AllFather

My mother once asked me, "Why America?" I showed her a photo of a 72-ounce steak. She stopped asking. That was a joke. This is the real answer. I have never told it to anyone. Not even her. In 1998, I was thirteen. The smallest boy in my class. The kind of kid teachers forget to call on. That spring, my big sister Yuki left for a year in Iowa. A farm. Four sons. A host dad the size of a refrigerator. My mother made me write him a thank-you letter. In English. I looked up every single word. "Dear Sir. Thank you for my sister. Please return her in June." Three weeks later, an envelope came. Addressed to me. Nobody had ever sent me a letter. Pencil. All capital letters. Pressed so hard I could read it from the back of the page. "DEAR BROTHER. WILL RETURN HER IN JUNE. CONDITION: EXCELLENT. SHE CAN DRIVE A TRUCK NOW. DON'T TELL YOUR MOM. YOU SHOULD COME SEE THE CORN." I read it eleven times. I slept with it under my pillow. The smallest boy in my class. And a man on the other side of the world had written "DEAR BROTHER." I couldn't pronounce his name. So I wrote back to "Mr. Iowa." He signed everything "MR. IOWA" for the rest of his life. Some of you know about the Christmas cards. Twenty-eight years. "To our Japanese daughter." What you don't know is the last line. It was always for me. Same pencil. Same capitals. "P.S. TELL THE BOY TO COME SEE THE CORN." Every year, I meant to go. 1999. Too young. 2003. University entrance exams. 2008. New job. In Japan, you don't take vacation your first year. Or your second. 2012. Promotion. In Japan, you also don't take vacation after a promotion. 2017. Next year. 2020. Nobody could go anywhere. For once, it wasn't my fault. 2025. Next year. I mean it. He never once asked why I didn't come. Every Christmas, the P.S. just came anyway. He came to Tokyo once, for Yuki's wedding. Six-foot-five in a rented suit that gave up at the wrists. He found me in the crowd, put one giant hand on top of my head like I was still thirteen, and said: "Corn's still there, bud." This July, my sister called. The family in Iowa had set up a video call. "He's asking for you." I was at my desk in Tokyo. I took it in the stairwell. He was in a hospital bed. I had never seen him small before. He didn't let me apologize. He saw it on my face and waved it away. "Don't you feel bad about the corn," he said. "Corn don't care." Then he told me what was really bothering him. "Folks back home keep saying this country's gone bad. That we're not good people anymore. I don't believe it. Never did." He had to stop and breathe. "But nobody believes it when we say it about ourselves. Maybe they'd believe it from somebody far off." He looked right at me. "You've had our mail for twenty-eight years, bud. You know us." That was the last thing he ever said to me. I stood in that stairwell for an hour. He died in August. Some of you read his obituary here. My sister was in it. "His daughter, Yuki, of Tokyo, Japan." My father flew to Iowa in September to stand at his grave. I didn't go. Work. Next year. But on October 7th, I sat down at my kitchen table, opened an account I had been writing in Japanese for a year, and wrote my first post to you in English. "Hello, America." You thought it was a greeting. It was the answer to a P.S. Twenty-eight years late. I have written to you every single day since. And you wrote back. Almost seven thousand of you told me how far you drive to see your parents. Fourteen hours. Through two states. Some of you told me about parents you can't drive to anymore, and you still told me the mileage. You told me about fathers who never once said "I love you" and checked your tire pressure every time you came home instead. You told me about strangers who pulled your car out of a ditch and left before you could ask their names. About grandmothers who fed whole towns. About trucks that stopped on the shoulder for a funeral they weren't part of. Every morning in Tokyo, before the train, I read you. And every morning, I hear a voice in pencil and capital letters. TOLD YOU, BUD. He was right. About every single one of you. So here it is. The thing he asked me to say. From somebody far off. DEAR AMERICA. YOU ARE GOOD PEOPLE. YOU ALWAYS WERE. YOU JUST NEEDED SOMEBODY ELSE TO SAY IT. THE BOY. P.S. STILL HAVEN'T SEEN THE CORN. NEXT YEAR.