Frozen Teardrop by Lucinda Ruh Read Free Book Online Page B

American mouse (taller than me, by the way) on the table filled with other gifts and candles burning delightfully everywhere. I entered the room with my hands folded in prayer since I felt like I was in a church surrounded by angels and was thankful for this magical moment. The week of fantasy was highlighted by my favorite ride, the submarine. I feel it takes very little to make me truly happy. Being able to see the fish underwater from the little round window of the ship made my heart beat with joy and my sister and I really enjoyed the experience together. Then of course Peter Pan enhanced my enthusiasm about being in Never-Never land! However, I must admit my sister was much more courageous when going on all the roller coaster rides. I preferred watching from below with ponderous eyes as the speed and velocity of these rides both amazed and frightened me. Plus I was way too small.
    When we were at the airport ready to leave Orlando for Maui, I suddenly realized I had left my American souvenir, my Mickey Mouse, in the hotel room. My father made a plan to send a taxi to retrieve it at the hotel, return with it to the airport, and instruct the airline to mail it to us in Hawaii — even though my father didn’t really believe that I would ever see my Mickey Mouse again. Maui was beautiful and my swimming evolved to near perfection. I loved being like a fish in the water, carefree and able to dance and succumb to my own world where nothing could be heard, nothing could be said to me, and no one could catch me My own world was where I often retreated. After a few days of sun and water, to our pleasant surprise, I returned to our hotel to find my Mickey Mouse waiting on my bed! My father was completely impressed by the promise the American people had kept, and of course I jumped for joy.
    My parents always seemed to make everything happen magically without telling me how it was accomplished. It was truly wonderful how somehow my mother and father always made everything better. The week was wonderful, yet I am sure my father and mother must have been preparing mentally for what was to come in our new destination of Tokyo. It seemed as if this vacation was our refuge before an incredible and out-of-this world experience in the very different and foreign island of Japan, which was silently waiting for our arrival, like a lion waiting to pounce on its prey.
    Since I was just under five years old when I moved to Japan in the summer of 1984 it is unlikely I can really remember much of what was going on within me, much less around me at that age, yet while remembering in the normal sense of the word might not be possible, I believe every cell has a memory. Certainly the body and mind and heart do remember, and events after any event can trigger those memories within us.
    I must say lots of memories have been triggered! We are so innocent, so pure, so alive, yet so completely in our own universe at that age. But I think when we are children we see and feel everything, and even though adults act in ways that seem all too confusing to us, we as kids try so hard to be perfect for them. It is quite frightening to know that every little experience could change a life in a totally different direction at any given time. Every circumstance has an effect not only on that person but also on those around them, and effectively every single other person in this world. Yet isn’t it ironic that what we least remember can form you in the most incredible ways? Or so I truly believe.
    When we arrived in Tokyo, Japan, my parents were determined to make it a wonderful new home for all of us, knowing that this transition might be the most extreme and trying of all, but we actually didn’t even have a physical home to go to at first. In a way a HOME for me was more of an emotional state of being wherever my parents were because I moved places so many times, so I felt at home, but our actual physical home became an incredibly beautiful hotel.