Dreams Don't End

It's the morning of February 7, 2012, about a year ago from today.  The weather is foreboding--cold, dark, and dreary with a dash of wet.  I'm on my way to Los Angeles for a teacher dismissal hearing, NPR on the radio to keep me company.  I get a call from my mom.  "The retirement home called.  Your grandfather isn't doing well.  The doctor is coming.  I'll call later with an update."  My mom had literally just returned from Japan, having spent the last week checking in on my grandfather's health.  It wasn't good.  We'd both been back to visit him a few months ago in November, and even then he looked really frail to me.  According to my mom, he'd deteriorated even more since then.  So when the next call came from my mom, I suppose the news was not unexpected--"Your grandfather passed."  I turned the radio off.  Everything after that call is kind of a blur.  I'm at my apartment packing my suitcase.  I'm sitting quietly with my mom in the departure lounge, each of us staring out into the dark night.  I'm over the Pacific Ocean, probably drinking a bit too much wine.  I'm at my grandfather's retirement home where they've set up a makeshift memorial for him.  I'm at my grandfather's funeral.  I'm back over the Pacific Ocean, my grandfather's ashes next to me.

Those ashes would go into a burial plot in Los Angeles that my grandfather purchased over thirty years ago.  His family has an ancestral burial plot in Japan so the decision so early in his life to purchase a plot in the United States really spoke to me.  It highlights the deep love affair that developed between my grandfather and the United States.  He'd immigrated to the United States shortly after the war ended with "only the shirt on his back," as they say.  But he worked hard, knowing that his shrewd business acumen and superior abilities as a chef would help him overcome the many obstacles and barriers that are part and parcel of the immigrant experience.  And they did, ultimately helping him secure his own little slice of the Land of Opportunity.  So rather than lay at rest with his ancestors, he'd chosen instead to lay at rest in the place that gave him the freedom to spread his wings and fly.

At the time, I thought carrying my grandfather's ashes back from Japan completed his American Dream.  Today, I realize that the American Dream is never really complete.  The immigrant experience continues well beyond the passing of the initial trailblazers, and with that continuity comes a responsibility; a legacy to be protected.  So in that spirit I keep my grandfather's picture on my dresser, a query each day as to whether I'm keeping the Dream going.  It's a funny picture because my grandfather's expression seems to change to fit the mood of the day--some days stern, other days content.  I'd like to think it's a magic photograph a la Harry Potter, that it's somehow captured some of his essence for all eternity, but I suppose science would chalk it up to me projecting my emotions onto lifeless photo paper.  Either way, today he was smiling and with the familiar twinkle in his eye, acknowledgement of a secret understanding between the two of us.  That all is well and to carry on.

--KM

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free."