Wake-up call

Inouye (pronounced IN-a-way) grew up in a traditional Japanese-American family. Her mother was 16 when she moved to a Japanese internment camp in Utah during World War II — not long before the atomic bombs fell on her homeland.

The same willful qualities that made Inouye’s mother a survivor also made Inouye a focused and sometimes fiery-tempered doctor. They also caused mother and daughter to butt heads, arguments that led to periods of estrangement. “There was a lot of unforgiveness on both sides,” Inouye said.

When she learned in 1997 that her mother had end-stage breast cancer, they hadn’t spoken in two years. That Christmas, her father called to ask his daughter: “When someone says they are dying, do you really think they are?”

During her visits, Dr. Alice Inouye always asks her charges to pray with her. Most oblige.

Inouye drove to a hospital near her parents’ home in Oak Ridge, Tenn., as fast as she could.

“Do you forgive me?” her mother said.

“Mom, I love you,” she said.

Reconciliation was instantaneous.

Doctors agreed to let her mother leave the hospital if Inouye gave her the pain injections she needed at home. The family shared three difficult “but ultimately glorious” days before her mother died.

For Inouye, the wake-up call was epic.

“I had made a lot of effort to re-contact my mom, but I sometimes think that this business of being honest and close to the people you care for the most and not just living your lives on the surface” is undervalued, she said. “If you live intently with each other and take care of whatever difficulties come up right away, you’re not left with undone stuff.”

It hit her: How much time do we spend doing things that mean nothing — watching television, pursuing hobbies or just running around being busy — instead of loving one another?

If it was possible for her and her mother to reconcile, couldn’t God help other families do the same?