Placed a Toro Hagashi (Floating Lantern)  to lead Nebo back to the heavens after joining us in the Obon festivities here on earth.  The ceremony was  held on August, 10, 2013 at the Shinzen Gardens, Fresno, California.  (please click on picture for full view)

I will think of Mas often and still remember the day I met him - he was an Alltrade Tools Buyer when I got promoted to same. We had offices next to each other and shared an assistant.  Mas went out of his way to make my transition painless.  He was a very giving person of himself and was a great friend. 
I also will always remember a trip to China (Hubei) he, Richard Huang and I  took.  Was a very cold trip and was close to a 24 hour drive to and from the factory, with little roads and in a Toyota van with no shocks. It is those things, as small as it seems, that stick into your mind.  Somewhere I have a picture of us standing, at the Yangtze River, waiting for a ferry (barge side tied to a tug boat), smoking cigars and all the villagers staring at the crazy foreign devils.  
I know how much he missed the foreign travel in his later years.

Let me start by clarifying something. My mother and I are cat people. We love cats. My dad, however, did not. Throughout my childhood I wanted a cat, but he wouldn't allow it. He used to spray cats with the hose when they came into the yard.

Fast forward a decade or so, I was living in Japan at the time and my parents start sending me photos of a cat that wandered into the yard, hopped onto Dad's lap as he was resting in the side yard and settled down for a nap.

Within a few months, the cat was given the name "Chicago" (white paws - white socks - White Sox - Chicago) and one day, he came to the house badly injured from a fight with another cat or maybe a racoon and my parents took him to the vet. Filling out the paperwork, Dad wrote the name "Chicago Egawa" and from that day, Chicago became family.

Going back to the first thing I mentioned, my mother and I love cats. I was ecstatic to come home and find this fluffball. But Chicago felt the closest connection to Dad. Chicago would step on me as I slept and would attack my mom as if she were prey, but never Dad. He would only sleep on Dad's lap, no one else's. As Dad pet him, Chicago's eyes would melt into pure bliss.

In the early hours of January 26, 2013, as Mama and I called to Dad, Chicago hopped onto his regular spot on the rocking chair and watched. After a few moments, just as we could tell Dad was gone, Chicago turned around and jumped off the chair as if he had said his own good-bye.