Toshiko Daniel

Toshiko was born on July 10, 1956 in the town of Sadowara, Miyazaki prefecture, Japan and died on April 1, 2022 in Apopka Florida.

She was preceded in death by her father Akira Saito and her elder brother Yasumatsa Saito. She is survived by her mother Fumiko Saito, brother Yoshihiro Saito, sister Kayoko Fukunaga, husband Timothy Daniel, daughters Kristine Oliva, Kathrine Daniel, Son-in-law Thomas Oliva, grandson Julian Oliva and many nieces and nephews.

By all accounts she was a normal little girl until about age 10 when she developed a form of Aplastic Anemia. She was expected to die of this but somehow managed to survive. In fact because she fully expected to die every morning would go to the previous date on her wall calendar and write "Today I did not die". But she did mostly recover and returned home to a fairly normal childhood.

When she was 22 she had to care for her elder brother for over a year as he lay dying of cancer.

It's not surprising that these experiences seems to have greatly influenced her outlook on life. She considered every additional day of life a gift to be used as completely as possible.

In 1983 she met her future husband Tim and they married in Miyazaki Japan in January 1984. Kristine came along later that year. They moved to the US in 1988 and Kathrine was born later that year, completing the family.

She drove herself to excel in everything she did. She was a self taught gardener who always had beautiful flowers blooming in the yard. She was a wonderful cook who could take what seemed like a handful of random ingredients and make a delicious meal. She had a great love of history and voraciously studied everything she could find on the end of the Edo period in Japan. She was a lifelong student and would often be found sitting and reading.

She loved her family, especially her daughters and grandson and spent many hours entertaining them in a way that only someone who is truly free from self importance can.

She loved to travel, particularly to Europe where she could absorb the culture and history. She and Tim managed to go to Paris twice, London twice, Edinburgh Scotland, Vienna and Zurich Austria, and was planning other trips when illness intervened.

In 2017 her Aplastic Anemia became severe requiring regular transfusions and limiting her ability to travel for long periods. She was much weaker physically but she was as mentally sharp as ever and continued to read and study until the day she died.

The world is a little less interesting, less fun, less loving, less beautiful, without Toshiko but in her time here she lived every day to it's fullest and certainly made it a better place. She is greatly missed.

Our family would like to especially thank the nurses at Advent Hospital DCC and Florida Cancer Specialists Lake Mary Infusion center for their gentle and kind care over the past several years. Your tenderness had a hugely positive impact on her life during these difficult times.

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