The Legacy

1. The Will

I exited the lawyer’s office quickly, whisking myself out of my chair at the back of the oak-walled room and striding ahead of Father to avoid any talk, or, more likely, criticism. “See I told you that she wouldn't leave you anything, you are a disappointment to both of us”, Father shouted after me. I did not need to turn around to know the slow, cruel smirk which would be growing across his sagged face. Mother was gone and finally free of him, and that gave me strength, stopping myself from any sign of a tear. It was a tragedy that it took death for her to escape.

Mother left nothing to me in her will except, in Father’s words, “a few meaningless objects”. Father had gleefully reminded me many times in the past few months, whenever I had the misfortune to cross paths with him at her hospital bedside. Father did not even have the compassion (or perhaps intelligence) to realise that it did not make him a bigger man to say this, particularly in front of the end-of-life nurse who glanced at me with big disbelieving sympathetic eyes, whenever she heard his hurtful comments.

I remember the occasion four years ago when Father arranged for Mother and he to visit his lawyer’s office (a friend from the golf club) to arrange their wills. Mother grabbed her designer coat and went without complaint, as she did with everything, being swept along like a fragile leaf in a strong wind, unable to control the powerful, unstoppable force of Father. I am sure she did not even know what she was signing, and she had learnt not to ask.

2. The Wake

Unsurprisingly, Father had arranged the Will to be read even before Mother had been laid to rest. The day after the reading pf the will was the quick (fairly cheap) funeral, followed by a wake at my Mother and Father’s house – a house I had lived in my whole life until 5 years ago when I went to College, but that I could never call a ‘home’. Mother made it the best childhood she could for me, but the iron fist of my Father (with his words, rather than his hand) was always there. As I approached the house, the cherry blossom trees that Mother had planted when I was born framed the pathway and I blinked away tears. So elegant, but only blossoming on rare occasions, so similar to her.

I wandered the rooms of the house which, on one hand, I knew so well, but felt at the same time so distant. The living space was filled with people in black offering polite but distant condolences; these were not friends of Mother, some were acquaintances but most were my Father’s friends.

It became apparent to me in my teenage years that Mother was not allowed freedom to who she became friends with, or freedom to do as she wished or desired. I always knew she was intrigued by Japan and anything Japanese, perhaps spurned on by her own father who had been a POW in a Japanese camp in the Second World War, and developed a respect for their culture, even despite the cruel inhumane treatment dished out. The only thing I ever heard her ask for from my Father in the 18 years I lived in the house, was a trip to Japan. As usual, and given he could see how much it meant to her, Father declined. I recall a few months in the house after that when we ate nothing but sushi, sashimi and ramen.

3. The Trees

My Mother loved trees. The Cherry Blossoms were a given, and she had a couple of Bonsai trees that she had lovingly pruned over many years. I had not been aware of the growing collection of Japanese Maple trees she had acquired that stood proudly and almost exotically at the bottom of the garden. The only items left to me in her will were the maple trees.

A few days after the wake, I pulled up outside the modest house of Mother and Father, wondering what to do about the trees. Father appeared nonplussed about me being left them, but then he never appreciated Mother’s love of Japan. I wandered over to the Japanese maples in the garden. Seeing one of them had turned into a beautiful fiery red leafed natural goddess, I could see why she adored these trees.

I decided to pot the beautiful maple in a terracotta pot I found nearby. I dug into the earth below the tree and the spade hit something hard. I thought little of it and carried on digging around the object, but the spade hit it many times clanging metal on metal as if it was a bell ringing for my attention. I pulled the metal box out of the ground, no bigger than a shoe box and designed to last in the ground. I undid the two metal clasps and having to use some force, and opened the box; there lay a little black book and a large number of bound $20 notes, about $20,000.

4. The Adventure

My heart was racing. I opened the first page of the little black book. I was expecting to see a diary but it was not. It was a list in my Mother’s perfect hand writing, of all the things she wanted to do. Motorbiking. Seeing Japan. Eating in Japan. Living in Japan. It was a bucket list that had never been fulfilled; just a list of dreams that could never be reached. By her.

I gathered up the box and it contents and hurried to my car, before Father could ask any questions. Had she placed that money there as an escape for herself or just knowing I would find it after she had gone?

This was no longer about how Father could exercise control. This was about Mother’s freedom even if was too late for her.

I booked a flight for Tokyo and I was excited. I only bought the ticket to be one-way.

My adventure could begin, with my mom as my strength and my guide.