Great-Grandma Yamamoto

Since we’ve been in India, Kaia has lost two of the four great-grandparents who were living at his birth. Last August, indiamama’s grandmother passed away after a long illness, she was 92. In December, indiapapa’s Grandpa Uyesugi returned to his place in centerfield at the age of 87. Without question it has been difficult being so far away from family during these times of mourning and loss. Over the past few months, Kaia’s great-grandma Yamamoto has been very ill and her days on this Earth are winding down as well as her kidneys rapidly breakdown. I don’t know if we will be able to say goodbye to her in person—as many family and friends have been able to do at her home in Laguna Hills, California—but she holds a special place in our hearts and, at 90 years old, has lived a full, exemplary life where family always came first.

Growing up, I spent much less time with my dad’s parents than my mother’s parents. This is not to say that I didn’t see them that regularly, but whereas I would see my Uyesugi grandparents every week, I might see my Yamamoto grandparents every few months. They lived 45 minutes away from our home in Laguna Beach and for a young child, it might as well be the other side of the world. For this reason, I was never particularly close to my Grandma Yamamoto when I was young. However, there were three incidents in my adult life that would lead to a change; where I would come to see her in a different light and deepen my love and respect for her.

The first was as a university student where I had the epiphany that happens to many Nikkei sansei and yonsei folks where you learn that the “camp” consistently referred to among extended family conversations and general references (“He was in Tulare, wasn’t he?”) was not of the summer variety with swimming holes and arts and crafts, but with barbed wire and dusty barracks where civil liberties were as remote as the camp location. In 1941, by the time that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor my Grandmother was caring for three children under the age of seven, with one about five months along in her belly. After she gave birth to my dad in April of the following year, she would not return to the comforts of the family home, but to a relocation center where the family was preparing to be shipped off to the desert. Not long after ‘settling’ into a their new tar papered ‘home’, her husband was taken away by armed guards in the middle of the night, not to be heard from for months. Here she was, four kids, in the dark as to the whereabouts and safety of her husband and living in bleak concentration camp. When I learned about the details of the story during my undergraduate years, I turned to my grandparents and wondered how they could not be angry at what the United States had done to them. Their “shoganai” (nothing can be done) response initially seemed unsatisfying to me, but over time I began to understand things differently. As a parent I could see how important it was for her to maintain her strength and composure in the face of this terrible injustice. As a partner I could only imagine what it would be like to lose your spouse during such a time. I can remember coming back from the birth center, hours after Kaia’s birth and having this momentary wave of terror wash over me as I realized that this little creature was full dependent upon me. Of course, this was in the comforts of my own home, surrounded by more baby gadgets than one can ever need. My fears and insecurities are quite embarrassing when I contemplate my grandmother’s strength in the face of tremendous adversity.

The second moment that brought me closer to my grandmother happened once I became interested in farming. Her and her husband were small truck farmers for many years, growing all kinds of row crops from collards greens to strawberries. When I started farming in 1995, my grandfather was still alive, albeit very weak and bedridden. After I began bringing by boxes of the organic fruits and vegetables from my farm my grandparents looked at me with equal parts disbelief and concern (Did we work this hard so that our progeny would still be small farmers?!?) and in fact, the last words that my grandfather said to me, literally on his deathbed, were “hyakusho no seikatsu, dame!” (The farmer’s life is very bad!). My grandmother was less direct, but often would ask me if I really wanted to be a farmer. I tried to explain about my approach to agriculture from the community development and education side, but years of rolling the dice on farming commodities that would result in little money even in the best years, had given her a very hardened, pragmatic perspective. But once we moved beyond the incredulity, there were things that we were able to share about her expert knowledge related to bugs and fertilizers that no one else in the family could truly appreciate. These are some of the fondest interactions that I ever had with her.

The final incident that brought my grandmother and I closer together was when I married indiamama. Although my grandmother is a second generation Japanese American, she speaks fluent Japanese as a result of being married to a Japanese immigrant. While there are many in my family who can converse in Japanese, there are no native speakers other than my wife, so from the very beginning there connection between them. As well, my wife developed a closeness to her (and to all of my Japanese speaking grandparents) by virtue of this shared language--although at times it was really old-school, pre-war Japanese that she was shocked that they used! From the first time Kaia met her, they immediately bonded and her was laughing and smiling in her lap. We are hopeful that we will be able to say goodbye to her in person when we return to the US. We love you grandma and Kaia sends his kisses.

Why I Love this Time: Runaway caterpillars and worms from our potted “Christmas Tree”.