Forgiveness
A Gift from My Grandparents
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
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When the Second World War broke out, Ralph MacLean chose to escape his troubled life on the Magdalen Islands in eastern Canada and volunteer to serve his country overseas. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Mitsue Sakamoto saw her family and her stable community torn apart after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Like many young Canadian soldiers, Ralph was captured by the Japanese army. He would spend the war in prison camps, enduring pestilence, beatings and starvation, as well as a journey by hell ship to Japan to perform slave labour, while around him his friends and countrymen perished. Back in Canada, Mitsue and her family were expelled from their home by the government and forced to spend years eking out an existence in rural Alberta, working other people's land for a dollar a day.
By the end of the war, Ralph emerged broken but a survivor. Mitsue, worn down by years of back-breaking labour, had to start all over again in Medicine Hat, Alberta. A generation later, at a high school dance, Ralph's daughter and Mitsue's son fell in love.
Although the war toyed with Ralph's and Mitsue's lives and threatened to erase their humanity, these two brave individuals somehow surmounted enormous transgressions and learned to forgive. Without this forgiveness, their grandson Mark Sakamoto would never have come to be.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Mark Sakamoto’s book is an origin story, a war story, and a tribute to his parents’ parents. Balanced, humble, and brave, Forgiveness is such a specifically Canadian account of World War II, told by the grandson of a white former prisoner of war and a Japanese-Canadian whose life was uprooted by racism. Sakamoto is faithful to his grandparents’ stories and gentle with their memories of loved ones. “Anyone, at any time can break down,” he writes. “The act of coming together again is what makes a hero.”
Customer Reviews
A journey with lessons for all....
Of all the virtues, forgiveness seems the most difficult for too many of us to achieve. This documentary with forgiveness so critical for all the players, successes and failures. This study and redefining of forgiveness by the author can perhaps can promote and encourage others to explore and accept its benefits and be better able to move on.....
An absolute page turner ...
Such important history told through such a touching, personal narrative.
Forgiveness
Good read