A wonderful life

December 7, 2020

I know, I know – we shouldn’t judge other people. After all, we don’t have all the facts about their current life circumstances or their childhood and family dynamics, not to mention their karma or soul agendas. But screw it – I feel qualified to judge my friend Kay, and I judge her just-completed life to have been a glorious success.

I first met Kay in high school in 1969, when she was 15 and I was 17. We had both just started practicing Nichiren Buddhism, and we used to get together before or after school to chant our mantra, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. She was a bubbly teenager who laughed a lot, though years later she told me that before she started chanting she had been depressed most of the time. I still find it hard to visualize her as depressed, because for the 51 years I knew her she was Ms. Sunshine, radiating enthusiasm and positive energy wherever she went.

Kay had her share of ups and downs, but she was resilient and unsinkable. She seemed to have access to what Herman Melville described in Moby Dick as an “insular Tahiti,” an inner place of serenity that allowed her to bounce back from whatever disappointments life might present to her.

I saw that resilience first hand in 1972, when she and I found our hopeful if unrealistic expectations dashed against the reefs of reality. We desperately wanted to go on a tozan (pilgrimage) to our sect’s head temple in Japan to attend what we were told would be an epoch-making event: the opening of the Sho Hondo (palace of world peace). But our group pilgrimage was fully booked. That didn’t stop us, though. With the can-do spirit of our Nichiren practice and American optimism, Kay and I showed up at the San Francisco airport with our bags packed, passports in hand, resplendent in our blue polyester tozan uniforms, chanting for a last minute miracle that failed to materialize. Crushed, we watched the plane take off without us. After a bit of time feeling sorry for ourselves for having missed out on that history-making extravaganza, we decided to celebrate our defeat by having chocolate fondue with fruit at an outdoor table at Bernini’s restaurant off of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. We later donated our tozan plane fare to our Nichiren lay organization. In our view, we had practiced hendoku iyaku (changing poison to medicine).

But if Buddhism brought us together, it also drove us apart for many years. In 1981, feeling disillusioned with what I felt was group-think, mindless conformity, and a cult of personality in our Japanese religion, I wrote a 50 page manifesto urging democratic reforms and transparency in our movement. Our Japanese leaders were not amused, and Kay didn’t approve either. I was banned from our Nichiren community center, and eventually left the organization while continuing my individual practice. Kay remained a true believer in the SGI (Soka Gakkai International) organization. We didn’t argue about or even discuss our religious differences; we simply went our separate ways for about 18 years.

Then in 1999 I ran into Kay’s mother Eleanor in the produce section of Raley’s supermarket in Santa Rosa. Delighted to see Eleanor after the passage of decades, I was shocked to learn that Kay had just been diagnosed with the most aggressive kind of breast cancer and had been told that she only had months to live. Devastated by the thought of losing my old friend, I called her immediately, and we laughed and laughed as we caught up and swapped stories from our teen years. We didn’t acknowledge our different approaches to Buddhist practice; we simply moved forward from that moment on.

And from that moment we’ve been close friends again, through my visits to her in Seattle and her visiting me in the Bay Area, as well as innumerable and lengthy phone calls and emails. Throughout that time she has courageously faced and overcome bouts of cancer, until it finally claimed her life two weeks ago.

Since her death on November 22 I’ve been reflecting, by myself and during her pandemic-necessitated memorial on Zoom, on what made her so special – what was her secret sauce, or the source of her light? If you had asked her that question, she would have attributed her strong life force to her Buddhist practice of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. And I would have to agree with that assessment. However, I think there’s an additional explanation for her joie de vivre, her exuberant nature, her ebullient personality, her sunny disposition. She deliberately intended, she consciously chose, she was determined to be happy herself and to be kind and compassionate to others. Call it positive thinking or buoyancy or what you will, Kay made up her mind to be the woman she became: joyful, big-hearted, generous. Her chanting became the means to direct her energy and passion. Believe me, most Nichiren Buddhists are nowhere near as enlightened as Kay was. But one of her leaders advised his followers to “resolve to be the sun,” and Kay took that advice to heart and put it into practice. Kay Rynerson McCabe became the sun around which her family and friends revolved. She illuminated us with her wisdom and her laughter. She made Pollyanna look like a pessimist. Pollyanna could learn a lot about optimism and positive thinking from Kay. So could we all.

I’ve loved Kay for 51 years, but I’m glad we never dated or married each other. With our strong personalities, we would have experienced two solar eclipses. But as platonic friends, I’m grateful to have been inspired by her courage and her zest for life, and her devotion to her husband, kids, and grandkids.

A week before she died, I asked her about her thoughts about death and rebirth. We both believe in reincarnation, but I was curious about what she thought might happen to her. She told me that she’d like to be reborn in India because the women wear such colorful clothes, and I learned from someone else that Kay also wants her next lifetime to be in India so that she can work there for women’s rights. Classic Kay – have fun, and be in service to others.

At her Zoom memorial Kay’s husband Dennis told the story of how, when the two of them would ride their bikes past a nearby neighborhood mural or artwork called the Wall of Death, they would sometimes drop their pants and “moon” Death. Nothing like irreverent humor to put death in its proper place: as part of life.

When Dennis called to tell me of Kay’s passing, he said that her last words were something to the effect of how she was riding her bicycle along a pathway through a field of flowers.

Now that’s what I call a beautiful ending to a life well lived.