Jennifer's Journey: Yasuko

Up, Up With People! You meet 'em wherever you go!

Roma, Jen, Yasuko (1996)

I had the privilege of traveling for one year with the international organization Up With People. To learn more about my experiences with the program, you may enjoy reading a blog post I wrote in 2011: http://journalingjennifer.blogspot.com/2011/08/up-up-with-people.html

This past summer, I had the privilege of having a small reunion with five of my cast mates whom I hadn't seen since the last day of Up With People in 1996. Four of them were in California and one in Oregon. Each of these cast mates were people I admired, so I was thrilled to get to reunite. I was especially looking forward to spending two days with Yasuko and her husband and kids in Bend, Oregon.

Yasuko is originally from Japan. We had three members of our cast from Japan. I felt connected to them because my sister, Patty, actually lived in Japan at the time. I remember talking with Yasuko about the fact that she was from the very same area where Patty was living. Yasuko was a bubbly, happy, outgoing, kind person whom everyone loved. She was fun to be around and I always appreciated her warm personality. She sang a Japanese solo in our show wearing her lovely blue kimono. It was one of my favorite parts of the show.

After traveling in Up With People, I went on to college and Yasuko continued to travel with Up With People as a staff member. She met her husband, Scott in the program. After they got married, they settled down near Scott's parents in the high desert region of central Oregon. Scott and Yasuko have two adorable girls, Maya and Karina. Yasuko is a math teacher.

As mentioned earlier, my sister, Patty lived in Japan while I was in Up With People. She came back home to America for a while and then went back to Japan to live there for two years with her two boys (her husband traveled back and forth for visits). She returned to the same area where Yasuko's parents live. She was there when the earthquake and tsunami struck in 2011. That day in March was one of the hardest I have ever known. We went for nearly 24 hours not knowing if Patty and her boys were safe or not. Yasuko and I were Facebook friends and she wrote to inquire about Patty and the boys. We emailed back and forth quite a bit. Yasuko wrote that there were shelters set up all over Kesennuma and that Patty and the boys were probably safe and sound in one of them. She will never know how much that information meant to us. On the TV News it looked like all of Kesennuma was either on fire or under water. Yasuko's words gave us hope. Later that night (around midnight) we did find out that Patty and the boys were safe in one of those shelters that Yasuko told us about.

When Todd and I arrived in Bend this past summer, I felt a bit nervous, but the second I saw Yasuko and gave her a hug, all nervousness melted away. Yasuko and Scott were so very welcoming. They were the first members of Up With People that Todd had met and I felt happy that he got such a great first impression!

Our time in Bend fell over the Fourth of July. We did tons of visiting with Yasuko, Scott, Maya, Karina, and Scott's parents, brother and brother's wife. We enjoyed some fireworks, went on a hike to a waterfall, walked through a lava tube cave, climbed on a butte made of lava, went out to eat in downtown Bend, and explored the high dessert land where Yasuko and Scott are going to build their home someday soon. It was an enchanting couple of days together. I absolutely fell in love with Maya and Karina. Such clever, sweet, pleasant, joyful girls they are!

Yasuko and I were able to talk, truly talk about our Up With People experiences... the good and the bad. It felt so good to get down to the nitty gritty and have someone understand some of the hard stuff and the depth of feeling that goes along with those experiences. We also laughed and shared stories and remembered from our hearts. It was so good. It was healing.

As Todd and I were driving away after saying our goodbyes on the morning we left, I felt a huge lump in my throat and a stinging in my eyes. It was hard to have discovered a true friend and then have to leave, knowing it may be another 19 years before we see each other again. It's hard to explain the feeling. I tried to explain it in an email to Yasuko and she wrote back: "Someone told me once before that the true friendship will never end no matter how far and how long you are away from each other. It is so true!!"