My father in the lot amidst the apricot orchard in Los Altos, California, on which he produced the house he had dreamed about.
During the mud and rain and kamikaze attacks and bombardment of the Battle of Okinawa, my father kept his sanity by building a house in his head. Whether stuck in a shelter, or batting bugs away from the light in his tent--he was sketching out plans for the little house he hoped to build, with my mother, "when the war is over."
He was a lucky man. He survived to fulfill that dream. And I've been lucky too: sorting through his memories here, I've grown to understand more about his, and my own, emotional ties to the land where he was able to find peace after the war.
