The Light - An Alumni Publication Fall 2014 | Page 17

REFLECTIONS

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and we married. And so on.
But Miho’s dream of
If you love our work, then
From the first days of my YFU
spending the following year
tell the world! You have an
homestay, I filled journals with
in the States hinged on her
opportunity to help us make
my experiences in the Japanese
family first hosting an exchange
even more of a difference in
culture and later mined these
student. So Obachan relented.
our community.
musings to create final projects
Soon she was tucking treats
for two master’s degrees, one in
into my o-bentou for school lunch,
journalism and another in creative
teaching me Japanese numbers using
writing. Recently, I finished writing a
coins from her purse and emerging as
book-length memoir about how running off to
my advocate—one with an uncanny ability to
Japan actually helped me find my way home.
break down language barriers. When I left Japan, I
The story continues. Last year, my host parents
missed her most of all.
and same-age host sister, Miho, traveled to New
Today my YFU host parents are nearly the age
York, and I flew from my home in Washington state
Obachan was when we first met, and Miho and I
so we could spend a long weekend together. As
are older than her parents were then. They call me
we toured and visited, we marveled at how our
their third daughter, and Miho and I still treat each
lives had become intertwined twenty-seven years
other as sisters. Although our visits are too few and
previously.
far between, we treasure our ocean- and cultureBack then I had no idea that Miho’s
crossing family, one made possible by a few leaps
grandmother had resisted inviting a stranger—me— of faith that set us all on paths we never could have
into their three-generation home. She knew she
imagined for ourselves.
would be spending a lot of time alone with a young
foreigner while her daughter-in-law worked long
- Sarah Coomber, Japan 1986
hours, her son spent weekdays in another city, and
her two granddaughters studied. Would she be
safe?

Sarah Coomber reunites with her host family (YFU Japan 1986) to visit Niagara Falls in Sptember 2013. From left are Coomber, and
Koichi, Miho, and Ryoko Maeda.
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