Nothing About The Bakken -- For The Granddaughters -- Mother-In-Law / Wife -- April 9, 2018

Two of the most beautiful women in the world.

This is not just a Monday night whim. I think about this often. If God granted me three wishes, one of the three wishes would be to bring my wife's mom back to see her great-granddaughters. She was -- and they were -- fortunate enough to see her granddaughters and spend a fair amount of time with them, especially when we were stationed in Germany. But she never saw the granddaughters (her great-granddaughters).

This photo:

Above, probably about 1950 or 1951, my mother-in-law -- about 19 years old -- I suppose I could find her actual age; I could ask my wife, but it doesn't matter. My future mother-in-law -- the mother in the picture above -- was in Japan when the US dropped the two atomic weapons on her country. She was very close to "ground zero" at the time. She would have been about 14 years old at the time.

A few years later she married a Hispanic from America. He spoke no Japanese; she spoke, I suppose, a little English. Perhaps enough to say, "I do" and not really knowing what she signed up for.

She was ostracized from her Japanese family for marrying an American -- and a Hispanic was the worse kind. But after Mayumi (the little girl in the photo above) was born, the daughter was welcomed back into the family with open arms. At least that's the story.

Her husband was a Hispanic whose father was a "wetback" and deported back to Mexico. His only child, a son, grew up to join the US Army, fight in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Along the way, he married the woman in the picture above, and their first child, a daughter, ended up marrying me.

This is a "colorized" photograph of my wife when she was one year old, I suppose. She was born in Japan and emigrated with her Hispanic father and Japanese mother to the US when she was two years old.

Except that her hair is a bit longer, she has not changed a bit -- as beautiful as ever.

My mother-in-law lived her entire life in the United States -- except for a couple of years in Germany. She loved the United States but kept her Japanese heritage. She tried to visit Japan at least once every couple of years in later life, but she never wanted to return permanently. Her home was California.

I appreciated her a lot when when she was living; I appreciate her even more now and truly wish she was (were) still here to enjoy her granddaughters (two) and her great-granddaughters (three).