Still ill at ease about the desecration of her parents’ urns, Marjorie Nakashima is hoping she can find anyone who can help restore peace to her family. Nakashima said she is “devastated” by the vandalism done to the gravesite last
Still ill at ease about the desecration of her parents’ urns, Marjorie Nakashima is hoping she can find anyone who can help restore peace to her family.
Nakashima said she is “devastated” by the vandalism done to the gravesite last month, in which her parents’ ashes were lost at in the Kealia Kapa‘a Japanese cemetery.
Not having heard any news about the incident since it happened, Nakashima plans to follow up with the Kaua‘i Police Department this week, however she also is appealing to the public for clues.
“It is devastating for my family, because the urns have no meaning to anyone else,” she said.
A total of five urns were desecrated in the incident, two of which belonged to Nakashima’s parents, buried under the Yasuda family plot.
Both their headstone and that of the Kojima family, four plots down, were knocked off the concrete slabs and lifted to expose the chamber that held the urns inside, Nakashima said.
While surviving members of the Kojima family were able to find and recollect some of the ash remains to put in new urns, Nakashima wasn’t as fortunate.
“The Kojimas told me (the vandals) must have opened it up and scattered it because they were able to find bone fragments and stuff. But ours was completely gone. There was nothing left.”
Nakashima, a Christian born and raised on Kaua‘i, is the sole survivor of her family line.
“I’m the only one,” she said. “It’s just so devastating. It doesn’t seem real.”
Anyone with information on the vandalism is asked to call KPD at 241-1711.
