This happened 22 years ago. Yet a death in the family cannot be counted in years. It’s always as if yesterday. With Japan’s season of obon just past, the time seems appropriate to look again at that somber “yesterday” when my wife’s mother passed away. Two years back, I posted a column that described her initial decline into failing health. To read that again, please click here. Never was she hospitalized. We had care workers dropping by the house daily. She died in her bedro

The hardest thing I have ever done was to teach my own children English. Like with most international couples, my wife and I have secured dual citizenship for our kids, meaning that they themselves get to choose their nationality once they reach adulthood. Yet, long ago we realized that the choices we made for them when they were little would pave our son’s decisions. Emphasis on either language, we felt surely would point them in the direction of that culture.

"Hey… Get that!" A simple husband-to-wife request in what had been the hush of a peaceful weekend morning. "Get what?" she said. "What do you mean, 'Get what!?'" For at that moment our tea kettle was foaming at its metal mouth and peeping a tune so shrill it could both wake the dead and make them regret the experience. A screech I found I could only illustrate by adding a particular emphasis – by declaring that our about-to-burst kettle was… "Screaming like a banshee!"

2014 is — according to the Chinese zodiac — the Year of the Horse. We thus celebrate the spin of the 12-year cycle. This is our year! "Well, they can take it back," she says. "I don't want it." Right. It's not like they give you anything. They don't hand you a golden key to the planet or a weekend pass to Disneyland, or even a packet of tissues. I could get that much at least with a quick trot around Shinjuku Station. The only thing you get is a horsey glow — that is, if y

Meet "Father Smith" -- silver hair, gentle smile and a voice so mellow that it flows with a grace from beyond. Maybe there’s a God and maybe there isn't, but when you're with Father Smith, you tend to believe there is. There's just one thing. He's as phony as hell. "I'm an English teacher," he says. "I marry people at a hotel chapel on weekends. I wear the robes, a cross, the whole nine yards. Nobody knows. And nobody cares." He smiles his smile. "Except for maybe me."

One of our family has become a Buddhist. The new Buddhist is not my Japanese wife, who professes Christianity. Nor is it her kin, who advance the sukiyaki approach to religious faith, as in: whatever adds a little flavor is welcome to the mix. No, the family Buddhist is my dog. The story behind this is approximately 14 years long. One third-grade morning, my second son found a frisky puppy outside his classroom window.

The snake is perhaps more tacky than menacing. To others, it shows only my poor taste in decoration. To me, however, the snake symbolizes something beyond. It signifies the choice I made in opting to live my life in Japan. An eternal reminder that I am snake-bitten. "Get rid of it," says my son. I can't. The snake, in its evil coil, is a scaly link between my two homes, one here and one in the States. Which of these is "abroad," I can no longer say.

On the morning of his son's wedding, Frank Gibbs, the neighborly physician in Thorton Wilder's Our Town, confesses to his wife that his chief concern in the early days of their own marriage was how to make small talk with his bride. "I was afraid," he tells her, "we wouldn't have material for conversation more'n'd last us a few weeks." Spin the world and switch sleepy Grover's Corners for wide-awake Tokyo, and I admit I had a similar anxiety when my wife and I married in 19

I was beachball-eyed with love. In fact, when we first met, I couldn't take my eyes off her. I pledged my devotion and we traveled everywhere together, merrily rolling over the hills and valleys of life. Rarely have I been so happy. Then -- slowly -- the years took their toll. She began to age. She lost the pep of her younger days. She lost some beauty too. She remained steadfast and responded eagerly to my every request, yet… I couldn't help it. My eyes began to wander.

"Help!" she seems to whisper. She gestures with frantic eyes."The man behind me… He's got a gun in my back! Save me! Please!"

I have actually been to the Twilight Zone.

There are rules in love stories.

She figured the last sight she would ever see would be that of a bear-sized American soldier chopping at her with a bayonet.

“The Keeper of Dragonflies” is the initial work in my online short story collection of the same name.

I have put down roots, dropped my anchor, pitched my tent, hitched my pony, cooled my jets and shelved my thesaurus. After 25 nomadic years,

One benefit of wedding into a Japanese family is the discovery that there is much more to Japanese cuisine than just sushi and tempura.

My old college roommate has named his dog after my wife. "Is this some sort of a prank?" I ask him.

Sometimes love does find a way. Sometimes it is the only thing that can.

I asked my future wife to marry me while we were in the ofuro.

Most Japanese serve rice at every meal and feel a meal is incomplete without it. Many also assume that Westerners think the same about bread