The Price of Love
Warning: Don’t read this essay if you’re expecting some romantic Valentine's Day piece. .
Valentinus (his latin name), a Christian who lived in Roman times was well-known for proselytizing. One day a Roman judge challenged Valentine to prove his beliefs. When Valentine healed the judge’s blind daughter, the judge and his entire household converted.
Shortly before Dad died in 2014, he finally told me why he had immigrated to America, as a physicist. He showed me this photo (probably taken around 1923), of Surprise, Surprise! American relatives I knew nothing about. The photo shows his uncle, Dr. Eisuke Ishikawa and his wife who immigrated from Japan in the early 1900’s, and Dad’s cousins Grace (Kazuko) and Robert (Eisei) who grew up in Stockton CA. Why had Dad kept these American relatives secret from me?
Dad, close to ninety by then, said in Japanese, “Uncle Ishikawa inspired me to come to America. He was a fine medical doctor.”
But Dad’s Uncle and his American Dream was cut short on Thanksgiving Day 1934 when the doctor took his wife, and Grace Christmas shopping in San Francisco. Robert elected to practice basketball with his junior high teammates. He was called off the court by a phone call informing him a drunk truck driver plowed into his father’s car, killing both his parents and severely injuring his sister Grace so she could no longer have children. Dad, who was just a kid in Tokyo at that time, was shocked at this news, but thrilled when his orphaned American cousin Robert then came to Tokyo. Dad’s own dream of going to America was fueled by Robert’s tales of his idyllic childhood in California, and his father’s achievements in Stockton (the Nippon Hospital still stands).
But then WWII came. Both Dad and Robert were students in Tokyo when war broke out. They buried themselves in studies. Dad focused on physics, while Robert went into medicine like his father, as the B-29s dropped napalm bombs all around them. The two young men must have known Japan would be defeated, but didn’t know how the war would end.
Dad proudly told me in Japanese, “My American cousin became famous for his book.”
What book? After I got a hold of Robert’s book, Dad’s secrecy about his American relatives became clearer. This was THE book which contained the hellish photos of the atom bomb’s first victims. Originally a classified medical report Robert did for the Occupation, it came out years later as “The Impact of the A-bomb, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Faces burned beyond recognition. Children’s bodies charred the instant they saw the “pika-pika” bomb. Kimono patterns seared onto the back of a young woman. My worst fears about having a physicist father came true.
The Occupation Forces hired Robert, a young Nisei doctor, to collect information on their new weapon of mass destruction. Meanwhile, Dad was invited to the United States as a researcher in physics. When Robert’s atom bomb report was finally released years later, Robert’s fame as an expert in radiation sickness directly confronted Dad’s identity as a Japanese physicist in America. Many of Dad’s new colleagues had worked on the Manhattan Project during the war. Robert Oppenheimer was a dinner guest at our house, I was shocked to learn from Mom.
The Roman Emperor wanted to talk with Valentine about his new religion. But when Valentine suggested the Emperor also convert to Christianity, the Emperor demanded Valentine give up his love of God. When Valentine refused, he was sentenced to public execution by beating.
After Dad died, Mom and I managed to find his cousin, Robert (then using his Japanese name Eisei) in Tokyo in 2016. He was in his nineties by then but still sharp. His study was lined with awards of recognition of his long career as a pathologist. Robert was eager to talk with me. He said to me in his American accented Japanese, “So many terrible things happened in my life.”
Robert told me about his difficult decision to ask the Occupation authorities to revoke his American citizenship. His sister Grace and her husband Henry’s incarceration in Manzanar. Henry was a patriotic JACL member and served with the US Military Intelligence Service during the war. Dad’s first nights in America with Grace and Henry should have been a joyous reunion but was marred by Henry’s severe depression. Henry’s death a few years later left Grace all alone for many years until Robert brought his sister to Japan, a country she didn't know. I could imagine the intense loneliness felt by Robert and Grace, living and finally dying in Tokyo.
As long as I knew them, Mom and Dad loved America, despite our family being the only non-white family in the neighborhood. They both took on American citizenship. They were upstanding citizens in their adopted country, often the only colored people at work or social gatherings, and lived in their ranch house in Boulder Colorado until they died. Mom had a stroke right after I moved to Seattle and died during the pandemic. During the lockdown, I learned how much they and our Japanese American relatives paid for their love.
When Valentine wouldn’t die from the beating, he was finally beheaded.
For his devotion to God, Valentine was martyred like many other early Christians who died from public executions and torture. But why is St.Valentine the patron saint of romantic love?
While Valentine was in prison awaiting his execution, he wrote a letter to the daughter of the judge he had healed. He signed it, “from your Valentine.”
What a fascinating and moving story, Nanako, thank you for sharing this. The bit where Robert asked to have his citizenship revoked is powerful stuff. I'm working on a post at the moment (taking me much longer than it normally would) about the search to discover pieces of my relatives' immigrant journey, I'm not fortunate to have nearly as much information as you were granted by your ageing father. I really enjoyed this post, it captivated me like your Japanese Ghosts writing captivates me. More of this please!