Those We Lost in 2020
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2020 has been a year of extraordinary loss and suffering. As The Rafu
presents its annual listing of passings in the community, we offer our condolences to all those who have lost loved ones in this most difficult of years.
Following, in alphabetical order, are some of the notable individuals who passed away during the past year.
Sumako Azuma II
Sumako Azuma II (Janice Aiso Edesa), 61, on July 24. The North American representative to Azuma Ryū in Japan, she taught Japanese classical dance for 45 years, training 14 students to earn the natori degree and one to earn the shihan degree.
BOOKS: When Words Are Not Enough
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“Seize” by Brian Komei Dempster (Four Way Books)
How does a father come to terms with the large and unknowable mysteries of a child who cannot communicate in a “normative” way?
How does a parent especially one who is dependent on language guide a child without the use of speech?
And how does one become the parents of another when their own uncertainties, their own wounds intergenerationally from war, from strained race relations, from constantly being denied a place to belong are still healing?
“Seize,” Brian Komei Dempster’s follow-up to “Topaz,” spares no one the highs and lows of fatherhood. The speaker struggles to care for his young and ailing child a child whose many medical problems create an obstacle course of moral and emotional dilemmas.