In Between Nowhere
Early last May, my mother, 83, took a fall at her home in California and broke her ankle. My father, 81, tried to catch her from falling but the two of them ended up on the floor in a tangle. Ambulance crews have carried Mum in and out of more ERs, ICUs, and SNFs (emergency rooms, intensive care units, and skilled nursing facilities) than my father could easily count or even remember while her condition steadily worsened. Her lungs filled little by little with fluid, her kidneys began to fail, and her blood oxygen levels fell dangerously. A couple of weeks ago, my Dad called to discuss Mum’s medical directives with me and my siblings because her death seemed frighteningly imminent. I resigned myself to the cold fact that my mother would die thousands of miles away; I would attend no memorial, be present for no burial. I would say no final words in person. She would die alone in a hospital room and that would be that.
What could I do? Very little except to listen to my Dad as he called me via FaceTime each day to report on Mum’s state of health. I felt angry and useless because I couldn’t go to my parents to be there in person to support and comfort them — to lighten their load in some way. Instead, I listened. I watched my Dad’s tired face on the screen of my mobile phone and listened. Some say that’s the best that I could do even under the best of circumstances but it still makes me feel like I have run away from my responsibilities in some way by being so far away living here in Tokyo.
My adopted home, Japan, won’t let me back into the country if I decide to leave and return to the United States to visit my mother in hospital. The latest e-mail update from the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo states, in part:
International travel restrictions previously instituted by the Government of Japan remain in place. U.S. citizens, including those with resident status in Japan, generally remain prohibited from entering the country under the current travel restrictions.
Even though my adopted son is a Japanese citizen, even though I have been a law-abiding, tax-paying resident of Japan since 2015 and will continue to do so in future, I am not of here, as the Japanese government’s stance makes abundantly clear.
On the other hand, my birthplace, the United States of America, is rapidly devolving into a pandemic-ridden, corrupt, anti-immigrant, racist police state that I increasingly find hard to recognize as “home”. Every move the federal government takes against citizens exercising their democratic rights make me feel that I am not of there, either. I fear that I will never return again.
So, here I remain, neither here nor there — in between my home of choice and my home of happenstance.
And, with that, good night from Tokyo.
P.S. Just this week, Mum took a turn for the better as her health improved enough for her to be moved out of the ICU for the first time in weeks. My family’s prayers are with her each and every day.
