In Memory of Mahito Shirako<\/p>\n
Mahito came into my life over a dozen years ago when he was a freshman at CSUMB. He became involved with Otter Days as a student facilitator and he took courses in the Outdoor Recreation program where he got certified to SCUBA dive. He also took courses I taught in Wilderness Leadership.<\/p>\n
He was tall, slender and wore a goofy grin much of the time. He was endlessly energetic, curious, optimistic, kind, caring and generous.<\/p>\n
He was \u201can outdoorsman\u2019s outdoorsman\u201d and had a great love of Nature and adventure. He was 1 of only 2 people I knew who actually enjoyed hiking in pouring rain hunting wild mushrooms.<\/p>\n
Mahito also had a great sense of humor. He loved to tell stories too, and if the story was funny then all the better. Usually I knew when he was going to tell a funny story because he\u2019d laugh to himself a little at first and then often start off by saying; \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t believe what Bryan did…\u201d<\/p>\n
It was my pleasure to have been not only a teacher of Mahito\u2019s but also his friend. Over the years I watched him transform from a slightly goofy teenager who knew the world was his oyster into a much less goofy adult who knew the world was not just his oyster, but his abalone, venison, crab, crawdads and anything else edible too.<\/p>\n
At CSUMB Mahito found his home, his community and the life he wanted and so enjoyed living.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to believe that just a short while ago he was sitting on the couch in my living room laughing and telling stories. And now he\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n
Just as no parent wishes their child to precede them in leaving this world no teacher wants this of a student either. He left us much too soon. But he left us with a message.
\nThe message is that life is precious. That none of us know how long we\u2019ll live. And to make everyday an adventure. What good is it to have lived 100 years if you never left the couch and TV? Mahito knew the secret to a good life, which is to live fully making every day count, and that he did.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m honored to say that I was his friend.<\/p>\n
– Robert Alexander<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Memory of Mahito Shirako Mahito came into my life over a dozen years ago when he was a freshman at CSUMB. He became involved with Otter Days as a student facilitator and he took courses in the Outdoor Recreation program where he got certified to SCUBA dive. He also took courses I taught in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mahitoforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}