Robert K. Yanabu, 1942-2024

Robert and Leanne Yanabu at a Goya Farm in Okinawa, 2011On Friday, February 16, 2024 I delivered the following eulogy at my father's funeral:

Thank you for coming today.

I'm Leanne Yanabu, Robert Yanabu’s daughter.

It's been a month since my father died and my mother and I are still kind of shocked and stunned though we knew this day was coming. My Dad had cancer in 1994 when he was 52 and he was in remission for 20 years, and then he got cancer again about 10 years ago. He went into the hospital for surgery last January and he never came back out again. He was at Queens, then rehab and finally hospice for six months.

We knew this was his final chapter, but we are still surprised and trying to grapple with what that means for both of us.

I know that people here, some of you are his friends or neighbors or co-workers or classmates. There are some doshi, members of Tensho-Kotai Jingu Kyo, and his older sister, my aunt Mitzi, with her family.

No matter how you knew my father, you know that he had a strong sense of humor. He certainly had his own unique outlook, and he was a rebel at heart. He had problems accepting authority, even though sometimes he himself was an authority figure.

Today I wanted to talk about some of the things that remind me of my Dad and the things he used to say.

One of his sayings was that there are role models and there are cautionary models. A role model is someone you look up to because of the good things they do; a cautionary model is someone where you look at that person you say, “I want to be exactly the opposite of that person.” Some folks, the way they act, it would be embarrassing to be seen doing things like that.

One of my Dad's prime cautionary models was Richard Nixon.

You have to understand, Nixon was a respected President. He won reelection by a landslide in 1972. But my Dad always thought he was rotten.

In 1974, we were still in Los Angeles, before we moved back to Hilo. One morning I woke up and went to the bathroom to wash my face. My Dad was in there shaving and listening to the radio. That morning he had a cassette recorder in the bathroom, taping the broadcast.

I said, "What's this?"

My Dad said, "Leanne, this is an historic moment. Richard Nixon is resigning because if he doesn't resign he's going to be impeached."

He was so happy that Richard Nixon was facing his downfall and was going to be embarrassed.

At the time I was so young I didn't know what it meant for a president to be impeached. I thought it had something to do with fruit perhaps, peaches, I don't know.

But I never forgot how excited he was to see one of his anti-heroes go down.

On the other hand, my father had some role models too: essentially, anyone who could get him a day off work and still get paid.

In Hawaii, you get a lot of holidays that you don’t get on the mainland.

I would call him up and I'd say, “oh, how are you, are you at home today?”

And he would say, “Yeah, we’re off for Martin Luther King Day.”

I said, “I didn't know you're a big fan.”

He's like, “Oh, yeah, he's the man, Martin Luther King.”

The next time it would be Prince Kuhio Day.

“Yeah, love Prince Kuhio. What a great guy.”

“Do you know anything about Prince Kuhio?” No, he just got the day off, that was good enough for him.

Or it would be King Kamehameha Day: “Yeah, King Kamehameha. Winna!”

My Dad loved working for the county, but even better, he loved NOT working for the county.

Another thing he used to say, I was thinking about this the other day, I was volunteering at the malasada booth at the Punahou School Carnival.

My friend Brandi was the chair of the malasada booth and I was volunteering with her husband, who's a radiologist, and another school mom who was a professor at UH. We're all total amateurs making malasadas out of this big batch of batter and it's very sticky floating around in a vat of oil.

And our malasadas are coming out all weird. Some are big and some of them are small and they're misshapen or ugly and they were all coming out of the fryer. I kept looking at it and thinking, you know what my Dad would have said?

He would have said, “That's what you get when you hire non-union labor.”

I want to tell you a couple stories about how my Dad was a rebel, or a question authority kind of guy.

A classic example of my father flouting authority was when seat belt laws went into effect.

My Dad decided that the way to avoid having to actually attach the seat belt was to just to loop the seat belt around his shoulder and drive around town like that. He thought it was very clever.

He said, “When you make like this, the cops can't tell the difference.”

I said, “Dad, just take a couple seconds to actually secure it and then in case you get into an accident, it could save your life.”

No, somehow this was the way to “stick it to the man.”

During the pandemic when there was mask mandates, my Dad refused to wear a mask the correct way. You know how some people walked around with the mask and it was under their nose? That was my Dad.

He walked around with the mask under his nose where it would only do half as much good and then as the pandemic progressed, he came up with his own version. He took a white bandanna and folded it several times, put binder clips on the side and attached it to his face with these big rubber bands. He would walk around like this and it would look like he had a toothache because it would just hang under his chin and it would do no good whatsoever.

He didn't ever wash it so after awhile it was stained and gross but he didn't give a rip.

Half the time was hanging from his ear and again, totally useless, but it sort of complied with the idea of having a mask.

Dad did get COVID, but by then, thank God he had gotten the vaccine so he was okay.

I'll give a final example.

My father liked to get to the airport at least two hours ahead of any flight, even if it was just for inter-island trips, and it was a good thing too because when my Dad first got colon cancer, when the surgeon took the tumor out, to be safe, he also gave my Dad a colostomy. So part of his intestines were attached to the outside of his body and he had a colostomy bag that was attached to his skin and the waste would come out that way and my Dad dealt with that pretty well for 30 years.

Except that when he would go to the airport and go through security, of course the TSA would say, what's that suspicious looking bulge under your shirt? Maybe it's a gun or something. They would ask him to show them what it was. My Dad would stand there in the middle of the airport and he would just pull up his shirt, no problem, there's this transparent medical appliance with maybe poop in it and my Dad would just stand there and the TSA agent would be like, “Ew, okay, sir, we don't need to see any more of that.” And my Dad would just act like there's nothing that he should be ashamed of. If it's anything, it's the TSA agents who should be ashamed of asking my Dad to show off his colostomy.

And I was like, “It's not their fault that they have to ask you. It does look a little suspicious and they have to know what that is.”

That was my Dad. If it had something to do with authority, he often did what he could to blow it off or not make it a big deal.

Was he a role model or a cautionary model? I feel like he was more a role model than a cautionary model most of the time. Although he was a rebel at heart, he was a good guy.

I just wanted to add that this funeral would have made him very happy.

Every day, my Dad would check the Tribune Herald for the news, the sports, and the obituaries. My Dad grew up in Hilo and spent most of his life here. He knew many, many people in Hilo.

I think he outlived his cohort because so many of his friends went before him:

I know that he would have been very touched to see everyone here.

Again, my mom and I are still pretty much dealing with what his loss means.

We loved him and we miss him a lot.

We appreciate you taking the time to come today. Mahalo.

Related Links: 
Slideshow and eulogy