Life in a Nutshell

Her Blind Date with Destiny

"How did you meet your husband?"

My offhand remark after dinner one evening while sipping tea with my small Japanese mother-in-law seemed like a simple question.

She tittered behind her hand in the way that some Japanese women do, then leaned over toward me, sparkles in her eyes and half whispered behind her hand, "Blind date."

Seeing her this giggly, was a surprise. She was always self-composed. My husband told me later that even he didn't know all the stories and history she had told me. To her, the past was in the past. Personally, I think that's how she survived as a young person during and after the war. Why dig up old pain? Let it stay buried.

As her daughter-in-law and an ever-curious little monkey, I gradually got the whole romantic affair out of her heart, and what a story it was. I'm sure I don't have it all, her sense of propriety wouldn't dare allow me to know the scintillating details.

My mouth opened and my eyebrows rose in surprise. "Ohhhhh, please tell me all about it."

"My friend set up a blind date, when I come visit America. Harold was very good man." She nodded solemnly. "He had good heart, no cheating."

She closed her eyes and slowly nodded her head. Her mouth was scrunched up in a small, pursed expression as if she was remembering something important.

"Yes, but how did you meet this man all the way in America?" My eyes were big, and I sipped my tea in rapt anticipation.

She sighed and told me her love story.

"My family was bad. My father was a gambler and bought and sold things on the black market. Both of my older brothers were gamblers as well. My mother died of pneumonia from the atomic bombs. My father was mean to her, he would beat her and sometimes make her sleep outside with the dogs. He was a bad man. When she died, he remarried a strong-willed woman. She was mean to him and would hit him when he yelled." Chikara laughed. She smiled serenely. "His new wife paid him back for all the bad things he did to Mother."

She frowned. "If that was love, I didn't want it."

"After the war, I went to sewing school, and then afterward beauty school. I did the hair and makeup for the Miss Universe Pageant in 1950. Afterward, I saved up and opened my own salon in Tokyo. I was successful. I had money. But my brothers would come steal it. They would hit me and told me I owed them since we were family. They told me I didn't need money because I didn't have a husband. I hated them, they were cheaters and not good men. I had to hide my money from them.

One of my brothers even left his daughter with me when he didn't want her anymore. I raised her as my own until he came and took her back. The lawyers said I couldn't keep her. I wasn't her real mother." She looked sad for a minute, but then continued. "I had boyfriends, but nobody wanted to marry me, because I was successful. I had my own money and own opinions. In that time in Japan, men didn't want a woman who could think. They wanted a servant. I was not a servant."

She huffed and giggled. Took a drink of tea.

"In 1966, I was tired of being alone, I wanted an adventure. One of my friends from beauty school had a boyfriend who was an American GI. She married him and moved to Oregon. We wrote letters to each other, and she said I should come visit America.

I set my working girls up at the salon for three months, and I bought a plane ticket to New York. When I landed in America, I saw a sign in the airport advertising Greyhound bus tickets for Ninety-nine dollars. It was a three-month pass good for any ticket, anywhere in the United States. So, I bought one and went on a tour. I stopped at Niagara Falls, Chicago, and Mount Rushmore. I saw the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Park, and real live buffalo. And when the bus came to Oregon, I got off in Grants Pass where my friend lived with her husband.

They introduced me to Harold. He was forty-eight, I was forty years old. He took me to dinner; he was the nicest man. He had never been married. He had older brothers and sisters, and his mother was sick. After the war, he came home and took care of his crippled mother. Working for the city, he never married, he did his duty to his country and to his family."

She nodded her head again and closed her eyes. "His mother had died by that time, and he was alone in the house now."

"He was so handsome." She smiled at me again, and a little color showed in her cheeks.

"I stayed a whole month, tried to learn a little English. We went all over the place; He took me to the coast. The last week he asked me to marry him, and I said yes."

"I had to go back to Japan and sell my business and all my things. Get the paperwork done. I had to talk to the American Consulate and apply for a marriage visa." So, I took the bus back to New York and then the plane back to Tokyo. Harold had his mother's house, but he had no money. They were poor people. I didn't care. I never thought I'd fall in love and get married. So, I tried to do everything I could to come back to him.

We had to wait six months, but finally all the paperwork came through. I sold my salon and the property in Tokyo. I only made thirty thousand dollars. Can you imagine how much money I would have if I kept that property? We'd all be rich now." She giggled at me again.

"I came back on a steamship. I took three trunks with all my things, that's it. After I landed in New York, he drove all the way across the country to pick me up. It was 1968 and we got married at my friend's home. She made the cake. In 1969 I had a baby inside, and my son was born in 1970. Harold was a good father. He had wanted a family of his own for a long time.

Scott was healthy. I was worried, you know. I was old, and I smoked cigarettes. Forty-three when I had him. But I was strong and healthy. No problems with the delivery. I still poured my own concrete." She laughed and pointed to the narrow-paved path through the small bamboo patch that grew behind the house. She had done it all herself. "I put drywall up in this room, too. Harold and I did it together."

She was quiet a minute and looked down at her teacup. She turned it around in her hand twice.

"Harold died in 1981. His heart was bad, he smoked too much too. We had almost fifteen good years. Scott was only eleven. It was hard. Hard on us all. I felt bad for my son. He had to grow up without a father. I was lonely again, but not as bad as Japan." She shrugged her shoulders. "This time I have family, church, a house, and new friends. And now you."

She smiled at me.

How could she have said this all in such a matter-of-fact way? I was shocked once again. How brave she had to have been. To leave everything she was comfortable with. Her home, her business, her friends. Even her language!

She came to the United States on nothing but hope and the promise of love with one man. It's amazing that they had a child during the years when that just wasn't done. They were both older, more the age of grandparents than new parents. Plus, it was an interracial marriage in a small Southern Oregon town. I'm sure they faced racism and backlash from the locals.

He was a white man. A veteran stationed in India during the war. He drove the bombs to the planes that the B-52s dropped over Germany. She was Japanese, the perceived enemy. 1968 was only twenty-three years after the end of the most destructive war in American History.

My tears came then, and I thanked her for telling me her story. I could never do her traditions justice, but I bowed to her that day.

They had a once-in-a-thousand lifetimes long-shot at finding happiness, and they made it work against all odds. Chi-San never looked at another man after Harold died.

I often think about the what-ifs. What if she never visited America? What if Harold hadn't dutifully taken care of his invalid mother and married early? What if Chikara had married in Japan? What if all these things hadn't come together? Their lives, and by extension, my life would be completely different.

If you're ever waiting, wondering, or scared to make a leap for love; don't. Take that chance and be brave with your heart. You never know what might happen.

Destiny could even be waiting for you on a blind date.