joan

My mother-in-law cried the first time she met me. As I extended my hand to shake hers, she dropped her head into her cupped hands and cried. I had started to say, “It’s nice to . . .” but didn’t bother to finish my salutation at her reaction. Honestly, my first inclination in response to this behavior was to laugh, but I suppressed it in view of her obvious pain. Why did she react this way? Simply put, my mother-in-law is a bigot. She threatened to disown my wife upon hearing that I was of Japanese descent. She ranted that while she would welcome my wife’s visits to her home at any time, she would not allow me in the house. She would not share any of her prized recipes with my wife because she did not want me eating her favorite foods. Nobody would sell us a house because of our “mixed-marriage” status. Our only option would be to move to Hawaii, the ONLY place we could buy a home. Our marriage would ultimately end in failure due to our cultural differences. (Mind you, my family had been true-blood American for three generations) She continued that after all, the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, further validation of our duplicitous and evil ways. We were obviously a race undeserving of trust or consideration.

Yet, I love my mother-in-law. I’m not being facetious or ironic here. Over the years, I’ve come to understand her and in some ways, respect her. While she is horribly racist (she voted for a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in her life because President Obama is black), she is unashamedly open about it. (Contrast that to my father-in-law, who feels the same way, but knows it is politically incorrect to openly state this.) Yes, it is appalling, but as Joni (bless her heart, she married me in spite of all the protestations and rantings of her parents) has often stated, no arguments or rational discourse will ever change that. She will go to her grave clutching her beliefs steadfastly to her heart. My mother-in-law is, like all of us, multi-layered. We all have our own flaws, our own demons, but we also share the need to be respected and loved (ideally unconditionally).

Since our marriage, my mother-in-law has gone on to alienate the spouses of all of her other six children and indeed, some of her own children along the way. She called the wife of one of her sons a “hoar” (we presume she meant “whore”) in a letter she wrote to that daughter-in-law. She directly accused one of her granddaughters of being a thief and a liar on the telephone when one of my mother-in-law’s possessions in her Park City condo went missing immediately after a visit by that branch of our family. Such stories continue to circulate and are recounted many times whenever any of us congregate.

But, my mother-in-law is in the twilight of her years. She recently told me she did not anticipate being around for another year, a statement that surprised and saddened me. She is in a combative relationship with her husband who holds little sympathy for her failing health and treats her with open disdain. This has gone on since and even before that memorable first encounter I had with her in the Denver Stapleton Airport. She seems largely ignored by her own children who all live conveniently in other states, except one who is kept busy and inattentive by the demands of his own business. She is in constant pain, has little mobility and has become increasingly dependent upon her husband in the isolation of their Colorado environs. She is lonely, isolated and unable to enjoy what few pleasures are left, in particular, her fondness for good food as it has become next to impossible for her to cook. Hence the bridge that has allowed us to form our special mother-in-law/son-in-law bond.

I KNOW she enjoys her food. She is a discerning judge of what is good and what is not. She has become the external validation to my escalating passion for preparing and experimenting with food. As I’ve mentioned before, for me, preparing food for somebody is the ultimate expression of love and friendship. You are nurturing and caring for somebody in the most fundamental way, by feeding them. At the completion of a meal, I anxiously await her pronouncement of the success or failure of my efforts. Typically, I don’t have to wait for this ultimate assessment as it becomes obvious at her first few bites of each dish. She will smile involuntarily as she looks down at the dish in front of her if it is an unabashed success. She will frown if it is not. If it is especially good, she cannot help but utter, “Delicious!” in an enthusiastic voice. Lately, she has offered only praise, but it seems more tempered. Joni suggests that the quality of my cooking has improved to the point that “delicious” is the norm and my mother-in-law has become accustomed to this level of preparation. I’m not sure that this is accurate, but if it is, I still hang on for the “delicious” pronouncement which seems to occur with less frequency (even though I’ve taken to impressing myself a lot lately with the quality of my dishes).

I can tell you though, that upon departing from one of our meals, my mother-in-law often tears up and hugs me with some statement like, “You’re a good man.” This is not to be taken lightly. She has not manifested similar behavior with any of the other in-laws. After that day in the airport so many years ago, I have elevated myself to the unrivalled status of favorite in-law, in spite of my racial roots. I like that. I’m happy to be accorded this status. I care about this woman and worry about her welfare. I hope she does not leave this world with sadness or isolation. I hope she is wrong and that this will not be her last year here. I want to cook her yet another Thanksgiving dinner, which is easily her favorite meal each year. For many years now, Thanksgiving is a given between us. She has an open invitation to come to Salt Lake City to share in this family tradition. I can honestly say, Thanksgiving would not be the same without her presence. Oh, and did I mention that each year, our Thanksgiving dinner consists of food prepared according to her most prized recipes?

in the comfort of a Christmas Tree

Today I had lunch with a friend I had lost contact with. He had just been laid off ("surplused" is the corporate term) from his job of 15 years. He was given ample warning to enable him to use the company's resources to seek another job within the corporate ranks or if necessary, elsewhere. During this process, he was diagnosed with cancer. Luckily, it was diagnosed at Stage 1. He was given several options, but his best choice was to undergo surgery to have the cancerous area removed. He opted for the surgery in November and has since recovered and is now fine. (A side note, he recovered in time to work for two weeks before he was forced out the doors.) As he recounted this experience with me, I asked him casually if he had gained a new perspective on life. In response, he began crying. I felt horrible, but he told me the entire experience was still a little close to him. He told me he cried when he and his partner were taking down their Christmas tree a few days ago. His partner was surprised by his outburst of emotion and asked him what was WRONG with him. My friend responded, "While I was recovering, I spent a lot of time lying on the couch watching Judge Judy and staring at that Christmas Tree. That tree with all of its ornaments and twinkling lights gave me solace and comfort. To dismantle it makes me very sad."

new year's resolutions - 2011

Damn! See "new year's resolutions" January 2010.

sweet dreams and flying machines

When I was a child, I used to have this recurring dream that I would awaken in the middle of the night and look out my window. There in the late night sky were many unusual flying machines that were being tested by the air force in a top secret manner.

The flying machines were magical and unconventional and hovered and darted like hummingbirds. Sometimes in my dream, one of the machines would crash. I could always tell when one of these machines would be in trouble, but could not help but look on in horrified amazement. There would be a terrible explosion with flames bursting forth from the crash sight and when that would happen, it would always be nearby, within running distance. I could feel the intense heat emanating from the wreckage as I approached to render assistance. This dream recurred so often, I began to believe the sky was filled at night somewhere with these machines. For me, the flying machines represented the possibilities that existed, that still exist, while the ones that crashed were the cautionary tales of the potential failures or tragedies that can occur in life. The fact that these wondrous machines flew in the darkness of night when the world was asleep, well, I believe this was a manifestation of the secrecy of my own special dream and the magical pleasure that was mine alone at discovery. Interestingly, this dream recently resurfaced; a reminder that perhaps we never outgrow them.

mochi

As a third-generation in America, Japanese-American (Sensei) citizen, I've been a little distanced from my Japanese ancestral roots. Still, I did experience much of the culture mainly through the blessings of my grandparents and the childhood I spent inhabiting the space that was once called Japan town (now defunct due to the Salt Palace complex).

One of the traditions I miss now that my grandparents and parents are gone, was the New Year's celebration. Obviously this was more important than the western-culture oriented Christmas celebration. My grandmother (my mother's mother) would always prepare a large feast for our family. I remember vividly the cooked lobster that always stood as the centerpiece of the table (although I have no memories of ever eating that lobster). We would eat sushi (and yes, since I was introduced to sushi early in my childhood, I could never understand what the big deal was when it gained popularity some years ago), specially prepared vegetables, shrimp, crab, rice cakes and a special soup made from pork stock (the name of which now eludes me sadly) that was always one of my favorite annual treats. Mochi was a key ingredient of that pork stock soup.

Mochi is a sort of patty made of a sweet rice paste; rice that has been cooked then put through a grinder several times. Once it has been molded into the patty it "sets up" slightly and retains that shape. (Mochi is not to be confused with Manju, which is often a sweet rice patty covering a sweet bean paste center.) My grandmother used to display three of these mochi stacked upon one another in varying sizes with the largest on the bottom (much like a snowman, but instead of round snow balls, picture flattened disks) and the smallest on top. Capping off the little pile of mochi was a tangerine. I've seen this same arrangement in other Japanese households, and I have a vague memory of it serving as an offering that is placed in front of the little altars (Buddhist?) many Japanese families had on display in their homes.

Mochi can be served in the soup I described or in a bowl of tea or with a combination of sugar and soy sauce (my personal favorite). The mochi is heated in the microwave (it used to be cooked in a frying pan to get it warm) and dipped in the sugar and soy sauce mixture like fries in fry sauce. And yes, I know, I'm eating starch dipped in sugar and liquid salt. There is absolutely no nutritive value whatsoever in this mix, but to me, it is the sweet taste of my childhood. I've even passed my penchant for this treat onto my daughter, who has embraced her Japanese heritage much to the dismay of my blond-haired, blue-eyed wife. She just looks on with bewilderment as we happily devour our mochi (much as she does when we eat anything with curry in it). This year I have fallen behind in my holiday preparations. I have not gone foraging for my annual supply of mochi. I'm hopeful that there is still some available at one of the local Japanese grocery stores. If some of the other traditions of Christmas lag behind or are suspended this year, well that's fine. But I have to have my mochi. This is one aspect of the holidays that is non-negotiable.

deadly icicles

Reflecting upon on my childhood, I realize now that my mother was overprotective. I can only attribute this to the fact that I was an only child and it was important to her I be aware of all of the potential hazards and danger that lurked out there in the world. Some of her fears bordered upon the ridiculous, some were more sublime. I remember during the winter she would always warn me of icicles that hung dangerously from every building. They had after all, been known to break off without warning or reason, to plunge through the brain matter of the unaware victim beneath it. Needless to say, I winced each time I approached or left a building whose eaves were bordered by icicles. Strangers offering candy was one of the more sublime fears she shared with me.

Milk carton photos still haunt me and I remind myself not to be lured by the promise of sweets even though I am well beyond this prospect. (Although, if you think about it, in a way strangers still offer us sweets with less than good intentions.)

As I grew older, I suspected her behavior would abate. I had at some point become “aware” and capable of logical thought that one would think, would arm me to steer away from the array of mine fields that awaited me. But no, this was not the case. If anything, my mother’s fear and consequently, her warnings, only intensified. I would often find newspaper clippings (on my desk when I lived at home, and later, in the mail when I moved out) validating her worst fears. Debris from trucks in front of you on the freeway could come flying out of their beds, only to impale you. Furnaces could affixiate you in your sleep or even worse, water heaters were capable of exploding like bombs, doing double damage as they fell back to earth from their initial explosion launch. I did my best to embrace these fears and do whatever was necessary to avoid the calamities that obviously faced the uninformed (which amounted to the rest of the entire world).

But at some point, I realized this fear had overwhelmed my mother to the point that it crippled her. She had stopped living and experiencing things because of the potential danger they presented. She truly believed that death or injury awaited her at every corner. It was a startling revelation. I chose to abandon a trove of fears that had been ingrained in me (well, it’s all relative isn’t it?). I began to tease her mercilessly each time she brought up a cataclysmic scenario. “Yes, Mom, carbon monoxide poisoning in your sleep would be a senseless way to die, but hey, it doesn’t sound like a bad way to go . . .” We can choose to board the plane at the risk of it going down or instead, choose not to visit a place we’ve never been before. We can choose to attend the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics and be killed by sniper fire or a carefully placed bomb, or miss a once-in-a-life opportunity to be there when it takes place in our very own city. Yes, danger is out there, but so is opportunity and discovery and wonder and exhilaration. I personally choose to go with the promise of those good things rather than impending doom. Call me foolish. I don’t mind. Truth be told, I’m still probably more cautious than most.

Ironically, if anything “gets” me, it will probably be some affliction that stems from the years and years of second-hand smoke my mother and father exposed me to during my life with them. If this were to happen, my mother would have most likely preferred my death be by falling icicle.

early onset dementia

When I was about 5 or 6 years-old, I was something of a hypochondriac. I think it stemmed from the fact that I had newly entered the world and to my dismay, had discovered it to be a potentially hostile place, full of germs, bacteria and diseases that could cut my already short life even shorter. It didn’t help that my mother’s favorite television shows were Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey, an abundant resource for new diseases or physical afflictions that I could adopt as my disease du jour. Eventually, I grew out of it. Somehow I realized that you could attribute the slightest sensation to any potentially disastrous symptom. Yes, I felt fevered, but the body temperature runs at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. And yes, we all get headaches once in a while for whatever reason, but that does not necessarily mean I have a tumor. And so, like many childhood traits, my hypochondria dissipated in the greater fog of adulthood, until recently.

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with my best friend from Junior High through college. He announced that he had recently been diagnosed with early onset Dementia forcing him into an early retirement. As proof of his condition, he was now drawing from the coffers of Social Security, a process that usually takes several application attempts for even the most legitimate of reasons. He bragged that he was approved upon the first attempt, external validation that his was indeed a serious condition. He detailed the worst moments of realization for him – the time he forgot something in his hotel room and as he turned, he knew that there was no possible way he would be able to retrace his steps to his room. Or the time he was being tested for his condition, and he began to sweat at the simple algebra problems, especially frightening since he taught math at a private school. He has good days and bad ones and laughed at the fact that he had always prided himself on his intelligence. He was remarkably calm and accepting as he relayed all of this to me, but I sat quietly horrified. Hadn’t I been forgetting things lately? I’ve been having problems identifying actors and actresses and their filmography at recent screenings of movies. This used to be something I could do with remarkable speed and accuracy. Now I had to Google them. And I HAVE left my cell phone at home on more than one occasion, my one essential device that keeps me accessible to the world. Perhaps I, too, have early onset Dementia!

Now, I observe myself carefully, scrutinizing every mistake I make. I’m slowly convincing myself that I’m just getting older and that these little incidents are a reflection of this and not a symptom of a greater malady. I suppose if I were really concerned, I could get tested but that however, seems to only validate how ridiculous I’m being about the whole thing. So, I’ll continue to monitor myself carefully, looking for any telltale signs. I’m still capable of algebra and every morning I’m successful at the word scrambles in the newspaper. There are larger issues to worry about anyway.

In the meantime, I worry about my friend and wish him well. His mother was supposed to be dead months ago from a severe incurable blood malady that has doctors looking at her in the way they would look at a zombie from the Walking Dead. Yet she thrives, pain-free, in what seems to be perfect health with no symptoms whatsoever. I’m hoping my friend will fare as well from his diagnosis. If attitude were any indication, I’d have to bet for the most part he will be fine. I’ve come to realize through all of this that it is essential that we all enjoy every moment and give thanks for the blessings we have. Life is a transitory thing and who knows when it will be taken from us?