thescars in the V of the yukata's neckline. She was in all things a picture of patience and dignity.
In the two years that I knew Toshiko, I remember her smiling slightly, her lips closed and the corners of her mouth turning up, while she nodded her head when we accomplished some skill she had been teaching. Aside from that, I do not remember any signs of joy. I never heard her laugh, but I never saw her frown.
After she left that first lesson, Nancy and I asked about the scars we had seen on her arms revealed by the yukata's wide sleeves and on her chest. Mother told us what they were. We had been to Hiroshima; we had seen the devastation. We were not allowed to go to the museum that showed the injuries and the dead, but we heard about it from our friends. And we saw on the streets of Hiroshima the scars of the living. Great keloid mountains of scarring across the face of a young man, an old woman whose wrinkles and scars formed a dense plaid of lines across her cheeks. The story of what really happened in Hiroshima had been kept quiet for a decade, so many of the injured had not gotten needed medical attention. And many of the children who had been born since that August were bornwith deformities. In some ways, the tale of the living on the streets was, I suspect, more moving than the tale of the dead in the museum.
We do what we can. We make plans and prepare for the life we dream could be. And maybe for some it happens, but it didn't happen for Toshiko. She, like I, salvaged the parts she could and put them together as well as she knew how. There is, I believe, a happy ending to Toshiko's story. She accepted her life as it was. If she bore resentment or hatred, she found a way to bury it, to not let it define the rest of her life. And she found the happiest ending now available to her in the pleasures of a simple life, the dignity of her remarkable civility and the absence of pain. There was a serenity to her acceptance that was noble and strong and heartbreaking.
I no longer have the samisen my mother bought me when I learned my first song. The sandalwood and ivory pick sits on a table in my back hall. I cannot remember the notes that Toshiko taught me or the steps to the dances. But the lessons I learned from her will always be with me.
CHAPTER 5
1996
hen our son Wade died in 1996, I wrote a short essay about his life and his death.
Wade was 16 when he died. On April 4th, 1996, the wind blew across a North Carolina field and pushed his car slightly off the road. Slightly but enough. When he tried to bring it back on, the car flipped. The air bag came out, the seat belt held, but the roof collapsed on him. The other boy walked away. Some dishes he was taking to the beach for us were unbroken. Our boy was killed instantly. It wasn't speed, it wasn't inattention, it was a straight road on a clear afternoon, and it simply was.
And what that wind took at Easter was a cherished boy, a remarkable child with the character of a man. I try to find, in this narrow place, a way to explain his virtues. He was a loving son
and brother, holding our hands, hugging us, no matter who was around to see. He was a loyal friend, always there when his friends needed him, but never succumbing to peer pressure. He never drank or smoked. When a parent who came on the accident asked if drinking was involved, the boys there all answered, “Wade Edwards? No way.” He usually drove home those who did drink. He was intelligent and determined. His conversation in the car that day was about how he wanted to be a lawyer, but he didn't want to take anything from his parents, he wanted to do it all himself, like his father had. He was humble and shunned the spotlight. During the week before he died, his English class studied “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemingway. He participated in four days of discussion but never mentioned once that he had climbed Kilimanjaro with his father the previous summer. How many among us could have sat
In the two years that I knew Toshiko, I remember her smiling slightly, her lips closed and the corners of her mouth turning up, while she nodded her head when we accomplished some skill she had been teaching. Aside from that, I do not remember any signs of joy. I never heard her laugh, but I never saw her frown.
After she left that first lesson, Nancy and I asked about the scars we had seen on her arms revealed by the yukata's wide sleeves and on her chest. Mother told us what they were. We had been to Hiroshima; we had seen the devastation. We were not allowed to go to the museum that showed the injuries and the dead, but we heard about it from our friends. And we saw on the streets of Hiroshima the scars of the living. Great keloid mountains of scarring across the face of a young man, an old woman whose wrinkles and scars formed a dense plaid of lines across her cheeks. The story of what really happened in Hiroshima had been kept quiet for a decade, so many of the injured had not gotten needed medical attention. And many of the children who had been born since that August were bornwith deformities. In some ways, the tale of the living on the streets was, I suspect, more moving than the tale of the dead in the museum.
We do what we can. We make plans and prepare for the life we dream could be. And maybe for some it happens, but it didn't happen for Toshiko. She, like I, salvaged the parts she could and put them together as well as she knew how. There is, I believe, a happy ending to Toshiko's story. She accepted her life as it was. If she bore resentment or hatred, she found a way to bury it, to not let it define the rest of her life. And she found the happiest ending now available to her in the pleasures of a simple life, the dignity of her remarkable civility and the absence of pain. There was a serenity to her acceptance that was noble and strong and heartbreaking.
I no longer have the samisen my mother bought me when I learned my first song. The sandalwood and ivory pick sits on a table in my back hall. I cannot remember the notes that Toshiko taught me or the steps to the dances. But the lessons I learned from her will always be with me.
CHAPTER 5
1996
hen our son Wade died in 1996, I wrote a short essay about his life and his death.
Wade was 16 when he died. On April 4th, 1996, the wind blew across a North Carolina field and pushed his car slightly off the road. Slightly but enough. When he tried to bring it back on, the car flipped. The air bag came out, the seat belt held, but the roof collapsed on him. The other boy walked away. Some dishes he was taking to the beach for us were unbroken. Our boy was killed instantly. It wasn't speed, it wasn't inattention, it was a straight road on a clear afternoon, and it simply was.
And what that wind took at Easter was a cherished boy, a remarkable child with the character of a man. I try to find, in this narrow place, a way to explain his virtues. He was a loving son
and brother, holding our hands, hugging us, no matter who was around to see. He was a loyal friend, always there when his friends needed him, but never succumbing to peer pressure. He never drank or smoked. When a parent who came on the accident asked if drinking was involved, the boys there all answered, “Wade Edwards? No way.” He usually drove home those who did drink. He was intelligent and determined. His conversation in the car that day was about how he wanted to be a lawyer, but he didn't want to take anything from his parents, he wanted to do it all himself, like his father had. He was humble and shunned the spotlight. During the week before he died, his English class studied “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemingway. He participated in four days of discussion but never mentioned once that he had climbed Kilimanjaro with his father the previous summer. How many among us could have sat
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