Thinking about my dad, two years on

I don't think about him too often. But it's been a bit over -- two years? Is that all? It feels like at least four--since he died.

I just finished working with a student on one last waitlist essay for college. And it reminded me that, last year, I had once written a sample application essay to try to illustrate the tone, pacing, humor, and emotional notes that I wanted that student to hit. In retrospect it wasn't fair -- a 30-year old has simply lived more life than an 18-year old. More things have happened, good and bad, and it's easier to write about influential people and moments once their influence has become pronounced over the years. I honestly don't know if the kid got anything out of it, though the mom thanked me for the essay and complimented me on my writing.

Upon a re-reading, I grimaced. It wasn't quite true -- it was my uncle that asked people to pull his finger. My father was usually content to make fart jokes. But my memories of him have been shaped by so many things -- especially, blessedly, time, which dulls wounds and through which the retrospective mind creates order and a logical story where there was none. It was him, in any case, and the rest of it was true.

I don't even know if it would have been a good essay. It is past-focused, and not focused enough on the qualities of character I did develop that would serve me in the future. It might be more of a red flag than a story of overcoming difficulty. And the last paragraph is a bit schmaltzy. But it was a first draft, and I didn't have time to polish it -- I must've worked on fifteen essays for that kid.

I'm too tired or reluctant to come up with a two-year anniversary set of thoughts. It would have been a recycled version at the one-year mark. So it seems strangely appropriate I take something I had written a year ago for the purpose. For it must be marked. I've been  a bit down lately, possibly because I'm seeing these seniors get ready to leave. And I want to leave with them, to give college and my twenties another crack. Or maybe because they remind me that I, too, have moved on from the past, and with equal parts ignorance, optimism, and fear, look toward the future.

“Pull my finger!”

That’s how my dad started every meeting. He was crazy like that, and crazy in other ways. He was bipolar, and I, thankfully, grew up without him in the house. But I did see him regularly – every two weeks. He was, at times, scary, or genial, or grouchy, or energetic – the combination of medications, occasionally illicit drugs, and, most importantly, life. He had enjoyed success as an aerospace engineer at the height of the Cold War, and lost it all – the house, the family, even his freedom.

But it was there, in the institutions, with minimal spending money and limited means of transportation, he developed his relationships, and, if I can be hopeful, some measure of wisdom about how he got there, and what he still had to offer the world.

My father taught me many things. I learned to fear emotion, as that was associated with manic depression. I learned to fear my intelligence, as that was also linked with mental illness. But I also learned the value of laughing, whether to forget, or to share. He could make me laugh, and as he grew older, was better able to laugh at himself, and his past. (And his gas.)

I remember the day he died. I remember his cold form, his mouth agape, stretched in a hospital bed in the care facility where he had spent the last ten years. In life, he had been a terror and an inspiration, a source of merriment and perpetual stress. He was gone, and I didn’t know with what, or how, I would fill the place in myself that was now empty.

Yet even here, there was humor. My aunt came in, and talked with me. After about ten minutes, I realized that she didn’t realize she was standing next to a dead man, and informed her of the fact. The mortician, a young, eager man obviously desperate to keep his job, pleaded with me to rate him highly on the survey that would be mailed to me in a week. “Tens, please!” I couldn’t help but laugh, and I know my Dad would have done the same.

After I had taken care of that business, I looked at him one last time. I recited the words of “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”. I sat for a while.

And on my way out, I pulled his finger.

My father learned to laugh because it felt good. He laughed to escape the doubts and regrets that plagued him. Honestly, I laugh for the same reasons. But I also value laughter as a way of really understanding and appreciating the human condition. When we laugh, honestly and fully, we begin to open ourselves, to make ourselves vulnerable – and that, perhaps, is the beginning of wisdom.

I have not fought in war. I have not discovered a new technology, or written a novel, or performed in Carnegie Hall. My triumphs, and my tribulations, have been necessarily smaller, more private. They do not capture the imagination, but they echo in my memory. They inform my character, and give me both courage and caution, combining in what I hope to be wisdom. I have faced those old, old fears. And I have learned how to laugh at them, at myself, at the frustrations great and small. He was, in his absence, at least as influential as in his occasional, unstable presence. But he trained me well. For even in that last hour, I laughed a large, wonderful laugh, and thanked my father for his imperfect love.

A tribute to JL, on his wedding

Just in case this story is deemed unflattering to the subject, I am using the acronym JL. Will anonymize further if necessary.

I was surprised to receive an invitation. I hadn't kept in touch. When asked, JL jokingly (I hope) said, "Oh, that was probably [my fiancee]." I somehow doubted that my volume of article repostings and random thoughts on Facebook had endeared me to her. But it was as plausible an explanation as any.

So I don't know why I was considered special enough for an invitation. But I did think about why he was special enough that I would go.

I knew JL in college. We were suitemates one year, though the "suite" in question consisted of two isolated rooms joined by a long, ominous hallway with an enormous restroom and shower. Both of our roommates were in relationships, and so we occasionally wandered down the hall of horrors to engage in conversation. This was especially true during the summer, when it was just the two of us working that summer.

I remember once during that summer I gave him my video games, in a desperate attempt to quit. A day or two later, I came crawling back for them. He refused to give them to me. Damn him! But he did give them at the end of the summer.

The rest of this post is of a more serious nature.

I am going to say something that I haven't confessed publicly, or to anyone except JL. Once in my life, I drove drunk. Worse, I drove drunk with three others in the car. I was the designated driver, but I caved to pressure and took a double shot at a house party. While driving home, I was drunk enough that I pulled over to the side of the road and pissed in public, near a railroad crossing.

JL took the keys from me and got us safely back. He claims to not remember the incident -- I don't know if he's saying that to be kind, or because he honestly forgot. But he never scolded me, or even brought it up. It was his car, and his life, at stake. I never drove drunk again, but I still feel incredibly guilty about how my gross lapse in judgment could have been fatal. Perhaps he saved our lives that night.

Many years later, in the depths of my depression and unemployment, I spent some time with JL and his then-girlfriend (now wife). I don't know if he asked me to hang out because I was depressed, or if it was just because we had been friends in high school. I had a great time, but I felt too guilty to follow up and hang out with them again. I had nothing to offer. I think I was so depressed that I might not have been entertaining company. We might have met only twice since college, but I was grateful for the lifeline. I don't think he necessarily understood what I was going through, but he was wise enough to know that understanding isn't a prerequisite for empathy.

If you want to judge someone's character, observe how they treat someone who can do nothing for him or her. I'd heard him voice this belief before, many years ago, at a fast food restaurant. It comes back to me now, that distant memory. Maybe as a man he wasn't fully formed -- who is in college? But the framework of his character was already present, and already on solid ground.

One final story. My father died a year and a half ago. I posted it on Facebook, partly because that's what I do, but also because those who know me know how tremendously I have been shaped, both positively and negatively, by my father's presence, absence, and perceived influence. I received many expressions of condolences. But there were only a few people who called, nearly all of them family.

JL called. We talked. He offered to take me out for dinner that week. I put it off, and never followed up. It didn't seem significant then, though in retrospect, it was amazing. I hadn't seen him in a couple years, and yet he felt compelled to reach out with a phone call, nearly anachronistic, incredibly quaint in its courtesy.

He works for one of the most modern companies in the world. And yet, somehow, he's both old school and new tech.

The day of his wedding, my stepdad went to the ER. I almost didn't make the drive to the wedding. But he told me to go. I had to leave the evening celebration early because he had returned to the hospital.

But I'm so glad I went. It was my small way of repaying the many kindnesses I have received from him over the years, to celebrate his commitment to a wonderful woman who, from the first moment, treated me with open-handed friendship.

I cannot claim to know them well. But I am glad to know them. I told them in an absurd post-it note (substituting for a wedding card -- the madness of this week being my excuse) that they were part of my tribe. I mean it. They've met the cutoff of Dunbar's Number. I just need to do better to show it.

Congratulations, JL. I am proud of you, and proud to know you.

Grandma's House

I wish I had said this to you, my cousins. But I couldn't get all four of you together at once. I couldn't, or I wouldn't. For while I felt welcome, I didn't always feel comfortable. It's a powder keg here, and as in all wars, the children will suffer most, and most blamelessly.

What would I say?

I would say that she was your grandma most of all. I was given, unexpectedly, a place of honor at the service, as the surviving descendant of her eldest child, her eldest son. Because of this I was charged with starting the procession for incense and prayer. I also sat in the front row. My mother -- bless her heart! -- sent flowers via the Kahului florist, flowers that read "From Ryan". I know that some read this as arrogance and presumption and not kindness, sounding a dissonant note. (The other two wreaths simply said "Beloved Grandmother" and "Beloved Mother", with no names.) Perhaps worst of all, my aunt proposed, last-minute, to add a brief statement and prayer dedicated to my late father, extending the service another ten minutes.

All of these serve, in some way, to separate me from you. It is the last thing I want, for your kindness has been the one thing that has kept this trip tolerable.

I can't claim her. She gave birth to my father, and my father gave birth to me. But our relationship was a tenuous one, one of a half dozen visits and cards during the holidays. You, on the other hand, were there every week -- even now. You grill, you eat, you laugh, you talk story.

I want to tell you that I don't know that with Grandma Yamada. I'll never know that. But I know what it is to have that, and to lose it.

Every Sunday, with few exceptions, my mother's family would gather at Grandma Yasuda's house. Not everyone had gone to church. But everyone ate. Everyone talked. As the youngest cousin, I enjoyed the attention and patience of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and older cousins.

As an only child of a single mother, this experience was absolutely vital. Without it, I have no doubt I would be dead, in spirit if not in body.

I even lived there for a time. In retrospect, I am grateful my mother had both the privilege and willingness to go to half-time employment and live a couple days a week with her parents when they contracted cancer. I spent even more time with some of my cousins. I learned how to change a colostomy bag. I learned to grieve as I saw both my grandmother and my grandfather alive one day and dead the next.

And I grieved, especially for my grandmother. I lost her in 8th grade, on the cusp of graduation, before I could give the valediction. I talked about teaching then, because I didn't have the heart to talk about how much I missed her, what she had meant to me.

If I am honest, then, I do not share your pain. But I know it. I know that pain better than I know my own face.

You aunts and uncles -- I also know what it is to lose a parent, a parent with whom, maybe, you feel you had unfinished business. But damn you and your foolish machinations and grudges. Choke on your bitterness. I will speak to your children.

You may wonder if you'll lose that center, now that she's gone. You may. Maybe not. You are four, and your spouses, and your own children, bound by a father who yet lives there. Will he be your center? Perhaps, though fathers and sons, and fathers and daughters, do not always have the same luxury, the same patience, the same opportunity for love to feel unconditional, though in these cases, at least, it certainly is.

We lost our emotional center, and eventually, we lost our place of congregation. The diaspora is spread less through space and more through neglected ties. It can be rekindled, and I have the good fortune of picking up where I left off with many of these cousins and aunts. But it is different, and in many ways, inferior.

If your bonds live -- and they have a better chance, for you are brothers and sisters -- it will be because you work to reforge the broken links through frequent and strenuous effort. You will be fine, I hope, I think. But the rest of us? If we let three months, six months, a year pass, what will become of us?

No matter. I will instead focus on my gratitude. You have, without knowing, let me feel the slight touch of a rope tied to a ship long disappeared over the horizon, a ship bearing my happiest memories, my most important influences. I weep for your loss, but I celebrate the realization that I had this best of gifts. I hope you know what you had, and what you must fight to keep.

Sigh - wine has substituted feeling. Food has substituted grief. Let me walk on these sands and clear my thoughts, for they ramble irregularly like the waves in this breakered lagoon.

The Drowned Boy

Once upon a time, there was a father, a wood carver, who lived alone with a cat and a fish. He carved a wooden puppet of a boy and named it Pinocchio. He sighed and dreamed about what it would be like if he had a real son. That night, a fairy godmother, hearing the father's prayers, and recognizing him as a good man, gave life to the wooden boy, and enlisted a vagabond cricket to serve as his conscience and guide. She promises that if he proves himself "brave, truthful, and unselfish", she will transform Pinocchio into a real boy.

The father, upon waking, couldn't believe his eyes. He rejoiced and celebrated. He sent Pinocchio to school, with the cricket following. But Pinocchio was tricked by bad men, kidnapped and enslaved, and forced to perform as a stringless marionette to enrich his enslaver. He escaped with the help of his fairy godmother, who forgives his lies. But then was convinced by the same bad men to take a boat to Pleasure Island, where he indulged in vice and began transforming into an ass. He escapes, and flees toward home.

When he returns home, he finds that his father has gone looking for him, and was now trapped in a whale named Monstro. Pinocchio goes in search of him, but also becomes trapped. With his father, he hatches a plan to escape. They escape, but Pinocchio is found in shallow water, face down, dead.

He is mourned and honored for his sacrifice, but his fairy godmother, honoring his fulfillment of her command to be brave, truthful, and unselfish, restores him to life as a real boy.

By now, you have probably seen the images of the body of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year old boy who drowned off the coast of Turkey.

I've been thinking a lot about him. My grandmother died the same day, and yet I find myself mourning this unknown boy, not the mother of my father. This image, of a boy, face-down, in shallow water, is heartbreaking.

It's probably offensive to connect a real tragedy with a Disney story.

But is it so off the mark? 

Didn't his father celebrate when he was born? 

Weren't his attempts to explore the world or go to school cut short by evil men? 

Didn't he have to leave home, and, with his father, escape certain death of one type, only to meet it in the sea?

And finally, most shamefully:

If we are honest with ourselves, wasn't he not quite a real boy to us, not real at all, a construction, an idea, an abstraction -- was this boy not a real boy to us, until he washed up on a beach? 

Is he real enough now?

The Eulogy That Will Never Be

There won't be a service for my father, so this is perhaps the closest thing to a eulogy that he will receive. It's rough, but so are the emotions. I think I can't bring myself to edit it, even though it probably needs it. Here then, it will rest, as thoughts formed, but unrefined, over the last decades.

I started, but never completed, a eulogy for him in 2009. He was bedridden and near death. But then, as he did so many times, he bounced back. Cats only have nine lives. I can recall perhaps a dozen instances where he sat at the edge of death, or was at least hospitalized for a serious condition, and he returned. Perhaps part of me felt that this time was no different. But I had been bracing for his death, and I find myself more or less ready for it.

In some ways, I lost my father a long, long time ago. He suffered from bipolar I disorder and schizophrenia for most of his adult life, though it became completely unmanageable shortly after my birth.

I am lucky, in many ways. A few years ago I realized how hard it must be for his sister and my mother. When they saw him, they were constantly reminded of the man he used to be. Free from such memories, perhaps he was free from my expectations.

Or at least somewhat free. Here's the thing with an almost-absent father. It allows children to project an ideal into the void of absence. I saw him so rarely that I was persistently, if subconsciously, managing that absence. In the absence of real presence, real perspective, I formulated an ideology that was too rigid -- whether as a fundamentalist Christian or a left-wing liberal or an ambitious student. And upon that edifice that substituted for substance, I broke, time and again.

When Roy, my stepfather, came into our lives, I think I readily gave him the title of father, though I didn't say so until their wedding, 15 years later. But how could anyone live up to decades of longing and wishing, at once vague and insistent? Disappointment was inevitable, and our present relationship, while cordial, perhaps suffered from the gulf between what I wanted and what he was capable of providing. He is a good man, a victim of the expectations of a child not fully grown up.

My father was possessed with real charm and humor. In some ways, it seemed that he "got" me more than my mother ever did. She is a wonderful woman who has given me everything, and yet I feel that the gap between her world and mine is nearly unbridgeable. For his flaws, he was more pragmatic, and yet more emotionally self-aware. He had the self-confidence to make jokes, bawdy ones.

So it was natural that I would relate to him a lot more than my mother. As part of that, I harbored a long, deep-seated fear of being bipolar. It didn't help that I was actively discouraged from expressing strong emotions, either positive or negative, in the presence of my mother and grandmother. God bless them, but they knew crap about psychology, and they thought that things like stress, or ambition, or improvised poetry, or seriousness, were all signs of impending and irreversible mental collapse. I exaggerate a bit, but my young mind did magnify the fears. By 7th grade I was aware of genetic predispositions, and was a little scared whenever I had trouble sleeping before a big Academic Decathlon competition, or stayed up to write an overlong English essay.

For the record, I've been cleared on that front. Bipolar disorder generally manifests itself in the teens, and whatever exuberance I may have exhibited was pretty natural. But the strains put on myself did show, and I became depressed. I dropped out of grad school. I developed addictions and antisocial habits. I ran away from home for two months. In the end, the diagnosis isn't bipolar disorder. It's depression coupled with bad coping habits. There is something laughable in how a fear of being mentally ill played a primary role in making me so.

But I am talking more about myself, and not about him. Eulogies are often more accurate reflections of the speaker than the one spoken of.

There were tremendously good things about him, too. Having lost everything, he relished simple things. We would go and get terrible strawberry shakes (before I learned that I was lactose intolerant), or Mountain Dew at Taco Bell. We'd walk around the not-too-great part of Norwalk, and he would say hi to his friends. Wherever he was, he needed to be, and generally was, a big man, known, "well-liked", as Willy Loman would put it. I did pick up insecurity in how he would freely dispense gifts (often going into a bit of debt to do so), but I'd say he was far more confident in social interactions than I ever was.

And his humor! He loved cracking jokes. They were often crude, (I'm packing a gun, and it's got a single chamber.) and occasionally racist (A Frenchman, an Englishman, a Texan, and a Mexican are on a plane. The plane is going to crash if the load isn't ligtened, and so the pilot calls for volunteers to sacrifice to save the others. The Frenchman shouts "Vive la France!" and jumps off the plane. The Englishman shouts "For Queen and Country!" and jumps. The Texan shouts "Remember the Alamo!" and throws the Mexican out of the plane.) But he was quick both to make others laugh and laugh at my own jokes. My students probably wonder where I get my weird sense of humor -- it comes, in part, due to positive reinforcement from my father laughing at my terrible jokes for many, many years.

Most of all, I know that he tried so hard to live up to what he imagined where the standards I set for him. He quit smoking so many times, and would tell me, with pride, how long he had stopped smoking for, and how much money he had saved. Inevitably, he'd start again -- there just wasn't much to do in the facilities in which he lived. And when it would come up, he'd look a little abashed, as if I were the father, and he were the misbehaving child. It was sad, but endearing, and I forgave him for his lapses.

His drug lapses were harder to forgive. He had been, for most of his life, a creature of chemicals, in one form or another. When I was about 10, he gave me a two-page, double-sided, double-column list of all the illegal drugs he had taken in his life. Granted, a lot of these were nicknames for the same sorts of drugs (barbituates, for instance), but it was still pretty impressive. Apparently, one of the problems with mania is that it feels good. He would enjoy feeling manic, and sometimes resort to illegal drugs. Apparently he bought meth a couple times, and was hospitalized for extreme blood pressure (220/180, I think). His strong heart saved him, then and many other times. He did always encourage me to stay away from drugs, a message which seems to have stuck.

His manic episodes were really hard to deal with. My mother would drop me off for visitation -- he didn't have formal visitation rights, but he had the expectation of seeing me once every two weeks. It was usually for a couple hours on a Saturday. Most of the time, he was fine. But sometimes, he was unbalanced, or full-blown manic. He'd rage about losing the house, or imagine getting back together with Mom and having us all live together. He'd make elaborate claims about his work as a senior scientist at Hughes, and his crypto-clearance security. Sometimes he'd make physically intimidating gestures, claiming to know martial arts. (For the record, as far as I know, he never, ever hit me or my mother -- a low standard of decency, to be sure, but I want to be absolutely clear on that point.) Twice -- it was only twice, but I remember each time -- he said he was disappointed in me and thought I was being raised badly.

He'd always ask forgiveness later. And it always came.

I don't know how I was supposed to react. I think I was told that it wasn't his fault, which is hard for a child. Children see things in terms of blame, and without some really subtle explanations, it's easy for a child to think it was his own fault. I don't think I blamed myself for his outbursts, but it felt odd not being able to criticize or judge him on his bad behavior. I don't know where that anger, or confusion, went -- but I know it didn't go away completely.

He was never without a girlfriend. He was charming, and even when obese, reasonably handsome. Some of his girlfriends were sweet and kind. Some seemed almost childlike or developmentally disabled. All suffered from mental illnesses. But they all loved him, and in time, I got used to Dad's girlfriends. Towards the end, we'd even have some decent man-to-man conversations about his relationships.

"Dad, she seems a bit obsessed with money."

"Yeah, she grew up poor."

"She also seems to have a thin skin. I think she gets easily offended by your jokes."

*smiles*

"Uh, are you sure she's the right match for you?"

*thinks* "We like to cuddle, and I can always eventually make her laugh."

Toward the end, his medication balance was decent enough for him to actually feel what normal humans feel, in normal amounts. Sometimes, he wasn't angry or depressed because of bipolar disorder, or becaue of schizophrenia. Sometimes, someone just pissed him off, or he was having an off day. I was actually happy toward the end when I could see that, and a bit disappointed that others in his life would try to medicalize every change in mood. For instance, he was a bit depressed a couple months ago when the managers at his retirement home were fired, because he liked them and cared about them.

In thinking about my father's life, I often focus on the hurt. It hurt having him in my life. It hurt not having him in my life. Sometimes I think it would've been easier if he had been completely out of the picture, or if he was a complete asshole, or if my mother hated him. But he was there, and wasn't an asshole, and my mom, sadly, never stopped loving him, even though they were divorced, and both had moved on. Two years ago I asked if they would've gotten divorced if I hadn't been around. I thought, maybe, she would've toughed it out on her own, but divorced to protect me. I don't remember her answer, but that I asked speaks to some lingering guilt that a child has when parents divorce, perhaps especially when they remain on reasonably good terms.

I've realized that, by focusing on the pain, and what was missing, I've become a worse person. Looking back especially on the last few years, I've lived as though I thought the world owed me something, that he owed me something. And, passively, or in fits of active self-destruction, I was waiting for payment.

Even with less experience, I think I was more wise as a child. I didn't have this attitude. I found gratitude, through my cousins, through the many wonderful role models I have, male and female. I found enjoyment in school. I made my world simpler, and more easy to handle -- yes, in response to chaos and complication and fear, but it was a correct instinct.

So I now know, that memory is a choice. I can dwell on the pain or the missed possibilities, and continue to live like I'm owed something. Or I can choose to remember the good parts, choose to highlight the good things that came from that relationship.

It's not historically accurate. It's not honest. But it's a better way to live. I don't advocate it for everyone -- I can't expect or ask someone, who, say, had an abusive parent to replace those memories with happy ones. But perhaps for those of us carrying around resentments for less serious sins, forgetting and selective memory might be part of the answer. The truth, such as it exists, magnified and distorted by our memories and motivations, is often too expensive to keep.

So I'm going to try, hard, to remember how I learned empathy and forginveness, how I learned the joy in the small and inexpensive. I'm going to remember how Dad showed me how to speak with women, how to make friends, and how to enjoy life. For he did enjoy life, in a way that I never did. Perhaps, seeing his past and future more clearly than I gave him credit, he chose to embrace the people, and places, and activities, available to him in the here and now.

Miles Yamada was a man who loved those around him, imperfectly, but intensely. He exhibited courage in facing his inner demons, and compassion in embracing his friends and family. He played an important role professionally as a successful engineer at Hughes Aircraft during the height of the Cold War, working on a number of civilian and military contracts that earned him the praise of his superiors. Disabled by bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, he still strove to exhibit a level of kindness, compassion, and humor that is worthy of emulation. He taught me that it's important to be kind to those who are different, and that a little charm and grace goes a long way in this world. I am grateful for the time spent with him, playing cards, drinking soda, and, most of all, talking. He will be missed.

A Valentine's Day Story

Warning: this is actually very sad. I use **** instead of the man's name because I don't want to compromise his privacy any more than I'm already doing by writing this post.


I didn't have a valentine this year. I don't think there's been a single year where I really was in love or in a relationship. There are perhaps reasons for this, but needless to say I don't commit well.

Some people, some people really do commit.

I've lived in Hacienda Heights since about 2010. I have a large, south-facing window that looks out to the street. Often, I'm home during the mornings and early afternoons; most of my tutoring happens later.

I've gotten used to seeing an ambulance in our small cul-de-sac. For as long as we've been here, three times a week, an ambulance stopped by at the house across from us. Always, two young EMTs or paramedics would casually do their paperwork, open the rear doors, and take out a stretcher. They would go into the house, and retrieve a prone, quiet woman in her sixties. The husband, a quiet, completely healthy man in his sixties, would follow in one of the two cars that always sat in the driveway. He would leave in the Lexus on the right, the white one. The one on the left, the black one; that was never used.

I learned, after a while, that he was a real estate agent. He and his wife were Japanese, as in actually from Japan, which immediately made them important in my mother's eyes. His wife had suffered a stroke many years ago. I didn't know if she could speak or not. I never went into the house. But I do know that because of the medical bills, they lost their house. They rented the one across from us.

I also learned that the other car was his wife's. He never sold it. He never used it. I don't know why. I can imagine reasons for it, but I never really spoke to him. There are some Japanese stereotypes that are true, and one of them is that you tend not to discuss personal matters with, well, anyone.

Sometimes, on weekends, I'd see a Jaguar in front -- the kind of car driven by an older, wealthy person. From my own mindset, I thought that maybe my neighbor did have someone else, that after so many years, he did have an outside relationship. Again, however, I don't know, and based on my best guess, that person was a relative of either him or his wife.

I never even knew her name. She was just always ****'s wife, at least to me.

**** always seemed cheerful and reserved. The only time my mother caught him displaying anything other than polite Japanese civility was when she caught him shouting at our cat, who was, no doubt, sneaking into his backyard to take a dump.

The ambulance stopped coming two weeks ago. ****'s wife had been moved to a skilled nursing facility, which was not a good sign. But I forgot, and didn't notice the absence of an ambulance on our street.

A few minutes ago, the doorbell rang. It's an unusual event, and I was a little concerned by who would be ringing the door on a Saturday evening. (We're not as close to our neighbors as we probably should be.) I didn't recognize **** at the door; it was dark.

He said, "Is your mother or father here?"

Still not recognizing him, I said "No", with probably some unguarded apprehension. "What can I do for you?"

He said, "Hi, I'm ****." I relaxed and went to open the security door. "No, no, it's okay." I paused.

"I just wanted to let them know that I lost my wife. Nine years."

I expressed my condolences, and opened the door. But what could I do? I couldn't give him a hug; that would be inappropriate. I awkwardly shook his hand, and he bowed. I thought about offering to attend the funeral, but was that too forward? Was it too harsh, to say the word that had the cut of finality and formality?

"I'm so sorry, ****. You have my condolences."

"Thank you. Nine years... she was like that. Would you tell them? They know."

I told him I would.

"Oh! She's going to get out!" he said, pointing to my dog, smiling.

"She'll come back," I said.

He smiled. And then he left. Still polite. Still collected.

He had been with his wife his entire adult life. They had no children. For all I know, they have no close family in the area. But "nine years", and "tell them... they know" -- they rang in my ear.

I don't even know what it would be to love someone like that. Maybe it isn't even love... maybe it's duty. But it's something so foreign to the selfish world I inhabit.

"In sickness and in health" appears in the standard wedding vows. They are perhaps the cruelest portion of the vows, for embedded within it is real terror. My neighbor and his wife lived that, for nine years. But they had good years before that. And maybe those nine years were good, in their own way, in a way that warrants our respect, not our pity.

If I think of a Dylan Thomas poem, I usually think of "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." I've been thinking about it more lately, because my father is dying. But the Thomas poem appropriate here is "And Death Shall Have No Dominion", especially the first verse:

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon; 
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot; 
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; 
Though lovers be lost love shall not; 
And death shall have no dominion.

Happy Valentine's Day, **** and his late wife. Though lovers be lost, love shall not.