August 3, 1981, you came to pick me up at Charlottesville airport in a sky blue station wagon.
The inside of the car looked like a garage on the move; fishing rods, buckets, blankets, a tool box, etc.
I introduced myself and you tried a couple of times to pronounce my name correctly, saying, "So, you are Ka-eh-ru."
"Oh, no, please, Mrs. Day, that means 'frog' in Japanese," I said. You burst out laughing. "Frog! Ha, ha...."
My name is 'Ka-oh-ru,' which means something like fragrance, " said I.
"Flagrance? Could it be a name in your country?" she said, half-puzzled, half-smiling.
"Not flagrance but fragrance, Mrs. Day. Like fragrance of a spring breeze. I was born on March 1, the first day of spring."
You could see the heat haze that afternoon. On a patch of ground a sunny-side up could have been fried in a couple of minutes.
You asked me if I was hungry or thirsty.
"Ah, well, I'd like to have some iced coffee," I said.
"Iced coffee!" you laughed out again, as if you got an overdose of laughing gas.
You drove straight to a McDonald's on 29, and happily ordered at the counter, "The gentleman here wants to have 'iced-coffee.'"
They put some coffee in a large cup and then poured a lot of crushed ice.
It tasted like iced water with a little bit of coffee flavor.
...so it started.
Sometimes I wonder what I would have been if I had not met you.
The thought gives me shudders.
As a typical Japanese, I am very bad at showing deep feelings.
So, I just say I love you.
Kaoru
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