Reflections on the Day of a Funeral

https://www.elliottmortuary.com/obituary/parker-exposito

Today our family attended the funeral of this man, Parker Exposito. He had married into the Iwashige family in 1999. His wife Bev is Hiromi's niece--our children's first cousin. As is often the case, I learned details about his life that I never learned during his lifetime. Among the most surprising was that he had been on the front lines in Viet Nam for two years--drafted while attending college. He never spoke of that time, even to his spouse and to his best friend. He was only one of five from his platoon who survived. Small wonder that he had severe PTSD after he returned.

I knew him as a friendly and gentle man. At home, he cooked and watered his flowers and watched the birds from the patio. He owned Alexander's Jewelers since 1984, a Main Street business in Hutchinson, and went to work every day right up until the day he fell down the stairs at home while carrying a vacuum sweeper, and fractured bones in his spine.

That initial injury did not seem life-threatening, and was not paralyzing. The aftermath was brutal, however, involving a second surgery to correct something that had gone wrong during transport to Hutchinson from Wichita after the first surgery. The picture changed fast after that, and hopes for any kind of return to "normal life" looked dismal. He suffered a heart attack and died in the hospital in Wichita about a week after his fall.

Shane was the vocalist at the funeral. He sang the same song that he sang at my mother's funeral: "Wayfaring Stranger." I heard lots of sniffles and nose blowing behind me during his singing, and overheard many expressions of appreciation afterward. The crowd included people whom Shane had learned to know through business connections in Hutchinson. This funeral was the first clue that Shane and some of these folks had that they both had some connection with Parker.

The husband of one of my Master Gardener friends shared memories and a tribute.  

Parker's best friend from high school married a Japanese woman, and they live in Denver.  In visiting with them afterward, Hiromi learned that her grandfather came to North America in the 1890s.  After landing in Mexico, he was incarcerated (I don't know why), and forced to work in the mines.  Somehow he escaped the mines and came into the USA through Texas.  He must have raised a family on the west coast because this woman's parents were rounded up along with thousands of other Japanese people from there during World War II.  Her parents were taken to an internment camp in Nebraska, and confined there for the duration of the war.  Many like them lost everything they owned, except what they could pack into a suitcase.  Although there was never a shred of evidence that the threat was real, the US government was ostensibly acting to keep Japanese Americans from communicating with "the enemy" and betraying American interests.  

I believe that "Phyllis" having grown up in Denver is significant.  A former governor of Colorado is a hero to Japanese people because of the warm welcome he extended to their people after the federal government had mistreated them.  I've visited the Japanese Cultural Center in Denver, where the governor is honored.

In another interesting twist, our daughter-in-law, Hilda, recognized Phyllis and her husband from having seen them several days ago at Carolyn's Essenhaus in Arlington. Her husband's mother,  Mrs. Baker,  worked at the Arlington bank for 40 years, and Hilda remembered his Arlington uncles from having worked at Carolyn's years ago.  When the Bakers come to Kansas, they stay in Arlington, and go to Carolyn's every day while they're in the area.  

***********

Current events during my high school years included the Viet Nam War.  One student several years ahead of me at Partridge High School died in Viet Nam.  I remember our government class teacher soberly reminding us of the possibility of that happening long before it actually took place.   I respect him for not glossing over the reality of war carrying a huge cost in human suffering.  

On the way home from the funeral today, Hiromi talked about how awful it must be for soldiers to regularly engage in destructive acts and inflict injury on other human beings--not because they want to, but because they have to follow orders.  "No wonder they have PTSD," he said. 

I feel really sorry for people like Parker who had so little help in dealing with PTSD after the Viet Nam War.  Anti-war sentiment ran high, and soldiers who came home were often not given a hero's welcome.  Some of them were shamed for having participated.  

I long for a reign of peace.  Surely that is just as true for those who have seen war up close as it is for me.  

********

Here's a repost of something I posted on Facebook yesterday:

This is a short piece on the Mennonites of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia during the Civil War. I especially like this story about Stonewall Jackson's encounter with Mennonite men who were forcibly conscripted. Thanks to my brother Caleb Miller for drawing it to my attention. The rest of the article details some of the costs borne by Mennonites and others during Sheridan's march to the sea. Custer (famous for his attacks on Indians in the Great Plains) was a player in these events. I hadn't known that.

"Even though the Confederacy made no provision for conscientious objection to military duty, most Mennonite young men refused to fight the civil war. To escape conscription some walked over the mountains into what is now West Virginia where military action was less intense. Others attempted to remain invisible, sometimes using the services of the Underground Railroad to hide. But on Sunday mornings, many came out of hiding to attend church. It was not beneath Stonewall Jackson to arrive at Weaver’s Mennonite Church near Harrisonburg on Sunday mornings where he knew Mennonite men of fighting age would be assembled. Forcing them to muster against their will, he soon found that even in battle, Mennonites had a way of remaining true to their pacifistic beliefs. In the oral history of one Rockingham County family, their ancestor was caught up in Jackson’s raid on the meetinghouse. After the first battle, Jackson asked the young man if he had shot? “I didn’t see anything to shoot at,” replied the lad. “Didn’t you see those Yanks over there?” asked Jackson. “Sure,” the boy replied. “But they are people. And I don’t shoot people.” Jackson is quoted later as saying, “There live a people in the valley of Virginia that are not hard to bring to the army. While there they are obedient to their officers. Nor is it difficult to have them take aim. But it is impossible to get them to take correct aim. I, therefore, think it better to leave them at their homes, that they may produce supplies for the army.”

THEMENNONITESFILM.COM

Civil War: A Test of Conscience and Will - Being Mennonite in America

The Civil War tested Mennonite’s peaceful orientation once again. Mennonites in Virginia refused to own slaves and most opposed the war. Yet they found it impossible to stay out of the contentious debate engulfing Virginia. One instance is instructive. On the rural frontier, Mennonites often helpe...