A Thousand Stitches (32 page)

When I
was a graduate student who had never known anything but Philadelphia, Professor Shigeo Imamura and his wife, Isako, opened the world for me. They have been an important part of my life ever since then.
A Thousand Stitches
started with Isako and her determination that her husband's memoir have the effect he intended—to serve as a testament of peace.

Almost thirty years after I first met Isako, I was part of a group that scattered her husband's ashes in San Francisco Bay on an overcast summer morning. After the ceremony and a celebratory lunch, we gathered in a hotel in Japantown. Isako showed us pictures from her life with her husband and from his time as an aviator and a member of the Special Attack Force—the
kamikaze
corps—of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Isako also showed us a manuscript Shig had written in his last years, and asked me and Johnnie Hafernik and Stephanie Vandrick to help get her husband's memoir published. Thus, what we quickly came to call the “Shig Project” was born.

Ten years later, the Shig Project is a success. Professor Imamura's memoir has been published in English (
Shig: The True Story of an American Kamikaze,
Baltimore: American Literary Press). The first edition in 2001 was followed by another in 2009. Thanks to the passion and dedication of Ken Oshima, a translation of the memoir was published in Japan in 2003 (Tokyo: Soshisha). Professor Imamura's book and his work were honored at a special event at the University of San Francisco in November 2001. Many of Shig's former colleagues and friends reminisced, and Professor Uldis Kruze set the memoir in its historical context. The book and Professor Imamura's life are featured on a website that displays the amazing photographs used to illustrate the memoir. I recommend the website to those interested in more background: www.shigproject.com. Finally, thanks to Mrs. Imamura's generosity, endowed fellowships at the University of San Francisco and Michigan State University honor her husband's life's work as a cross-cultural educator. The fellowships support graduate students affiliated with USF's Center for the Pacific Rim and MSU's English Language Center, and give others interested in Shig's life and work one more way to honor him and continue his life's work.

For those of us who worked on the memoir, the best, and most wonderfully astonishing aspect of the Shig Project has been the places it has led us and the people we have encountered. All of our experiences have been positive. Our horizons have expanded; we have learned so much; we have met scores of kind and interesting people, far many more than those mentioned here, and each of them has been supportive and helpful. My thanks to all of them.

One day not too long after the event in San Francisco, Isako told me about how one of her friends had suggested that the story—Shig's and hers—needed another version, one that included the romance her typically-Japanese-style-reticent husband had omitted. I agreed and was honored when Isako agreed that I could try my hand at turning the memoir into a novel—just before I was overwhelmed with
what have I gotten myself into?
But, like all of the journeys the Shig Project has taken me on, this too has been a joy.

I have many, many to thank. Some are others of Shig's protégés: Johnnie Johnson Hafernik, Charles J. Quinn, Michael Raleigh, and Stephanie Vandrick. Shig and Isako made deep impressions on all of them, and they have carried Professor Imamura lesson's forward through distinguished academic and publishing careers of their own. Special thanks to Charlie Quinn for his assistance with literary Japanese and translations. The assistance all these old friends offered has made me grateful, all over again, for the bonds we formed many years ago as graduate students. Others who have helped never met Professor Imamura, but were touched by his story and the message he was so passionate to deliver. They provided invaluable assistance in the earlier stages of the Shig Project and have given me generous support as I worked to turn the story into a novel. They all have my deepest gratitude and affection: Eiji Kanno, Fumiko Kanno, Etsuko Kawasaki, Mamoru Kabori, and Ryoichi Miura.

The love, patience, and encouragement of Johnnie Johnson Hafernik, Mary O'Keefe, and Michael W. Dolan have enriched my life and supported and sustained me as I've worked on this latest version of Shig and Isako's story. Stacey Bredhoff, Janice Fitzgerald, Nina Johns, Marianne Klugheit, Monica Petersson, and Polly Rich have provided the same support I have been privileged to have for decades. My thanks too to Katherine Andrus, Anders Bengtsson, Charles F. Donley, John Hafernik, Don Hainbach, Michael Feldman, Colin Flynn, Carlos Grau-Tanner, Leslie Lugo, Mark MacKeigan, Nancy Malan, Mike Muller, Carl Nelson, Marilena Perrella, Bruce Rabinovitz, Amy Sloan, Joanne Szafran, Antoinette Tatta, and Carlos Tornero. Special thanks to Sen Huang and to Robert E. Bristow and all of his capable, caring colleagues.

Finally, my thanks to other members of the Washington, D.C. area writing community and other friends who, along with Isako, generously read drafts and offered constructive criticisms along with their support: Kathy Anderson, Alana Black, Frances Holmes, Mark Klugheit, Nandini Lal, Ann McLaughlin, Junko Mukoyama, Ilse Munro, Bernadette Pedagno, Judith Penski, Cathleen Peterson, Lynn Purple, Dan Ryan, David Schmidt, Briana Spencer, Madeline Tedesco, Mark Toner, Natasha Tynes, and James Yagley. All errors are mine.

Constance O'Keefe (1948–2011) taught English for a year in Japan. She worked at the Japan National Tourist Organization, the Japan Society, and the Consulate General of Japan in New York. With Eiji Kanno, she co-authored Japan Solo, a guide to Japan for foreign travelers and residents. She worked for twenty-five years as a lawyer in international aviation law, and as an adjunct law professor at several institutions on the East Coast. She was co-editor with Isako Imamura, Johnnie Johnson Hafernik, and Stephanie Vandrick of Shig: The True Story of an American Kamikaze–A Memoir by Shigeo Imamura.