For as long as I can remember, my father always got a box of Hawaiian Host macadamia nut chocolates for Christmas. They came in the mail, wrapped in brown paper and tied up with a string, in a manner which was archaic already in the seventies when I was a child.
There wasn't much that came in the mail for my Dad to be excited about. He didn't write letters or send cards. He did all the physical work of farming, but Mom kept the books and paid the bills, so even the business mail generally got opened and dealt with before he even saw it. Airplane magazines he read when he got the chance, but usually they piled up on his desk back in the "office" before he got around to them.
When the box from Hawaii came, though, it was different. Nobody opened it but him. It sat in a prominent place on the kitchen counter where it would be sure to be seen as soon as he came in from chores. Then, once he came in, it disappeared. We all knew what it was. But I don't recall being there when it was opened. It would disappear back into some secret cupboard and stay there. Sometimes, on Christmas day, Mom, my sister and I would see the box, and each be offered one candy. Then, it would be gone again. Dad made them last, too. I remember him eating the last one ceremoniously upon receiving the new box.
I remember looking at the package, fascinated not because there was a mystery inside but because of the story which surrounded it. For me, growing up on a small farm in Minnesota, especially in the winter, Hawaii was further away and more exotic than my imagination could reach. And yet, someone there sent a box of candy to my Dad every single year. On top of it, the sender had a name I could barely pronounce. I was used to the reliable German and Swedish Lutheran names of my neighborhood. Some were long, but they were familiar and they all followed a pattern. This name was clearly not cut from the same cloth. Susumi was the first name, Japanese, and the last name was just as strange to me. What little I knew of the Japanese I had learned from Hollywood movies like Tora Tora Tora, or watching "Baa Baa Black Sheep" (which was can't-miss TV in our house then). In addition, I sometimes snuck into my parents bedroom and went through the contents of the cedar chest, where my mother had stored my father's souvenirs from the war: the rising sun flag, the silk handkerchief screened with the newpaper headline "Japs Surrender!"; the OD garrison cap.
I suppose it seems confusing that my father, who served as an occupying soldier in Japan after the war would be getting candy from a man with a Japanese name from Hawaii 30 and 40 years later, but in our house it seemed natural, because we had all grown up with the story. Sus and my father were best buddies in the army. The Japanese American from Hawaii and the German farm kid from Minnesota (who spoke only German until he went off to school, by the way) served together in Fukuoka and hit it off. It didn't seem weird to us that our dad's WWII army buddy was name Susumi and not Tex or Sam.
It was an annual ritual that was as dependable as Old Faithful probably since before I was born, through the seventies and eighties, and into the nineties as I left for college, and eventually started a family of my own. Then, one year about 2000 I believe, Christmas came and went, but no package of candies arrived. I didn't really notice, but I noticed my father seemed quiet, so I asked my mother what was wrong. She explained "He didn't get his candies this year." I said, "maybe Sus just forgot" but as soon as I heard it come out of my mouth, I knew it couldn't be true. Then, a letter came. It was written by one of his children, since Sus' wife didn't speak much English. Sus had passed away, and his wife wanted his son to write and tell the man in cold and lonely Minnesota so far away. Just to close the chapter, I guess. Since then, my dad has lost his brother and sister and a number of friends. He has had a stroke and struggled with pain. He has seen a lot of loss in his 87 years.
In any case, a few years ago I was walking through a grocery store here in Minnesota and I saw something I had never seen here - a box of Hawaiian Host Macadamia Nut candies. My wife and I looked at them and decided immediately to buy them for my dad for a Christmas gift. I wasn't sure how he'd react, it wouldn't be the same coming from us, of course, but I thought he might enjoy them.
Ever since then every year, my wife and I go back to that store, buy a box, and give it to my Dad as a gift. Every year, he doesn't say much at all, but the candy disappears into a secret cupboard somewhere, and although I don't know for sure, I guess he has figured out how to dole them out and have one left in the box when December rolls around.
It started as a way for Sus to tell him "I remember." Now, however it is becoming a way for us to honor Dad and his friend, and their history, and maybe to reassure him that we will never forget.
