Life goes on without 'Princess Sum'

By Leila Wai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Photographs and memories are all that's left for Hawai'i point guard Trisha Nishimoto after Summer Takata was killed in a two-car accident Nov. 9. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Instead, she will be focused on delivering the eulogy of her best friend.

Summer Takata, 19, whom Nishimoto had known since the eighth grade at Iolani School, was killed in a two-car accident in Wahiawa on Nov. 9.

"I don't think I'll ever forget about this," said Nishimoto, 19. "Every day for the rest of my life I'll think about this. I don't think time will make me forget what happened, but eventually I'm going to have to live my life, like she's right there with me, like it was before."

After returning to practice on Nov. 11, but finding she couldn't focus, Nishimoto took a week off from school and practice to grieve. The time off helped, but she's still trying to come to grips with Takata's death ... the memories of that day still vivid in her mind.

That Sunday was not a normal one for Nishimoto. There was an 8 a.m. intrasquad scrimmage that kept her from going out the night before, and returning a phone call to Takata.

"She left a message on my cell at 7:45 (Saturday night)," Nishimoto said. "We can usually go out on Saturday nights, but on Sunday I had an early practice. ... (I) didn't call her back because I was tired."

She would not get another chance.

When she returned home from practice, she received a call from Takata's cellular phone. It was Takata's friend, who was with Takata's family at the hospital.

"He just told me, 'I have bad news.' And I was wondering why he was calling from her phone ... I expected it to be Summer.

"I just kept asking him what happened and I just couldn't believe it. I just wanted to believe it wasn't true."

But it was, and now Nishimoto is left with only memories of the person she referred to as "like a sister."

The UH sophomores first met six years ago when Takata transferred to Iolani. They, along with a group of girls, hung out all the time.

Gary Takata, Summer's father, remembers their group of friends "because they were happy kids; they never had major problems. A lot of it was girl gossip, talking about the same things. They would go clubbing, and go to each other's houses and sleep over.

"(Summer) was a very outgoing, happy kind of girl who loved to enjoy life. She was a typical teenager who loved to go out and yak on the phone."

It was a friendship of yin and yang, of balancing each other out.

"I called her Princess Sum ... she was a princess; a girly-girl with an attitude," said Nishimoto, a self-professed tomboy.

During high school, Nishimoto was an all-star basketball player; Takata was on the swimming, water polo and paddling squads.

"She liked the water. She didn't like surfing, though," said Nishimoto, an avid surfer. "I tried to get her to go out a million times, but she was too scared; she would rather tan on the beach."

Gary Takata spoke about the difference between the friends' dedication to sports.

"For Summer it was just exercise," he said. "She wasn't obsessed with swimming — she didn't have aspirations about being an Olympic swimmer or anything. Trish spent a lot more time on basketball. Every day she worked to prepare her for college. She was a lot more determined and committed."

They might have seemed like opposites to outsiders, but to Nishimoto, it made sense.

"Everyone would ask me ... but we just got along," she said. "I knew I could count on her for anything, and she knew she could count on me. No matter what we would be there for each other."

As Nishimoto talks, she remembers funny events, long talks when she was on road trips for basketball, and how Takata used to make her laugh.

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"My mom made me carry around the ugliest cooler with hearts on it, and I thought it was the most revolting thing I had ever seen. And Summer was so jealous of me, she thought it was the cutest lunch box she'd ever seen. And so we would switch lunch boxes completely. I'd give her my lunch and she would give me hers."

The more Nishimoto reminisced, the more the memories started to flow.

The goofy times, how they laughed at everything, and when they got in trouble together, to Takata's favorite color (pink), to how she loved to eat fast food, but never gained a pound.

"They were very close friends," Nishimoto's father, John, said. "My understanding from talking to Trisha was they were the type of people who confided in each other. "

Nishimoto said it was Takata's positive outlook on life that helped her through the times when basketball got tough.

Now, it is Takata's words that Nishimoto will use to get through the times when life gets tough.

"I'd like to try and just do my best in whatever I choose to do, because that is what she always said, 'If you aren't going to do your best, why bother doing it?' "

Notes: Funeral services for Summer Takata will be tomorrow at Iolani School's St. Alban's Chapel. Visitation begins at 5:30 p.m., with the service at 6:30. Takata's father Gary, 53, is a self-employed carpenter; her mother, Mae, 49, is a self-employed potter. Her brother Taylor, 21, attends the University of Colorado and is a national-caliber judo athlete, and her sister, Tobi, 16, attends Iolani, where she also swims and plays water polo.

Reach Leila Wai at lwai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2457.