more primitive, the diagnosis was frightening. Doreen’s father had died of bowel cancer, and we all were scarred by that memory. So, at the age of 70, Dad had an operation. There’s a phrase that comes from the Bible – three score and ten, which means 70—which is a standard for how long people live. It comes from Psalm 90, which says that we are given 70 years and maybe 80—four score---if we are strong. I don’t know if my Dad finally realized what being three score and ten meant, but in modern terms that was his wake-up call.

After a successful operation, he attended all the follow-up meetings, got tested every six months, until miracle of miracles, he was declared clean of the cancer. Not only that, he began walking and exercising regularly. He lost 50 pounds. He had been diagnosed with diabetes and had been on medication for years. Now he didn’t have to take the medication.

He would eye the expanding waistlines of his sons and admonish us to follow his example—go for a walk every day, eat and drink in moderation. Well, we didn’t heed his advice when we were teenagers, and we didn’t follow it later.

But it was the change in his mind and attitude that was more remarkable than what was occurring to his body. Actually, I’m not sure it was a change, just revealing a light that was always there but had been kept under a basket for 70 years.

Dad had grown weary of keeping all the apartment building’s records by hand and bought his first computer. He asked my wife a lot of questions about accounting software, and she helped him to install. Quicken. His tax accountant soon appreciated receiving nice printed summaries of his finances.

A few years later, I noticed a laser printer next to the regular printer. He had gotten it to have the computer print the checks, which were recorded on Quicken, because he was getting tired of handwriting them. Cool, right?

He started reading books, maybe a book every three days. These were nothing fancy—fiction like Tom Clancy novels—but Dad read a lot more books than his college-educated sons now do.

In 2011 I spent two weeks visiting Mom and Dad. Every day I encouraged him to play with my smartphone, an iPhone 4. On the day before I left for California, he asked me to take him to Verizon and help him get an iPhone in exchange for his flip-phone.

At Verizon, I felt like the parent. No, Alfred doesn’t need unlimited texting, 200 a month should be plenty. No, he doesn’t need conference calling. Yes, give him unlimited data, he likes to surf the web; he likes to check his email accounts. Yes, let’s get the insurance. Not only did I feel like the parent, I was as proud of him as he was of me when I passed the driver’s test in the Pontiac Tempest.

I could go on and on how about how Dad got a 7-camera security system to protect the apartment building, how he had the security app installed so he could watch and playback the recording on his iPhone or iPad, how he bought an Apple Watch so that he could track his exercise minutes and heartbeat.

On the last night he was with us, he said he was feeling better and wanted to come home from St. Francis Hospital. Just make sure my iPhone is fixed, he said. At the age of 94, he was eagerly looking forward to tomorrow.

Whether Dad was 70 or 80 or 90, he treated every day past three score and ten as a gift. He taught us always to be excited about what the next day will bring.

Thank you, Alfred, for being our Dad.