Nick Reid

My parents, American father and Japanese mother were missionaries in Japan. I was raised in Tokyo and attended the American School in Japan. I met an Australian girl in our senior year, and after graduation in 1974 , at the age of 17, I traveled to Australia to be with her. I promised my parents I would be back in 6 months to attend college. My parents retired in 1997 and moved to California. September 09, 2001 when the Twin Towers were attacked, my brother was working at a Japanese Bank in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. By some miracle, he was called to a meeting in midtown that morning. This reminded me that I had been living in Australia away from family for almost 3 decades. So, 29 years later than the 6 months I had told my parents I would be in Australia, I decided to relocate my family to California. It took 2 years to sell businesses and real estate in an orderly fashion and in 2004 we moved across the Pacific. I was able to spend the next 12 years with my parents, and in the last years able to take time off and attend to their needs. Driving them to medical appointments, doing their grocery shopping and more. I never told my parents the true cost of relocating from Australia to California was probably in excess of $2mm, selling businesses when the Australian dollar was worth only 50 cents US. Having to recreate myself at the age of 48. My parents passed away within 9 months of each other. I spoke with them well in advance, and came up with a plan for burial that they both loved. They were to be cremated. I would keep the ashes of the first to pass. When the other passed I would arrange for their ashes to be commingled in a biodegradable urn. That summer we traveled to Japan and released their ashes in a lake in Nagano Prefecture, in front of our cabin. A cabin my father spent every summer renovating. The place we all think of as home. When it came time to write my brain tattoo, I had just returned from leaving my parents ashes in the lake. I wrote, I WAS A GOOD SON, on my forehead. Writing something so emotional, caused me to look at the camera lens differently. It looked into my soul. My eyes are different in this photo than from any other photo of me.