The night my cousin killed himself, the women in our family would not touch the phone. All I could think of were the collapsed veins on his hands, the goatee the morticians had shaved off, the faint stiches they had sewn under his neck. It was dawn. Planes streaked the horizon. Sirens blared down Sepulveda as if to bid my cousin farewell. The ghost of my grandfather sat on the edge of my bed, the edge in which I begin dreaming, saying, “Your cousin will walk above the clouds up to the dead.” I imagined my cousin above cirrus and cumulous, lighter than air, free from the circuitousness of space and time. In my imaginative world, he was a character, invisible to most of the living, treading the air as if it were water, without the wetness of water, each wave thrusting him forward to a shore of shells and glittering sand dollars. There he caught the next train, the quiet and translucent choo-choo train, without the weight of wanting, without his tongue, pores, follicles, cells, seeds—seeds, his craving for sunflower seeds. Neither naked nor clothed, in my dream, my cousin was conspicuous only to those who loved him.

When I was older, such dreaming continued. I still loved him, wondered daily how he could choose that life over us and Darlene, his fiancée. Wasn’t he in love with her? She went crazy after the funeral and threw freshly written love letters all over his grave. My mother said Darlene mailed him letters to his old address. Young as I was I understood Darlene. She wasn’t crazy. She had to write those letters to continue.

“What does he do without us?” I asked.

“Sleep,” my mother said. “Sleep and never wake up. That’s what the dead do. That’s why we must live.”

“No,” my father said. “He will experience perpetual misery, until he sees the light of God.”

“If there is a God,” my mother, the atheist, said.

“Of course there’s a God,” said my father. “Nothing is too great for the Big Boss.”

“But,” I said. “Maybe God’s not a boss, but a big tree, and Jesus is a beautiful hippie sipping Tang under that tree.” Mrs. Hansen had told our class that God was everywhere, but to really see him, we had to have faith. I had faith that Jesus was that hippie sitting under the tree at the cemetery with a big bottle of Sunny Delight.

“Where did you learn that?” My father asked.

“In catechism.”

“God Da**! Sh**.”

“Watch your mouth, Honey,” my mother said.

“Sh**. We should have sent them to Visitation instead of St. Anastasia.”

~

The night my cousin killed himself, the women in our family would not touch the phone. All I could think of were the collapsed veins on his hands, the goatee the morticians had shaved off, the faint stitches they had sewn under his neck. It was dawn when planes streaked the horizon. Sirens blared down Sepulveda as if to bid my cousin farewell. The ghost of my grandfather sat by my bed, telling me, my cousin would walk above the clouds up to the dead–and I, submerged in a cloud of sleep, with lashes glued shut with sleep dust, wandered to that same dream, as if to understand my cousin’s reasons for leaving, to understand the brevity of existing, to understand the women’s fears and superstitions about the dead calling them back, about my cousin, the only son who was supposed to carry out my grandfather’s name. In that dream space, I’d figure out how their last name was literally, figuratively, spiritually different from my last name. Had my cousin lived beyond his last life? Did he practice karate? Did he surf? Did he play guitar? I’m quite sure that my grandfather fished incessantly in a sea of eternity for tunas, salmon, and mackerel, or that he peered through the clouds to watch the Dodgers win the World Series. This was the way I could stitch them to my interior with threads of memory, replanting grandfather and grandson as one plants seeds in a garden, a big big garden of tomatoes, eggplants, carrots, zucchini, and strawberries, or as one writes important names between the pages of a book.

Suppose I said, “Say I say, I remember,” I’d remember that some voice had said, “All memory is suspect.” I’d remember that I should have written, “Memory,” then pressed delete, erased the trace of number two pencil lead, smeared other words, phrases, images with pink and green, chartreuse(!) or maybe periwinkle. With the flick of a magician’s fingers, I could blink and doves and sparklers would appear, or the erasers might reappear, smelling like apples and persimmons, or delicious Bubblicious. Blink again and I’m holding a pencil with gold lettering: Are you my Angel? Are you, are you? Written up and down the side. And you would only know that a friend mailed that pencil to me because I told you; or that I’ve kept it out of reach so my pet cow can’t devour it. Know me longer and you’d receive an invitation to meet my cow and learn I don’t have a cow, just a metaphorical one, a black and white cat who looks like the Borden trademark cow, whose nickname is Cow, whose real name is Ginger, but should have been Twinkie, after the cow-cat that preceded her, or Pookie, the black and white cow-cat, who mooed rather than meowed, and before the fat and squishy stray, Twinkie, scratched on my door. Neither cat was like my cousin’s Siamese cat, Punky, or my other Siamese cat, Punkin—Punk, for short, Ponkin, a Japanese word meaning, “imbecile.” She got mad at me, often pissed on my sweater for telling her to get off the counter, away from the television screen. Once I was watching survivors of near-death experiences. They made me wonder if cats had souls. Do cats go to Catland? Do the naughty ones, like Punkin, go to Feline Purgatory or Dog Hell? Will I ever see them again outside this life? Will they be there to greet me the way they did when I’d come home from work?

None of the people on the show knew each other, yet they confessed to seeing and feeling a warm stroke of light. When they died they experienced a catalogue of their lives. The moment of death was like watching and feeling a movie. They witnessed a lifetime of joy, pain, sorrow, and anger, some of which they had inflicted on other people. In that moment they understood the other person’s pain because they felt it.

 ~

Sometimes I see a friend dropping a pencil in an envelope, licking the back flap or wetting it with a damp cloth, deciding on whether to choose a rose, marigold, lilac, Elvis, Porgy and Bess stamp, finally choosing the Elvis, knowing that I like lilac but prefer lavender and wisteria. Or did she take the “Eenie, meanie, minie, moe” approach? Are you my Angel? Are you, are you? The side of the pencil has asked me almost daily. And I can’t remember the poem Gigi took the line from.

Once while Tessa and I talked about reincarnation, she asked, “When it’s over do you want to come back?”

“No, I’d like to stay up there where things are always bright.”

“Then do you want to end it early?”

“No, I’m content to stay here for my allotted time, as long as there’s Walgreens and candy stores, and a multiplicity of wildflowers.”

“And then what?”

“Then I’ll look forward to thinking telepathically.”

“They do that there?”

“I heard they do. How else would they talk without a body?”

Then she said, “I want to return to make up for my mistakes. In the next life, I want to eat; I want to be less lonely, and run the San Francisco marathon.”

“I’ll accept the challenge while I’m here, but after that I’d like to sleep or be an angel. Oh, and I’d like to keep my name.”

I tell Tessa the story of my name. I was named after a nurse named Clara. She called herself Clare for short. When I was born, my mother gave me the gift of the letter “i,” which she inserted with great care and caution between the “a” and the “r.” She knew how much I needed the “i” to exist. I was born premature and spent several days in an incubator until I weighed enough to go home. Then I tell Tessa how grateful I am that my mother, unlike my relatives, didn’t name her children after flowers. We’ve had so many Roses and Lilies we could have made a bouquet. Luckily, my grandparents named my mother Elsie, after Elsie the cow, the Borden trademark co

 ~

It was dawn when planes streaked the horizon. Sirens blared. The ghost of my grandfather sat—until my sister entered without knocking, demanding, “How could he?”

“He did.”

“How could he?”

“He did.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Did too. He was in the hospital having gall bladder surgery.”

“So.”

“So!” and I wanted to add, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. “Stop eating my French fries!”

He could always intuit me. When the light penetrated his being after his first heart attack, he knew I wasn’t ready to let go of him; perhaps he negotiated for extra time. At what cost, at what loss? He never said. He never said. How could I be sure he did? Because I loved him the most. Out of everyone I have ever loved, I loved him the most and felt him love me back the most.

~

My cousin will walk above, an ethereal spirit satiated not with food or drugs, but with forgiveness. I can’t imagine him there, anywhere, without the infinite expanse of forgiveness. One day, my grandfather, followed by my grandmother, followed by my parents, followed by…will walk above the clouds—above cirrus, cumulous, cotton, lighter than air, without fear, without the aid of stairs, without the weight of worrying, without sorrow, without arthritis and without gout, without wheezing, sneezing, without the need for inhalers and oxygen masks. I do not think we’ll envy the living as some spirits do. Will we crave candy? Will we want our bodily baggage back? I doubt it, but who can say for sure. What will survive? If I threw a penny into a pond, would my wish come true? In the afterlife I wish for a memory immune to forgetting. In this life I wanted memory minus the forgetfulness, minus the medication to open the airways caged under my ribs. I wanted this life to be free of pills, headaches, bronchial spasms, and steroid inhalers. Oh, well.

My father’s rationale when I’m twenty is this: “If our lives were meant to be perfect, we’d all be naked and eating fruit in the Garden of Eden.”

“But dad, we can be naked and eating fruit in Berkeley.”

“Huh, huh, huh.”

Almost ten years later my Dad becomes a born again Catholic and begins sending me these letters.

Dear Claire,

I do hope things are improving. Prayer and hope are a good thing. Nothing is too big to ask from the Big Boss as he is infinite. In good times and times of need, turn to him. We must be humble and accomplish His Will. Sometimes it comes as a form of sadness. Would you rather be the Pharisee in the temple and expound on your accomplishments, or the Publican in the back of the Temple? I want you to be humble and build on your talents. As in the morning offering, dedicate your works of each day to Him. Your real ultimate relationship between your Creator and you. Mom and I are only mediators with many imperfections.

Love,

Dad

Claire:

I sent a package by priority mail. It has Zantac in it. If you do not need it, save it for another day. It also contains four Aerobid inhalers. I hope your breathing is better now that you’ve switched inhalers. I think you should realize that Pullman is not a pleasant place for your mother. It’s cold, rainy. Your sister takes the car to school all day. It would give both of us a dad disposition if we were there. I realize that at critical times I and Mom were not available to support you or counsel you so you did the best that you could. You should not be impatient with us when you call because we are trying the best we can. It’s unfortunate that we are not more gracious in our personalities. Believe me, I have always been aware of my shortcomings. So then you try the best you can. Our parents were Issei and could not advise us. This gives you a feeling of insecurity. This may not help, but you should realize our defenses and learn to read through them.

Love,

Dad

I mailed you Julie’s letter by priority mail. I hope things are going well. No matter what, things could be worse like in Colorado. Claire, life is good and will improve when it appears to be its darkest hour. We were given existence in order that we can act towards our ultimate end (the presence and union with God). Anything else is a distraction. As long as you perform his acts in His Name. This includes your act of love towards your cats, who are His creatures. Some words from us may be harsh or abrupt, but they are not meant to be. Believe me!

Love,

Dad

Dear Claire: As you know, your sister is going to have surgery. It is major surgery. You should say something and send a get-well card. At a certain point in life you have to bury the hatchet with her and your brother. We will not always be here. Otherwise you will not have a family in the future. When you call, you should at least acknowledge her. Otherwise, you only hurt yourself. Only then can you find peace in yourself. We are leaving for San Diego tomorrow, Wednesday, and I will come back on Saturday. She will be in the hospital about one week. Claire, life is coping and adapting to problems. Some are better than others at this. Stacie has real organic problems. Her life has been one of suffering and she deals with it the best way she can. If you are short of breath, she is also short of breath, but much worse. It is hard to have an effervescent personality when you do not feel well. Feeling well can be mental or physical. You, like I, must learn to be open to suggestions, or learn by examples of our friends or acquaintances on how to deal. Everyone has something good to offer.

Love,

Dad

~

What do I have to offer? It has been difficult to write anything when you have a family judging what you write. Even the ones who aren’t alive seem to get upset. How can I write without invoking my grandmother’s angry spirit again? My mother said I was dreaming, but I know Mama’s voice was too loud for me to be dreaming. The problem: She was yelling in Japanese, and I don’t know Japanese. That’s why I’m taking Japanese this semester.

I hardly ever think of my grandmother being anyone other than Mama, that before she became Mama, she was Tamai Kumagai, and before that, Tamai Tsuru. Her married name means bear, depending on the way you read the two small Kanji strokes, her name means “Bad Bear.” I would like to learn the strokes so I have asked two people, two strangers, to locate the “Bad.” One said she didn’t know. The other wrote Kumagai in Kanji, Hiragana and Katagana, saying, “Yes, the bad is in there, somewhere in the Kanji.”

It has always been Mama insisting on the “bad.” But Mama is dead so I cannot ask her. I cannot write Mama’s married name the way she used to write it. But, I remember it. So family, don’t accuse me of not knowing it. This is not fabrication. You see, there is truth there, in the gaps and lapses, but don’t ask where. You must turn before you enter. You must turn and peer—wide-eyed, side-eyed—before you step inside this tunnel toward the freakish, the unknowable.

Think of how you might filter the air, filter the truth, or filter someone’s name. Maybe you’ll agree that when you filter, you translate. You filter and you lose. You filter and make up for the losses: the loss of molecules, voices, language, lives; loss in which you cannot locate a complete equivalent. So what do you do? Sew without revealing the seams, or cut, scissoring your way out.

Mama is dead. Mama is still alive. So I say her name, Tsuru Tama or Tsuru Tommie. Last name first. First name last. Say her English name only when I feel like it.

Ah ha!

Was Mam’s first name a relative’s last name? Maybe it was her mother’s name or her mother’s mother’s name. Tsuru means Crane, and her first name bears some connection to diamonds. If she is wrong, if the strangers are wrong, it does not matter. At least one of her names was prophetic, for it predicted she would take flight.

Say I write her life this way:

1.

The year was 1924. The ship, the U.S.S. Jackson.

She heard the announcement:

Wed my son because he’s leaving. His ship leaves—Don’t delay.

She was young. She had skin like peaches.

That day, she said, I’ll go.

I will marry him. And she did. Tamai Tsuru married

Kikuji Kumagai, and left her family,

And left Kyushu for good.

Oh, she was so lucky. She chose him. She acquiesced on impulse.

2.

Before she became Mama, she was Tamai Kumagai,

before that, Tamai Tsuru.

Her married name means Bear. Bad Bear.

I have asked two strangers to locate the Bad.

One said she did not know.

The other wrote Kumagai in Hiragana, Katagana, and Kanji.

Yes, she said. The bad is in there, somewhere in the Kanji.

It has always been Mama insisting on the bad.

Mama is dead so I cannot ask her.

Was her first name a relative’s last name? Her mother’s name,

or her mother’s mother’s name? Tsuru means Crane,

and Tamai may mean Diamonds.

If I am wrong, if the strangers are wrong, if her first name

is Crane, it does not matter. One of her names was prophetic.

It predicted she would take flight.

3.

Mama is dead. Mama is still alive. So I say her name:

Kumagai, Tsuru, Tamai. Last name first. First name

Last. Say her English name when I feel like it.

Ah ha!

Did she love him? No, I do not think that she ever loved him.

How could she? She hardly knew him.

But no one forced her to marry him

What did she want? Evasion, a house, husband with a job.

Who could fault her. Desire was a vision, and vision was a frog

That croaked in her ear about a better life.

But she would never admit that. She would say the folklore

Was a crab pinching her ears, or a monkey

Flicking her face. Go, go Tamai. Go West.

Of course, she was susceptible to stereotypes. She watched too many soap operas. Of course she mixed and married stories, diced up myths and revised them. Of course. Of course. At eighteen and nineteen I had heard the story so many times, I covered my ears. “I know, I know, I know.” At twenty-five, I had forgotten what they ate and what they wore. A few days short of thirty, my memory of her memory is less succinct. The ship served tempura and chow mein. The captain made the men and women form two lines. An attendant yelled at Mama for calling out to Papa. She was scared, didn’t know English, didn’t understand the captain’s commands. But now I forget. I don’t have her dissecting details. I want to know more about the businessman who gave Papa two first class tickets. I can’t remember. Either he did not have enough money to purchase two cheap tickets, or he could only purchase the very last ticket.

Always there will be missing pages. So what can you do? Navigate your way to an alternate entry:

It’s September 15, 1999. My name is Claire. I grew up with my older sister, Stacie, and older brother, Dana, in a white house built on a high hill, next to a yellow house and schizophrene, who used to pour coffee on the parked cars, sit all day on the corner fire hydrant, yelling, flicking people off. Some mornings he sat on his roof looking down into our yard while my brother, sister, and I, and cousins were playing baseball, Marco Polo, Red Light, Green Light. He shouted four-letter words and told us and our four Chihuahuas to shut up, then stood on his roof and shouted at my mother, “Keep your Jap kids inside!” My mother snapped a Polaroid of him giving her the finger and called the police. The previous week he had tied kite string to the two pillars on our front porch, and left a note in the mailbox: “Dear Elsie, I hope that your Jap husband trips on this.” Later, when I asked my mother why Ralph Brandt hated us so much, she didn’t answer. She only said, “He’ll get his day, and when he does, he’ll burn.”