#1

So Phil's memorial was last week. The third cycle service for two years later. I tried to look things up online ahead of time so I'd know what to expect, but all I could find was that it was the third of a series of memorials and that you're supposed to all get together and have dinner after. I'd already offered to take my sister out to Japanese food in exchange for chauffeuring me to downtown and staying for the service, but even so I wasn't really prepared to tag along to dinner with his dad.

My sister and I got there early and Phil's dad gave us a tour of the temple and showed us where Phil's remains are, which was sort of odd because I'd never really felt like I needed to see them. I stood there looking at the little white box and I don't know. It didn't really mean anything to me. That's not really Phil to me. It felt like a little white box with ashes in it, like remains of a body - not anyone I knew.

The service itself was pretty short. The Buddhist guy from the temple gave a nice explanation of their particular sect of Buddhism and talked about how they worship the Amida Buddha as opposed to the other one that all the other sects worship, if worship is the right word. There was a prayer in what I'm guessing was Japanese and they had an ENORMOUS one of those singing bowls that the guy would tap with a giant wooden stick.

I liked the idea of having more than just the one funeral. Instead you have the funeral, then a 49th day ceremony for when the soul is finally released from Earth and then a one year memorial, a two year and then maybe like a seven year one and so on. The interesting thing that the monk/priest said was that in this kind of Buddhism, they don't believe in a soul, which seemed like something of a simplification given the stories he was telling about his dad, but since these Buddhists don't believe in a soul, these memorials are just for the survivors to come to terms with the death and to take the time to deal with it together.

And this is the frustrating thing because I feel like I've come to terms with this all pretty well. Or I had. I guess I wanted to come to the memorial because I didn't get to go to the first one. In my head I was sort of coming for Phil, more than for me. I did my memorial for Phil. That was what I needed to do. I talked all that stuff over with people and we told stories and I made my peace with him.

But then the dad gets up at the part of the ceremony where you can say a little something about the person you're remembering. And all he has to say are things like. Maybe you didn't know this but Philip graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UC Berkeley with a major in Asian Studies. Maybe you didn't know this but Philip ran varsity cross country for four years at University High School. Maybe you didn't know this but Philip was passionate about music and put a lot of effort into learning Japanese. Maybe you didn't know this but Phil bagged two pheasants and killed a deer when he was twelve.

And I just felt like. Yeah I saw that deer skin in Phil's room and then he told me how he never wanted to go hunting again because the killing felt so pointless. And I wanted to hear stories, but I felt like I was hearing how little this guy actually knew his son. There was nothing about them doing things together. Nothing even about how proud he was about anything Phil did. It was about as personal as reading a grocery list. And I don't know how to feel about that.

On the one hand, I left the temple wanting to send him the audio we recorded at our memorial to make up for the memories he doesn't have of Phil.

But on the other hand, I'm kind of angry. I'd met Phil's dad before actually, but didn't recognize him at all when I saw him this time. Maybe it's because he's changed, but I don't know. I'm starting to wonder if maybe he hasn't really changed that much. I thought maybe this guy has finally hit bottom and is ready to start caring about other people, but I'm feeling less convinced now. I'm feeling angry. And I don't want to feel angry. This all seems so pathetically sad.

In any case. Thea and Taylan showed up at the last minute too and they were more amenable to having dinner with Phil's dad. So they tagged along, and Laura and I popped out saying she had to get up at five for her hospital shift the next morning, which was true. I got the feeling that he really needed me to go more than I needed it. That he hadn't come to grips with all this yet. That maybe he wanted to reach out to us now to get to know Phil vicariously, but I wasn't ready to befriend him. I'm still not. And I wonder now if maybe he was just going through the motions. Maybe he invited us to dinner because that's what you're supposed to do and doing it gets him off the hook. Maybe it doesn't really matter.

Earlier, he'd mentioned a few times that the shrines had been cleaned and repaired at great expense in Japan even though buying new ones would be cheaper and apologized that I'd had to come all the way down to Los Angeles just for this memorial. I didn't know what to say. Not everything is about money, dude.