In the year before my sister was born, Earl Robert Reid (Uncle Bob) was stationed at Kadena Air Force Base and Robert Earl Hallberg (dad) was stationed near Zukeran Marine Corps Station. Both bases were located in Okinawa. Earl Robert was an enlisted pilot who had grown up in an orphanage in Chicago, while Robert Earl was an enlisted logistics specialist who had grown up in Gary, Indiana. Both of them had done a couple of tours of duty in Korea during the U.S. Occupation.

Back then, military personnel and their dependents traveled to and from the major islands of Japan by boat. It was the habit of newspapers to publish passenger lists the day before each boat set sail; it was Uncle Bob’s habit to scan those passenger lists each week because he was looking for someone.

Mom visited her home town a handful of times, sailing from Naha to Shikoku before taking the ferry to Fukuoka. From there she’d take another boat across the Japan Sea to the port of Pusan. A few days later she’d reverse this route to get back to Naha and, ultimately, Zukeran.

One afternoon, Uncle Bob was again reading the passenger list when he stumbled upon a most unusual name: Ok Kum. He looked at it a few more times. He was pretty sure he’d found who he was looking for.

Mom returned to Okinawa that weekend. The next day she received a rather odd phone call.
“Hi, this is Earl Reid, am I speaking with Ok Kum?”
“Yes, I am Ok Kum.”
“Are you Korean?”

Koreans didn’t flaunt their nationality in light of the recent wartime atrocities. Mom had been schooled by the Japanese and was now living on a Japanese island, and though defiant enough to eschew the Japanese name she was given, she could not be wholly certain of the intent of a stranger blatantly questioning her nationality.

“Why are you asking?”
“Well…my wife is also Korean. I think she would like to have a friend from her own country to talk with.”

This is how Uncle Bob and Aunty Emi entered our lives.

Aunty Emi looked the part of a Japanese national. She was about 5′2″ tall and had a slender build. Both women spoke impeccable Japanese but where mom and her family had kept their Korean names, Emi and her family had adopted their assimilative translations.

The two women quickly became the best of friends. Aunty Emi and mom took sewing classes, nursing classes, and did just about everything as a pair. Uncle Bob and dad also became close pals. Our families used to tickle about the similarity in their names. Those guys did a lot of fishing, camping, and…naturally…drinking.

My sister was born a little later. Uncle Bob and Aunty Emi became her godparents.

The funniest story about their time in Okinawa involves a third Korean woman, a buxom and sultry young singer named Keja Kim. She was a big hit at NCO clubs around the Pacific, more popular than any pin-up from the States. To the drunken Uncle Bob and dad, Keja was a gorgeous young woman who happened to be Korean, just like their wives. To Aunty Emi and mom, Keja was a rival for the attention of these drunken American bums they made the mistake of marrying.

As Aunty Emi related years later, “Here come these guys after being out all night drinking, with this beautiful woman between them, and they stumble into your mom’s house, saying ‘Hey, look, we found another Korean!”

Aunty Keja lived with us for several months. Uncle Bob and dad were in the dog house for a lot longer.

We didn’t see much of them for a lot of our childhood. Mom decided she would raise her kids in Hawaii, and Uncle Bob was stationed at Langley. In the mid-70’s, just a few years after mom and dad divorced, Uncle Bob decided it was time to move to Honolulu. There were several exerting influences; he was retiring from active duty, Aunty Emi missed mom (and other Asians, truth be told), and of all the places in the world where he could raise his son, Hawaii made the most sense because we understood what it was to mix up our races. He bought a house, brought his family over, and became the dad my sister and I didn’t have. Eventually he brought all of Aunty Emi’s siblings from Korea, opening his home to them until they found their financial footing.

Our families were intertwined. Patrick was more of a cousin to us than our real cousins on the mainland. We spent amazing amounts of time at Uncle Bob’s house, playing out the dramas of our teen years for his amusement. When you needed to confide in someone, you picked Uncle Bob. When you needed advice, you called Uncle Bob. When you ran out of money, you pestered Uncle Bob.

At some point during those years, the relationship between Aunty Emi and mom soured. The rift never entirely mended itself, though in the years before Aunty Emi passed away the two did become friendly once more. Mom even joined them at Patrick’s graduation from the Air Force Academy in Colorado.

The largest defining moment of my life was not when my mom and dad divorced but when Uncle Bob and Aunty Emi divorced. I suppose it stemmed from my being Uncle Bob’s confidante-in-the-family, in the very early days of their separation. I ached for all that had happened, all that had gone on during the years when we thought we were one, big, close-knit bunch. After the divorce, Uncle Bob found a different life — a great life, in fact — and though we were less in touch as I got older, I was supremely happy for him. He still took care of Aunty Emi until the day she died. He loved her, in spite of everything.

On April 6, 2006, about a hundred of Uncle Bob’s closest friends and relatives gathered together to bid farewell to the man who had touched our lives with his love, his laughter, and his grace. The photos on the easels were full of smiles. I realized how much of his latter life I had missed but I was okay with this because…look at him…he was enjoying every moment.

As I hugged our cousin Patrick, all grown up with his own family now (and thinning a little on the forehead, just like his dad), I felt that same love and grace that his father possessed. It felt like old times.

We love you, Uncle Bob. Dad may still owe you $100 but we owe you so much more.