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Mother said that Father found
    Grandpa kneeling by the roses in his hospital
    pajamas as if he were tasting
    the soil like he used to, his hands on
    the earth, feeling the heat that’s been absorbed
    from the sun. Mother said that when Father tapped him
    on his shoulder, Grandpa just kneeled deeper as if he was
    praying. As if he were listening to the ground
    move beneath him. But he was dead already.
    Mother said that when they brought Grandpa back,
    the rose was held tightly in his hand.
    He died in his garden, where he felt at home.
    He died with his hands and feet caked in mud, with a rose
    in his hand. He died amidst the roses, away
    from the dark and dank hospital room, away from our sad
    room, away from the land of his birth,
    away from Seattle, away from us,
    quietly surrounded by the only thing he brought from
    home: roses.
February 1945
    Dear Jamie,
    Thank you for your letter.
    Grandpa would have loved the news
    about the cherry blossom tree.
    Tell your father that Grandpa always
    appreciated him for taking care of the house.
    I never thought that he would die.
    I never knew how much it would hurt.
    I would be doing my homework,
    and suddenly, I think Grandpa is lying
    on his bed like he used to,
    and I would start to tell him about my day
    until I remember that he is gone.
    And all this sadness, all this grief
    comes rushing out, and I cry.
    And there will be no one around
    so I go to Grandpa’s bed,
    and lie down and I can smell him still:
    the smell of earth and dirt and a little
    bit of rose. And I cry and cry
    until I can’t breath anymore
    and I think I’m going to die
    and I don’t care if I do.
    Jamie, I never knew I could hurt so much.
    Mina Masako

March 1945
    Dear Mina,
    This is a letter I can’t send to you, but I am writing to let you know that I am alive. Even now, I’m surprised that I lived after two weeks of hell through mud and rain and bullets. They told us that the Germans had fortified the hill, and that our battalion was supposed to take it. We’d been crawling on our stomachs through the mud, marching through the rain, fighting, fighting for the past week and half, and now, they want us to fight, again. Lieutenant Kawahata didn’t say anything when he got the message, but just said, “Boys, we’ve got another job.” One by one, the boys shot through the barren landscape between us and the hill, and one by one, they got shot down. Like toy soldiers being flicked off a board. Like I used to, when I was a kid. Shig fell screaming. Kaz fell. Bob fell, they all fell, littering the ground, some so quiet, some screaming for help. One by one, my friends fell, and the only thing I could do was to keep the artillery shells going, aiming at the hill where snipers might be, until finally, Kot got through—he’s always been the fastest and the smallest, and shot down the closest sniper. The path became clear and opened up. The zigzag through the earth seemed impossible. I was shaking, I was scared. So goddamn scared. Then Lieutenant Kawahata shot through the zigzag, then one boy after another, following the impossible zigzag toward the hill, following Kot’s path while I kept pumping shell after shell on the impossible hill. And it became easy. We all made it through, though we lost half the boys that day. It was our first real victory, but I felt as if we had lost this whole stinking war. With Kaz gone.
    Really gone. Shig may have to live with one leg for the rest of his life. When the Germans surrendered with their arms raised high, holding a white flag, they weren’t at all how I imagined them: hard, cruel, tall and monstrous with cigars clamped between their jaws talking about how they wanted to shoot babies and old people. Instead they were boys like us, teenagers, tired, scared, dirty, and looking almost relieved that their war was over, for now, that they could rest their bone-tired bodies in the POW camp. But this war, for me, will keep going until the war ends, or until I die,