The Person Who Called Me Family After I Crossed the Ocean

My husband's phone rang, and my heart skipped a beat.

As he answered the call, my husband walked away from me and the children. We were strolling through a Japanese garden we had found near the hotel. Watching my husband's back as he walked away, I had a premonition that this must be 'that call.' I kept my eyes on his back while keeping an eye on my children, who were running around here and there, driven by curiosity and knowing nothing.

After a short call, my husband turned back to me and held up one palm toward me, as if to say, 'Give me a moment.' His face was crumpled, and I could tell even from a distance that he was on the verge of tears. It was just as I had thought. My father-in-law had passed away.

Feeling my husband's painful grief, I became unable to move. I thought vaguely about how, in the vast cycle of life and death that has repeated endlessly for an eternity, my husband, my father-in-law, and I were all equally powerless, every single one of us. Before the unchangeable reality of death, there is nothing one can do.

The children spotted their father in the shade of a pine tree over there and started running toward him, shouting, 'Papa!' I tried to call them back to give my husband a little more time, but they ran off regardless, and I saw my son being lifted up by my husband in the distance. My son was talking to him earnestly, seemingly oblivious to the tears remaining in his father's eyes.

When I saw my husband's face, I couldn't stop my own tears either. The call earlier had been from my brother-in-law, who had been by my father-in-law's side. My husband told me that my father-in-law had passed away quietly while my brother-in-law held his hand. I was glad. Glad that his final moment was not one filled with pain. I felt a desire to express gratitude to someone, though I didn't know who, that it had been a quiet and warm time.

*****

When I think of my father-in-law, there is one episode that comes to mind first.

It was before I married my husband. I met his parents for the first time and greeted them one week before our wedding. I had been staying at my husband's parents' house from then until the ceremony, and one day, the four of us—my husband's parents, my husband, and I—went out to eat at a restaurant. It was a restaurant inside my father-in-law's favorite art museum. The atrium ceiling was surprisingly high, and light poured in through large windows, making the space feel incredibly open. It was lunchtime, and there was a line of people waiting for tables, so we joined the end of it. But my father-in-law, who hated waiting, had spent the time looking around the nearby exhibits by himself until the very last moment before our turn came.

After we finished our meal, my father-in-law paid the bill. As we all stood up to leave the table, I thanked him for the meal. Then, my father-in-law looked straight at me, smiled, and said this.

"You're my family."

At that moment, I was truly touched by those words. Having come to the United States alone and being about to marry an American husband, those words were warm enough to instantly erase the lingering loneliness I had felt in the corners of my heart. I felt as though he had accepted me entirely, without any judgment or conditions, even though we had only just met.

*****

My father-in-law had no religion. Or rather, he was strict about being non-religious. Therefore, the way to mourn his death was decided by his own wishes while he was alive and my mother-in-law's feelings. There would be no funeral, and no grave would be built. It seems he had discussed this with my mother-in-law while he was still alive. My mother-in-law said she would take her time to decide what to do with the bones and ashes after cremation.

My husband has started living in the house wearing white cloth shoes, just as his father had done for many years. They were shoes of a specific brand and a specific color. My father-in-law would buy a brand-new pair of the exact same shoes whenever the old ones wore out, and he had worn the same style of shoe for decades. I remember that whenever he came to visit our home, he would always bring those white cloth shoes to wear inside. Although there is no symbolic object like a grave or a Buddhist altar to evoke memories of him—or perhaps precisely because there isn't—my husband is trying to keep his father's presence alive in his daily life in his own way.

And one more thing. My husband wants to do for our children what his father once did for him. I believe he is trying to inherit a part of his father within himself. Being humorous, interesting, kind, wise, knowing the ways of life, and teaching both important and trivial things.

By writing this down and reading it from time to time, I hope to keep the memories of my father-in-law in my heart forever. Since my young children will unfortunately not have many memories of him, I want to tell them about my father-in-law through my own eyes someday. As a memory for our family.