Aunt Hatsu

A letter came from my Aunt Hatsu today. She said she was thrilled to receive my recent letter. Meredith gave me Hatsu's address (and a letter Hatsu wrote to her last March) a few months ago. Hatsu lives alone in Adelaide. She corresponded with Meredith once a year for many years, but stopped some years ago, because she was seriously ill, Meredith thinks. We thought she may have died.

Hatsu may not be my aunt in fact, I'm unsure how it works, after a divorce. She was my aunt once. She was married to my uncle Ron, Elvie's brother. The marriage produced two children. I was in Adelaide in 1977 for a Bee Congress and stayed with Hatsu in her flat. She had left Ron by then. The kids were secondary school age. That was the last time I saw them. Hatsu remarried. Her second husband has since died.

In her letter she said she's 81 now and came to this country 54 years ago, so it must have been 1960. it was exciting for us to have a Japanese aunt. After they married they lived at first at Nanna Wilson's in Ashburton. My mother had the florist shop in Sth Yarra and left Meredith and I at Nanna's place on Saturday mornings. I remember Ron and Hatsu taking us walking along Gardiner's creek and sitting on the grass. Hatsu was friendly and warm despite her limited English and we liked her. Ron was uncommunicative and always gave me the feeling that I was an irritation to him, like everything else.

They moved to Narracoorte in SA where Ron took up a teaching post, and later Adelaide. Hatsu's son, now aged 50, is an airline pilot who has not lived with her since he finished high school, I think he did a cadetship with the RAAF. He has lived mostly in Europe, and in Dubai for the last five years, and visits Hatsu about once a year or so. Her daughter lives in Melbourne but Hatsu has had no contact for a few years. Neither of these cousins of mine married. They have strong loathing of Ron.

Uncle Ron remarried to a Filipino lady and had a daughter who would be in her 20's now. His second wife left him, but the daughter was in Ron's care and they visited us a number of times at the farm over the years. I could offer a lot of information and opinion about Ron, but it would be a long post and I don't have the energy. To summarize... Ron was a very odd turkey. When I stayed with Hatsu in 1977 she told me of the bad treatment she and the kids were subjected to over a long period. It took her a long time to build the courage to leave him with nothing and no one to help her. She worked then as a casual waitress in a local hotel.

A few years ago on our Adelaide holiday I visited Ron in an aged care facility where his daughter had told us he was now resident. He was suffering from dementia and was full of paranoia about being locked up and stripped of his assets and money... Could I get him out? Lib, who was with me, says this is a common thought process with dementia onset.

After I brought this news back to Elvie, Meredith wrote to Hatsu at the old address she had to let her know where Ron was, in case she wanted to know. Hatsu resumed the correspondence and thanked Meredith. That is how they came again to exchange letters. Hatsu says she has a few good friends in the Adelaide Japanese community and she enjoys a peaceful and happy life. In her letter to me that I read this evening, written so neatly and carefully, she says she hopes I come soon to see her and invited us to stay with her and she would love to meet my wonderful wife Libby.

It was a beautiful thing for me, to read those words, having connected with Hatsu again. There's something magical about hand written letters. I had to go to Melbourne (Dingley) today and stopped at Fountain Gate for lunch and shopping on the way home. It's a total mad house, the traffic, the city. I couldn't believe the number of young people smoking outside the mall- in this day and age! The radio and TV news is full of bad news and talk of war and bombing strikes and paranoia about muslims and burquas and terrorists and fear. The only fear I feel is my little dog being killed by some big mongrel. People can wear what they like and pray to whomever they like, this is supposed to be free country, the law applies to all and that's all that matters. I'm sick of the bullshit.

My aunt Hatsu was born about 1933 in Japan and came to a country in 1960 which still had very strong anti Japanese sentiment, understandably after WW11. The cities of her country were bombed almost to oblivion. She says she can hardly wait to talk to me. Well I can hardly wait to talk to her after a break of 37 years, now that I have 62 years under my belt and a different way of looking at the world than earlier in my life.