by Ruth Hayashi
“I remember standing on my cot in our barrack in Block 12 and watching people come and go… seeing families who were together and envying them. I felt so alone.”
The day we left for Tanforan, my father had a fever and got taken to the hospital in an ambulance because he had pneumonia and TB. He was in Livermore, California, in a sanatorium. He wrote to me in English and to my mother in Japanese. He wrote, “I’m getting better.” In a later message, he said, “There was water in my lungs and they had to drain it.” By that time, we were at Topaz.
My mother got permission to visit him. She traveled by Greyhound bus from Utah to Livermore. I couldn’t go with her, so I was left behind in camp. I remember standing on my cot in our barrack in Block 12 and watching people come and go from the Topaz Co-op dry goods store in the recreation hall, seeing families who were together and envying them. I felt so alone.
My mother stayed with my dad in Livermore for a month until he died.
About the contributor: Ruth Hayashi grew up on the Berkeley, CA estate called “Cedars,” where her father worked as a chauffeur-gardener and her mother helped in the household. She was in the second grade at Topaz. After the War, she and her mother returned to Cedars, where her mother became her former employer’s caregiver. Ruth graduated from Berkeley High in 1951.
Copyrignt 2017, Ruth Uyeda Hayashi. All rights reserved.