Forgiveness (29 page)

Like the decision to intern Mitsue and Hideo Sakamoto.

The decisions made within this room had sealed my grandparents’ fate. They had been condemned there, apprehended there, abandoned there. They had been left for dead there.

That room had taken my grandpa MacLean to the brink of death. It had tried, convicted, and sentenced my Japanese grandparents. Perhaps, just perhaps, Prime Minister King had sat right where I was sitting now as he decided to intern every Canadian of Japanese descent, and when the decision was made to send two thousand young men to serve as a tripwire for fifty thousand battle-hardened Japanese soldiers.

The decisions made right where I was sitting had caused tears, blood, and unspeakable hardship. I hated that room for what it had done to those I loved. And yet, but for the decisions made in that room, I most certainly would not be sitting there at all. I would not exist. But for the internment, my grandparents would never have left British Columbia for the cold, hard, southern Alberta prairies. But for his imprisonment, Grandpa MacLean would never have met my grandma when the returning soldiers stopped in Calgary to receive a hero’s welcome.

Life happens one decision at a time. You have no idea where each will take you. Maybe it is fate. Maybe it is God’s will. Maybe everything does happen for a reason. All I know is that you have to find a reason in it. The reason is usually the future. I was inching closer to forgiveness.

As I sat in King’s War Room, the sun broke through thick clouds, its light filtering in through the massive arched windows. The brightness seemed to open the room to me. And then it opened my country to me, illuminating, in that moment, in how precious few places in the world my family’s story—my grandparents’, my parents’, and mine—would be possible.

Someone’s assistant knocked on the door. The room was booked for another meeting shortly. He must have wondered why I looked like I had just seen the face of God.

Six months in Ottawa turned into a year. On a Tuesday morning, Jade called. She usually didn’t call quite as early as she did that day. She was nervous, I could tell. She couldn’t hold in her news for the forty-eight hours it would take for me to get back to Toronto.

“I’m pregnant.”

I beamed. Just beamed.

“I’m coming home.”

Nine months later, almost to the day, I sat alone in the hallway at St. Joseph’s Health Centre. Jade was on the other side of the green door. The baby was breach, so we had opted for a C-section. I watched as the doctors scrubbed up in an adjacent room. They were talking about their summer vacations. One to Italy, the other to France. After they entered the operating room through the side door, a nurse came to escort me in. I stood up, made sure my shoes were still covered by the hospital booties, shifted my gown, and straightened out my hairnet.

The operating room was crowded with medical equipment, two doctors, and three nurses. I walked around the curtain that shielded
Jade’s abdomen to see her face. She was trying to be strong, but she was scared. There were tears in her eyes.

The doctor popped his head around the curtain.

“We are about to start. We’ll be done in about five minutes.”

Jade nodded and grasped my hand. I stroked her forehead. Her body shook a little as the doctors tugged at her on the other side of the curtain.

In a few minutes, a nurse declared: “It’s a girl! Ten fingers, ten toes!”

I kissed Jade’s cheek and she clutched my hand a little tighter. The nurse came around the curtain and put our little baby girl on the side gurney. She cleaned her off, prepping her for her first breath. I could see the baby move on the table, reacting to the touch of the towel. And then that newborn wail rang out.

We both took a deep breath as our hearts soared. The nurse brought the baby close, a few pictures were taken, and then, suddenly, everyone was gone. Jade was rolled out to the recovery room. The last nurse in the room handed me the baby.

“Here you go, Dad,” she said, and then she left.

It was just the two of us. The room seemed much larger with the instruments cleared away. I looked down at our baby. I took two steps towards the door. She shifted. I stopped. She stilled herself. I had one foot in the room and one foot in the hallway when she opened her eyes wide. She was staring right at me. Doctors will say a baby cannot see so soon after arriving in the world. But I know she saw me. It took one look, just one, to vanquish the fear that had struck me in the plane high over New Brunswick.

I stayed the night in the hospital. While Jade was recovering I paced the room with the baby. Fear gone, I knew I had a job to do. I had to come to this task with an open heart. I could feel the sadness rising. I wished Mom would open the door and peek in, hold the baby. Laugh, cry, smile. I knew I had to make my peace with her. So I could laugh, cry, and smile. Jade woke and grimaced as she sat up. She held out her arms and I placed the little one in her arms. They were beautiful together.

The night before we went into the hospital, I had been reading
The Tale of Genji
aloud. I had told Jade I liked the name Miya.

Jade looked at me now. It was dawn.

“How about Miya Mitsue?”

I nodded and choked out a thank you.

My grandparents bore witness to the worst in humanity. Yet they also managed to illuminate the finest in humanity. Their hearts were my home. I saw none of the ugliness they had. I felt none of the bitterness.

How on earth did they manage that?

Forgiveness is moving on. It is a daily act that looks forward. Forgiveness smiles.

I had never said I’m sorry to my mom. She had never sought my forgiveness. Now that she was gone, where could I go from here? Where could I seek salvation? How could I find reprieve from my anger at her for leaving me behind? Could I absolve myself for my own sins? I thought I had missed my opportunity for forgiveness. But I realized now that forgiveness is not a transaction. It is not an exchange. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the past.

Like her love, Mom’s forgiveness was a tough forgiveness. It was years in the making. It had peaks and valleys. But Miya Mitsue had brought me to the journey’s end. My heart was her home. She deserved room to grow, to be free, to smile.

My mom’s final gift to me was forgiveness. It was the hardest lesson she ever taught me.

I was finally ready to let her go.

Saying goodbye, really saying goodbye, is the hardest thing we humans do. We make stuff up—absurd tales—to avoid its searing pain. I had avoided, stalled, hidden, overcompensated, lied, cheated, and closed myself off to avoid that pain. There was just so much unfinished business.

Mom’s ashes were still in the white bottle, wrapped in the
plastic Safeway bag, stuffed into a metal business case, and crammed in the back of our bedroom closet.

I flew home to Medicine Hat and rented a car at the Calgary airport. It was dusk and I drove south with the sun setting in my rear-view mirror. I listened to Dire Straights’s
Brothers in Arms
sixteen times through. I could see Mom smiling and dancing in the living room mirror, green jumpsuit, frosted hair. For those two-and-half hours, in my mind, we were having a ball.

I hadn’t given Dad and Susan much of a heads-up about coming home. They knew I was in Alberta, but did not know the purpose of the trip. I didn’t want much fanfare. I didn’t want a big dinner. I didn’t want to deal with other visitors. I just wanted to quietly say goodbye. I wanted to be on my own. I would have stayed at a hotel and been in and out, but you just can’t do that in Medicine Hat. You can’t get a litre of milk without running into someone you know.

I wanted to be with my mom and I knew where she wanted to be.

I woke up the next morning at Dad’s and looked out the back bedroom window. A bright, crisp blue sky was overhead, just the kind of morning Mom loved. I opened the door to the outside and took a deep breath of fresh spring air. I could hear the creek gushing in the valley. I smelled fresh prairie grass. The lone donkey in the pasture was braying loudly. I looked down at my open suitcase. I could see the red
S
of the Safeway bag.

I had waited a long time for this day. There were times when I thought it might never come to pass. I hopped in the shower, shaved, and clipped my nails. I guess I was getting ready to see her. The smell of coffee hit me halfway up the stairs. Susan was awake, sitting at the kitchen table where she always drank her morning coffee. She was watching a train out the window heading east. Two eggs had already been whipped and last night’s vegetables were waiting to be made into an omelette. I sat, had some coffee, and enjoyed breakfast. Normally Dad wouldn’t be awake for another few hours, but my surprise visit had thrown him a little. He joined
us in his morning
yukata
and juiced a dozen carrots. I downed a glass of it at his insistence.

“I’m going for a drive. I’ll be back in a bit,” I said.

Susan wanted to know more, I could tell. Dad flashed me a knowing smile. He was piecing it together. He knows some things take time. He does, after all, think in decades.

Back in the bedroom, I threw on a pair of jeans, a sweater, a pair of wool socks, and a down vest. The vest was a little tight over the sweater, which made the plastic pill container feel snug against my body. She felt close. I went back upstairs and put on some sneakers and hurried out the door.

As I drove down Ross Glen Drive, I forgot how to get to Central Park. I had to think of my final destination and work backwards from there. I ended up driving past the Medicine Hat College, down the valley onto Kipling Drive, and then up on Third Avenue. It is no coincidence that Kipling takes you onto Third Avenue, the highest street in Medicine Hat. It shoots straight up. Kipling would have approved mightily. As I crested the hill, I was not sure which way to go. I veered left and was about to take a right turn when I saw the concrete whale. I pulled over at the playground that sits in the southeast corner of the park and got out of the car.

At 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, the park was empty. We had it all to ourselves. I put my hand on the concrete whale. It hadn’t been painted since I touched it last. I walked the perimeter of the park. It’s about two city blocks, lined with tall old poplar trees. The grass was wet with dew. There was no wind. It was just us and two hundred trees.

I looked for the perfect spot. As I walked past the Central Park sign I saw through the ferns an oddly placed bench. There was no path to it, it was all alone. It did not look onto the park. It did not look onto the playground. It sat between two large evergreen trees. When park planners placed the bench there, the trees must have been at a comfortable distance apart. Over the decades they had grown, almost engulfing the bench. Bookends. Perfect.

I sat on the bench and looked up. I wondered if Mom had ever sat here. I wondered how big these two trees would have been back then. Maybe Daniel and I had sat with her in this very spot. The bottle rattled as I opened it. Pieces of her bones were mixed with ashes. The bottle was tightly packed so I was careful not to spill it as I stood up.

I poured Mom in a straight line between the two trees. Her ashes didn’t blow into the wind like in the movies, they just fell like sand in an hourglass. I stood beside the bench for a few more minutes, then wrapped the bottle back in the plastic bag and put it into my vest pocket. I smiled and moved on.

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

Mitsue Margaret Sakamoto and Ralph Augustus MacLean, you are my heroes. You are both heroes in the truest sense of the word. You have borne witness to the worst in humanity—and yet, to so very many you represent humanity’s finest.

You are the toughest people I know. You both fought for your country, your dignity, and your lives. Your victory was not that you lived. Your victory was in the way you both went on to live your lives. You refused to be defined by those most injurious of years. You did not dwell there.

You had the strength to move on with hope and optimism. You filled your hearts with faith and forgiveness. You passed that on. Thank God you passed that on.

I have asked much of you. In writing this story, I asked you to take me into the darkest recesses of your memory. The devil, they say, is in the details. I saw him there. But you both walked me through that perilous journey with bravery, with humility, and even—at times—with humour. You showed me your war scars, some plain as day, some hidden.

You faced a fear I hope I will never have to face. For I don’t think I’d be as strong. But I do know this: I’m stronger for having your blood course through my veins. You have both—in your own way, and on your own terms—shown me how
to lead a loving and honourable life. I hope that as the years unfold I measure up. I promise to try, and in doing so I will feel communion with you for all my days.

So when I say this, it seems just so meagre, but it is all I have to offer:

I thank you.

I thank you and I love you.

Forgiveness: A Gift from My Grandparents
started out as an essay. Unbeknownst to me, my pal Erin O’Toole wrote to John Stackhouse with a request that he read my family’s story. John agreed and promised to publish it as an essay in
The Globe and Mail
—if it was any good. I thank them both for getting the ball rolling. I had no idea where it would take me.

It took me on a journey into history, into my grandparents’ memories. It took me on a very personal emotional excavation. It brought me even closer to my grandma Sakamoto and my grandpa MacLean. Over days of marathon interviews and discussions that went well into the night, my understanding of them deepened. I count those nights as some of the most sacred of my life. When the history books and their memories did not seem to align, I sided with their memories. It is, after all, their story.