In Print



The print version of my Sakura column, without further comment.
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For the love of Sakura, I left my mountains behind, traveling northward to the far shores of Lake Ontario. I walked Wards Island and looked across the water to gleaming Toronto, holding her in my thoughts.

It began with an e-mail correspondence about soup -- matzo ball soup, to be specific -- that quickly grew beyond the bounds of the neat little labels defining relationships here in the sunlit world.

When I first knew her, Sakura was living in Toronto, finishing a dissertation needed to earn a doctorate from Princeton. I made her acquaintance through an online photography site that we both frequented.

We discovered a common love of food and travel and the growing of green things. The floral photos we passed back and forth soon became tokens of affection. The Sakura that I grew to know through her words and voice was wise and playful, compassionate and utterly brilliant.

My divorce and the circumstances surrounding it had been a lonely business, a long, maddening walk alone in a dark place. But Sakura's voice kept me company, guiding me toward warmth and light again.

"Don't ever be afraid," she once told me.

Sakura's own life had seemed deceptively fallow to her. She felt constrained in Toronto, caught up in the solitude of her all-consuming studies, but each day she was growing roots, readying to blossom.

At last, came an offer of a job at Oberlin College in Ohio, a chance to kindle the students under her care. Even as she planned the move, her last weeks in Toronto were filled with the joy of meeting new friends, of reaching out.

Life in Oberlin delighted Sakura -- the small things bringing her such joy -- the city park, the blueberries that her landlord brought her or the front stoop where she could play her guitar and enjoy a nightly glass of red wine.

Somewhere between Toronto and Oberlin, her voice had changed, gaining a vibrant confidence that had been previously masked.

As we talked on the phone that last summer evening, she spoke a great deal about her past, not with longing or regret, but with acceptance and a great joy as she looked ahead.

The evolution of our closings over the months would have been humorous to an outside observer as we carefully mapped out our affection in text and hesitant words.

But then, at the last: "I love you," she said, pausing for a long moment to listen to the echo of her own words. "That wasn't hard to say." And she laughed, a touching sound of delight and relief.

So I told her that I loved her, too. Gladly. How could I not? And then we said goodbye.

The next day, she was dead. A car accident.

Sinead, an old, old friend of Sakura, tracked me down to deliver the news. Her kindness in the midst of her own grief still overwhelms me. There was another phone call, another voice -- her brother, Takuma, kindly inviting me to a memorial service at her parent's home. So, I came to Toronto to say good-bye.

How do you truly know someone? I know very well that communication can only be as deep as the surface, a matter of illusion. But don't tell me that I didn't know Sakura.

My last night in Toronto, I took the ferry to Wards Island again, finding my way to the beach in the dark, passing a campfire and laughter.

Anger sent me prowling to the water's edge. The ache became movement, my boot heels hammering the board walk as I ran blindly. The placid lake offered no reflection, just the sound of waves in the night.

It was a small agony to walk by the time I finally stumped to the docks of Centre Island, trying to lose myself among the thinning crowd.

I wish I could say there was some revelation in the lights of Toronto glittering across the lake, some clarity gained. But there was not, only the knife of her absence.

If we could have met in the flesh, would it have skewed the probabilities just enough to spare her? Would that first kiss have nudged the causal chain of events, just so?

In another world, I am traveling I-75 North toward Oberlin, toward Sakura. I am walking up the steps and the door is opening onto light, onto her and we both step forward.

But this is not another world. And I should be content to have these memories, but so much potential is gone from the world. So much light. There is no knowing now. No hope.

Each day brings news that I so badly want to share with her, but all I can say now is good-bye. And that, I am not yet willing to do. So I wait for a phone call.

It never comes.