Quote of the Week - January 24, 2012
Tuesday – 1/24/12
“Even over time, with all that has been gone through, still the only thing you are thinking about is your family. Right when you’re near the end of your life, you are still thinking about your family.”
Brian Berry, a graduate student at the University of Tokyo, who brought Japanese-American Minoru Ohye from the Tokyo airport to Kyoto for a reunion with his brother Hiroshi Kamimura, after not having seen each other for over 60 years. While there, Ohye celebrated his 86th birthday with his brother Hiroshi, who is 84.
Brothers Hiroshi Kamimura (left) and Minoru Ohye (right) who reunited in Japan after 60 years.
The brothers were born in Sacramento, Calif., but were separated as children after their father died in a fishing accident. They were sent to live with relatives in Japan and ended up in different homes.
Hiroshi Kamimura was adopted by a Japanese family, and grew up in Kyoto. Ohye joined the youth group of the Japanese Imperial Army at 13 and went to Russia, where he was sent to a Siberian coal mine when Japan surrendered. He returned to be with his mother in Yuba City, California, in 1951, and worked as a bookbinder and a gardener.
Separated across the Pacific, their only prior meeting had been a brief one in the mid-1950s when Ohye stopped by Japan while serving in the U.S. Army in the demilitarized zone on the Korean peninsula.
About 10 years ago, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a welfare service organization for U.S. veterans, found Ohye a spot in the Eskaton Wilson Manor home for the elderly. It was Eskaton’s program to grant a wish called “Thrill of a Lifetime” that got Ohye back to Japan. While others wished for rafting trips and football game tickets, the only thing Ohye wanted was to see his brother again.
Kamimura acknowledged it had been difficult to communicate with his brother through telephone calls because he didn’t understand English. They would exchange a lot of “hellos” and then their conversations ended, he said. “I am happy. He is the only brother I have,” Kamimura said after watching Ohye blow out the candles on a birthday cake at a restaurant. “This may be our last time together.”