Razor

Our company president is 67. For 45 years, no one has called him anything but "President." His employees. His clients. I'm fairly sure his wife calls him "President" in her heart. Last month, he visited our office in Georgia. On the first morning, they took him to a diner. A waitress named Darlene, around 70, poured his coffee without asking and said: "Here you go, baby." The president froze. In Japan, a woman calls a man "baby" after thirty years and a wedding. Darlene had known him for forty seconds. He did what any serious Japanese executive would do. He decided this was the opening of a negotiation. He stood up, bowed, and presented his business card with both hands. Darlene took it, tucked it into her apron, and said, "Thank you, sugar." Sugar. Now there were two of them. He sat back down very slowly. He did not touch his eggs. Finally, he leaned over to one of our American employees and asked, in a low, serious voice: "What is my relationship with this woman?" "You don't have one, sir. She calls everybody that." "Everybody?" "Everybody." He could not accept this. The next morning, he wore his best suit. He started keeping notes. I have seen the notebook. Day 1: Baby. Day 2: Sugar. Day 3: Hon. Day 4: Sweetie pie. Under Day 4, in his careful handwriting: "I am being promoted." He told me later, "I have been married for 40 years. My wife has never once called me sugar. A woman I met eleven minutes ago did." Then he said something I think about a lot. "In Japan, warm words are something you earn. Over many years. In Georgia, they pour them for you with the coffee. Before you've done anything to deserve them." On his last morning, he did something none of us expected. He had practiced it in his hotel room for three nights. Darlene filled his cup and said, "There you go, baby." And the president of our company looked up at her, completely serious, and said: "Thank you, darlin'." Darlene laughed so hard she had to sit down in the booth next to him. The men at the counter started clapping. One of them yelled, "He's one of us now!" He came back to Tokyo a different man. On Sunday morning, for the first time in 40 years of marriage, he walked into the kitchen and said to his wife: "Good morning, sugar." She dropped the lid of the rice cooker. She still hasn't said anything about it. But he tells me she has been smiling for a week.

My aunt Setsuko wears an American soldier's dog tag under her blouse. She has worn it every day for fourteen years. This is how she got it. In 2006, my aunt signed up to host an American exchange student. She was 50. She didn't speak English. She did it because her son Daiki, who was eight, was being bullied at school, and she thought a big brother from far away might help him be brave. The student was Jake. Sixteen. From a small town in Tennessee. Six-foot-two. He ducked under every doorway in her house and hit his head on all of them anyway. He said "Yes, ma'am" to everything, even when he didn't understand the question. Once, my aunt asked him in Japanese if he wanted to try natto. He said, "Yes, ma'am." He talked about it for the rest of the year. He carried the groceries for every old woman on her street. He bowed too deep and too long, so the neighbors bowed back, and nobody knew how to end it. Then he found out about Daiki. He didn't say anything. The next morning, he walked Daiki to school. And the next morning. And every morning for a month. He didn't threaten anybody. He didn't have to. He just walked next to an eight-year-old boy, all six-foot-two of him, saying "Good morning!" to everyone. Including the bullies. The bullies stopped. My aunt asked him why he did it. Jake thought about it, then said something she made him write down so she would never forget it: "Big people are supposed to stand in front of small people, ma'am." She still has that piece of paper. When he left Japan, he hugged her at the airport for so long that a security guard asked them to move. He called her "Japan Mom." Every Mother's Day for six years, a card came from Tennessee. Terrible Japanese. Careful handwriting. At eighteen, he joined the Army. She asked him why. He said, "Somebody has to stand in front, ma'am." In 2012, her phone rang at 3 a.m. It was a woman in Tennessee. Linda. Jake's mother. Linda didn't speak Japanese. My aunt didn't speak English. But my aunt heard her crying, and she understood everything. Jake was killed in Afghanistan. He was 22. My aunt had never been on an airplane. She flew to Tennessee alone, with Jake's address written on a piece of paper. On the road from the airport to the church, people were lined up for miles. Farmers. Children. Old men in veterans' caps, saluting. A flag in every hand. My aunt rode in the car with Linda. She didn't know what to do. So every time she passed a flag, she bowed. Linda saw it. She didn't say anything. She just held my aunt's hand for the rest of the way. After the funeral, in Linda's kitchen, Linda opened a small box. Jake's dog tags. Two of them. She took one off the chain. She pressed it into my aunt's hand and closed her fingers around it. Then she said the only Japanese word she knew. Jake had taught her. "Okaasan." Mother. "He had two mothers," Linda said. "So he had two tags." My aunt is 70 now. She has worn it every single day since. She and Linda still can't speak each other's language. For fourteen years, every Mother's Day, they have sent each other one card. Linda's always ends with the same words. Jake's words. "Japan Mom, thank you." And Daiki? The little boy who was too scared to walk to school? He's 28 now. He's a firefighter in Tokyo. Last year, he ran into a burning apartment building and carried out a seven-year-old girl. A reporter asked him why he chose this job. He said, "An American taught me when I was eight. Big people stand in front of small people." America, you have boys like Jake in every small town. You don't make a big deal about them. They just stand in front. Some of them don't come home. We want you to know that a mother in Japan still wears one of their names over her heart, every single day. We remember who stood in front of us.