If Memory Serves (September 2025)

Somewhere on the return home from Japan, there is a small barnboard store right out in the middle of the desert. There is one long two-lane highway running through the hot white sands, and this little shop is the only sign of life along that gray ribbon of road.

Inside it is dark and cool. The proprietress is an elderly Japanese woman who is wearing a kimono, probably a very colorful one if seen in daylight. She is very polite—I can't imagine her any other way. She must have spoken a little English and my parents spoke a little Japanese. Whatever it is that they must have said, I can't say. At that age, I wouldn’t have understood much English or Japanese, and besides, it’s the old woman who my mind focuses on.

She has a kindly face. I remember that. And it’s dark brown and heavily wrinkled. I'm sure of that, too. To this day, I've never figured out quite how she ended up in the desert in the American southwest. But there she is.

I’d never been in a desert before and its great emptiness is something foreign to me. From the outside, the building has the look of an old general store, but not inside. Inside it feels like home; familiar to sight and touch are the black lacquered vases, tatami mats, translucent folding screens and woodblock prints. Only in later reflections do I add these article names.

While it also appears to be the old woman’s home, there are attractions for passersby, although there probably aren’t too many. In the darkened front room, the sun is kept at bay by the closed wooden shutters and there is an unexpected coolness in the stillness. Treasures Japanesy are carefully displayed on dark wooden shelves rising to the ceiling. It’s overwhelming and much too much to browse through. Besides, the old second-hand yellow Plymouth station wagon is already overloaded inside and on top. There’s no more room for anymore souvenirs—for any of us.

But one item always catches my eye—a piece of wood carved by hand showing hikers on a path that spirals up a mountain. Of all the riches in that room, that’s the one I visualize most clearly. I’m in awe of someone who could have shaped a piece of wood into such an intricate scene. It isn’t a toy for the hands. It’s a toy for the imagination. Ordinarily, it would’ve escaped my attention.

We got back into the car, and looking back, as best I can remember, we didn’t even get milky candy, seaweed crackers or any other goodies for our trip. Funny, but I don’t remember much more about our trip. I have no distinct memory of my parents and my sisters and brother at that stop—not like the vivid memory I have of the old Japanese woman and her general store.

There were seven of us and Momma and Daddy were driving us cross-country to get to our new home. We’d already crossed the Pacific and it had taken weeks, it seemed. Now we were on land, our new used car was much, much smaller and more crowded than the ship and seemed to move a whole lot faster, too. My brother made fun of me for years because I got carsick.

For them, it was just coming home. But this wasn’t home to me. I’d never been here before. We’d lived in a lot of places, and I don’t remember a single one of them. Sasebo, Fukuoka, Nagasaki. These are the names I now know from the stories I’ve heard, but for me, there’s nothing of my own memory I can attach to the names.

Do you remember when you first learned that America had once destroyed these cities? It was years later. You said you weren’t convinced by the explanation you were given. It was all kind of fuzzy and dark in a menacing way. You said you felt sort of that way about the long Vietnam War. No one knew when it would end—if it would end. You said that you used to worry that your older brother would get drafted and wouldn’t come home. That he would be included in one of the nightly news body counts.

It took a long time for us to collect everything we’d shipped and it seemed like there was always something new coming out of the trunks. It was like mini-Japanese Christmases. One day, my Daddy brought out of wood carving from one of the trunk. It was an 8-inch birch branch with three hikers on a path that spiraled up the mountain. A memory stirred and I thought back to the old Japanese woman and her treasure house. This looked just like what I remember seeing in her store.

Daddy put it on the Japanese nesting tables in the living room, and told me that this was not a toy for the hands. It was a toy for the imagination. I could play with it but C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y. For months, I did just that. I could spend all afternoon looking at the carving, wondering what these figures would find at the top. Maybe a pagoda-style temple? A 360-degree view of the green forests and valleys below? Or maybe just the thick mist of low-hanging clouds? And wondering how talented the artist must have been to carve such intricate figures from one piece of a birch limb.

All things pass out of favour during the life of a child and this was no exception. Friends, school, church, sports—not necessarily in that order—drew me into a ever-changing and expanding world. The carving got replaced in the living room and went into storage somewhere. I didn’t think of it again for many years.

After my parents passed, the sculpture returned. Going through my parents’ things, my sisters rediscovered it. There was a brief note from Mom. She had left it to me, knowing how fond I'd been of it when I was a kid.

Among all the other artifacts they collected during their life in Japan, this is the piece that connects most with me. It and the memory of the old woman in the desert store are my sole connections with my very short life in Japan. Even the slides in which I was included fail to trigger any memories. My sense of having missed out on an important part of family history really used to come home to me during times of reminiscing. And this was especially so when we were all together at Christmas and got to the point in the caroling where everyone would sing in Japanese. Almost everyone.

Yet, you still have this one choice artifact and a memory of the old Japanese woman in the small, dark store all alone in the great desert. Whether your recollection is accurate or an artificial composite of many memories, does it really matter? Over the years, hasn’t it served you well?