Memoirs of a Shattered Soul — 03: My Father's Eyes
There’s a look I see once in a while in my father’s eyes. He has joked sometimes that he’s a professional daydreamer. Other people have called him a visionary.
March 1, 2013
As usual, my father was working for long hours this week, but since today is Friday he decided to spend the whole day with me. I’ve always loved spending time with him, but obviously the circumstances of the last year have caused both of us to be less than the best company for each other. It was more like we were two shipwreck survivors desperately trying not to drown, not really able to help anyone else.
Ironically, though, in spite of how events have shattered our personal, inner worlds, this past year has been very good for business. Sales for Starr and Staff video games have been growing steadily, especially in the international market. Maybe it’s true what they say, that even bad publicity is still publicity.
Well, in all fairness, despite all the swirling gossip no one has been able to prove that my father did anything wrong, and of course there’s a simple reason for that: he did not. And outside of Japan my mother is not so well known, or at most “just another forgotten j-pop singer.”
Tomorrow I’m supposed to meet an old friend of my father’s, a woman named Marilyn DeZeuw. She’s almost seventy years old now and she has known him since he was my age, visiting Lauterbrunnen with my grandparents. Back when Starr and Staff were only random drawings in his sketchbook…
So I think today he wanted to prepare me for that meeting and at the same time talk to me more about how I feel after two weeks of living in a different country. However, the conversation took a turn that I think neither of us expected.
There’s a look I see once in a while in my father’s eyes. He has joked sometimes that he’s a professional daydreamer. Other people have called him a visionary, but that’s just one of those weird labels that others stick on you when something you daydream makes you a multimillionaire. My father doesn’t think of himself in such grandiose terms.
Switzerland has many postcard-worthy beautiful places to visit and Lauterbrunnen is definitely one of them. Today my father took me to see some of the waterfalls. Apparently, there are 72 waterfalls here in total, but we spent most of our time at Staubbach Falls. It was quite impressive. It’s amazing how a waterfall can be so peaceful and so powerful at the same time, so utterly awe inspiring to behold.
“What are you thinking, Daddy?” I asked.
He smiled, as if for a moment he’d forgotten my existence, even though he was the one who had invited me there. Then he said something that blindsided me.
“I was thinking that no one lives forever, Yukiko. When you’re young you somehow imagine you will, but then life goes by in the blink of an eye and you realise just how brief it is…”
Mono no aware. Snowflakes, cherry blossoms and noble samurai dying.
“Daddy, we’re looking a at a beautiful waterfall in Switzerland. It’s not a time to think about death.”
“Whether we think about it or not, death is the one enemy we can never avoid forever.”
I found this whole conversation maddening. “Is that something you wrote for a Starr and Staff game? Can’t we talk about something else?”
My voice was dripping with sarcasm as I said this. Perhaps I expected a stronger response from him. Good Japanese daughters are not supposed to speak to their elders that way. However, my father did not get provoked and in fact I saw something in his eyes that I hadn’t seen for a long time… a kind of tenderness, the way you look at a little baby who’s fallen down and started crying.
He said, “We can talk about something else. But first… Yukiko-chan, I want you to know, if anything ever happens to your mother or to me, you will survive. Of course, it will hurt. Even so, you are strong. Stronger than you think. Just remember that.”
We saw many other things over the course of the day. Our conversation never returned to the same topic. Still, I know it will always be that one moment at Staubbach Falls that will haunt me for the rest of my life. If I have children one day, I know that I will tell them, inevitably, what my father told me.
No one lives forever, Yukiko. Death is the one enemy we can never avoid forever.
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