CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Never Good-Bye

I’m proud of it, because I really think we did a lot of good. That’s about all the story.—September 2, 1945

Susan and I shared a room right across from Waikiki beach. Mom and Dad were right next door. We all enjoyed the same incredible view.

Within a day or two, we’d all settled into our vacation routine. We met for breakfast each morning to plan our days. Most of the time that meant that the three girls would meet at the beach and Dad would go down too, sitting on a park bench nearby. Our hotel was right across the street, so Dad could walk down and read a book. When we got too hot, we’d go sit by Dad for a while or we’d all go get an ice cream cone. Most nights we’d eat dinner together. It was a very relaxed routine compared to my chaotic life at home. In between sunbathing and swimming in the ocean, we went our own ways: shopping, walking, reading, napping.

On Wednesday, Dad and I even had our weekly meal together, at Cheeseburger in Paradise. But time was running out and we still hadn’t done anything about a memorial. Every time I brought the subject up, my father brushed it off. He said that it was enough that we were all there together. He said that it didn’t matter.

I knew that wasn’t true. Susan and I kept talking about it in our room at night. We finally decided that we’d have to make the decision for him.

On Saturday night, I knocked on my parents’ door. Susan followed.

“We’re going to do the memorial tomorrow morning,” I said.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. It’s good enough that we’re all here together,” he protested.

After talking for a few minutes, he finally said he’d think about it. But back in our room, Susan and I decided that one way or another, we had to make it happen.

We met for breakfast the next morning.

“I guess it will be OK to do the memorial for Mal,” Dad said.

I held back tears, suddenly realizing how hard this would be for him.

It was Sunday morning, church day, that we walked down to the pier together. When he got tired along the way, we stopped so he could rest on a bench that faced the ocean. When he stood back up, he turned and our eyes met for just a moment. But in that short moment, I saw something I hadn’t seen before. It had been years since we started this journey—years since he’d drawn a line in the sand. Every time I stepped over that line, he’d somehow gotten further away. But now I saw something different, something new. I stepped over the line he’d drawn so long ago. I was a little girl again. I slipped my tiny hand into his and we walked away together.

When we reached the pier, we walked the rest of the way in silence. The sounds of vacationing tourists filled the air. Children laughed as they joked with each other. People chatted happily. Tourists and sunbathers were scattered at the end of the pier. A tanned native Hawaiian woman sat on the cement ledge with her primitive fishing pole, threading line through her toes.

“Why don’t we sit here,” I said.

Mom and Dad sat on the low, cement wall. As activity swirled around us, my mom, sister, and I took turns reading the words the minister had written. Dad was hearing them for the first time.

In Loving Memory of Mal

1925–1945

We don’t know his full name, and the mental picture of him has faded over the decades, but Mal remains indelibly in the mind of his best buddy over sixty years after his tragic death. Because war is so intense and demanding, there may never have been a funeral or other memorial for him, even though he made a tremendous contribution to the war effort. At best, there was a burial at sea, a world away from his family and childhood friends. Therefore, it seems fitting to remember him now.

The first time his friend Murray Fisher remembers meeting Mal was when they were both stationed in Hawaii. They were assigned to the top-secret duty of copying Japanese code so it could be fed into a machine that would break it into understandable words. Their particular group was composed of several young men. Their duty was so secret and essential to the war effort that their instructor told them they would be put in solitary confinement for the rest of the war if they were caught talking to each other or anyone else about what they were doing. If they were found to have shared information that got back to the Japanese, they would be shot without a court martial. They knew that agents were probably keeping an eye on them almost constantly for fear of blowing one of the most important secrets of the war. As a result, their friendship had to grow without the normal conversations about their work together, which made it easier for them to share little even about their past or their families. At the same time, though, the bonds of being in the war together and sharing the code of silence brought a special attachment. After all, how many other soldiers would understand what they were experiencing?

They went through training and leave together. They shared training in jungle warfare and language school. They went to movies and to the beach together, and Murray still remembers going to Mary’s Steak House where Mary once made up a special batch of strawberry shortcake just for them. That was as near to home as a sailor could get.

When the battle of Iwo Jima broke out, however, Mary’s became a distant memory. They were placed aboard a submarine equipped with a top-secret antenna which allowed them to receive code without being on the surface. They stayed at their stations almost constantly for fear of missing communication that could be critical to the war effort. Later they did the same thing at Okinawa. When the code-receiving equipment aboard their new submarine broke, they were transferred by raft to a ship, the flagship of a fleet which was bristling with antennas and other electronic equipment. But the station below deck also had problems, so they were taken topside so that they could plug in their equipment and continue their work. By the time they boarded the ship, every window was gone. They stayed a few miles off Okinawa for several days, copying code almost around the clock.

The day of the kamikaze attack, things turned into hell on earth. It was the most concentrated kamikaze attack of the war, with hundreds of planes blackening the sky on their way to the completion of their suicide missions. Every gun in the fleet was firing constantly and U.S. fighters were shooting down as many Japanese as possible, but their ship took its share of hits. The Japanese knew it was an important target because of its size and the number of antennas. Mal and Murray stayed at their stations, copying code constantly as the battle raged. Murray remembers burning a finger when he reached down to touch a piece of shrapnel that had imbedded in an ammunition box on which he was seated.

Murray had just traded places with Mal when a kamikaze crashed into the water and shrapnel struck Mal in the forehead, fatally wounding him. His last words were “Oh, Murray!” before he lost consciousness. As is often the case in war, no one knows why some are hit and others are not. Murray’s wounds were psychological. The next thing he remembers is waking up in the hospital.

We will never know if Mal ever had a fitting memorial. Without a full name, tracing his records is near impossible. Typically, sailors lost in such battles were buried at sea along with others who did not survive. What we do know is that Mal was a fine young man with a bright mind who served in one of the most vital tasks of the war in the Pacific. He died in battle, faithfully serving his country almost until his last breath. It is fitting that he continue to be honored for the service he gave and the life he sacrificed.

As Christians, we believe that Mal’s life did not end as he breathed his last breath, but rather it entered into eternal life—the “peace that passes all understanding.” In the words of St. Paul, the tent maker, “If the earthly tent we have is destroyed, we have a building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” We also trust that Christ’s spirit was there with them on the deck of the ship, even as the hell of war was raging around them. We know that the one who suffered and died on a cross also grieves with us when a friend is taken away. In the words of the psalmist, “Even if I make my bed in hell, thou art there.”

O Lord, again we give to you Mal’s life that was taken away so tragically by the whims of war. As you have received him into eternal life, lead us also in your paths until that day when we shall all meet again. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.

When we finished reading, I slowly became aware of our surroundings. At first I thought it just seemed quiet because we were so focused. But looking up now, I could see that everything around us had changed. The jovial tourists were now solemn. Children held their parents’ hands. Some had bowed their heads. Others stood silently watching. Even the native woman had pulled her line from the ocean in quiet respect.

This wasn’t a perfect memorial. It wasn’t private. It didn’t allow us space to grieve. But the people there that day stood in the gap of what was lacking. Without knowing what they were a part of, each stepped into their role effortlessly. And I was reminded that war stops for no one. Men were buried in the midst of war without a service. They were buried without ashes and dust. So perhaps this too, this imperfect service, was as it should be. We could feel the holy ground we stood on, all around us.

I opened the clear container and handed the flower lei to my father.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.

“Just slide them off into the water,” I said.

He looked down at the water and then out at the horizon. He slid a flower into the water below. He handed it to me. I did the same and then my sister and my mother. We took turns gently dropping the flowers onto the water. Against the current, the flowers made their way, as if following an unpaved road, out to sea.

A teenager and his father were on surfboards in the water below. They were divided by the path of flowers. When the teen unknowingly started to swim through it, his father put his hand up. The boy looked at the flowers and then up at the elderly man on the pier. Father and son watched as each petal floated out to sea.

“They’re going to Okinawa,” my father said softly.

I nodded. He said something else, but it was a whisper.

Then he turned. I watched as my father walked away, tears warming my eyes. I looked back at the red and white flowers on the sea below.

“He never forgot you,” I whispered. “Rest in peace, Mal.”

The day before we left Hawaii, a storm hit the island. All of the shops closed their massive glass doors. The busy streets were now virtually deserted, only a few people venturing out. I stood on the balcony of our hotel room watching as the wind picked up anything not fastened down and tossed it swirling down the streets and into the air. Every bush, branch, and foliage shook. But it was two palm trees that caught my attention.

They stood together in the sunshine, away from the rest, and were blown from side to side with the violent force of the wind. But the remarkable thing was that only the palm branches moved. The base of the trees remained strong. I went inside the hotel room to get my camera. When I came back, something had changed.

The sun had shifted so that one of the trees was now in darkness, shaded. The other remained illuminated by the sun. I thought about my father and Mal, and the battles they’d fought. Mal’s had been fought during war. My father’s began as he held his dying friend in his arms. Something profound happened as he felt life leave his friend. He carried it with him for more than fifty years, never letting light penetrate that dark, dark place. But as he remembered his friend, with flowers that pushed against the tides toward Okinawa, light slowly penetrated the darkness.

My father had finally found peace.

A few days later, an old man stood in the silence of the morning. Peace surrounded him as he gazed up at the flag erected in memory of his friend and comrade. He gently held each flower in his aged hand before placing them, one-by-one, at the base of it.

“When we were in Hawaii, did you say good-bye to Mal?” I asked.

He looked down, shook his head.

“Never good-bye,” he said. “Just…see you later.”