"My Mother's Gifts" by Akira Odani

My mother disliked going into debt. Self-sufficiency remained her ideal.

He rendered our family homeless and forced my mother to find shelter in abhorrent shacks.

Akira Odani is a Tokyo-born, American-educated bilingual writer of essays, fiction, and non-fiction stories with a focus on cultural, social, and political issues characterizing the two countries. His works have appeared in a Kaidankai (Japanese Ghost Stories) edited and podcasted by Linda Gould, anthologies of the Florida Writers Association Collection, and the Personal Stories Publishing Project produced by Randell Jones. Akira is an aging Asian member of the vigorous writing group, Taste Life Twice Writers.

Author’s Talk

Akira Odani

I was born in Tokyo, Japan, in the fall of 1945, soon after the country surrendered to the Allied Forces. I grew up there during the most chaotic post-war decade of the country undergoing fundamental socio-political changes. Once I moved to the United States as a young adult, I was able to grow mentally and intellectually, thanks to the help and hospitality offered by my American friends. I went to a graduate school, obtained the highest degree, taught in colleges, and started a business, while my earlier years in Japan was a series of struggles and challenges due mainly to my father’s fruitless and restless pursuit of get-rich-quick schemes.  

During the last months of my high school years, I didn’t have a penny, my father in hiding, my mother equally penniless, struggled daily to feed her children. Quite unexpectedly, she came to my aid. With her optimism and energy, she took a decisive step of swallowing her pride and obtained a loan to cover my college tuition. I started my higher education at the International Christian University, an institution inspired and donated by Christians in America and Canada, an expression of condolences for the victims of the two atomic bombs that fell on Japan.   

I remember the glorious grin she carried on her face when she returned from that pivotal visit to her friend’s business, “Now, Akira, you can go to college!” Thank you, mother. She provided me the rocket fuel to fly across the Pacific Ocean.—Akira Odani