Tracy Stephens Haughton: I came back from the reunion and immediately was swept up in the rushing river of my current family life, but as I finally write I am struck by how my own two oldest daughters are now close to the ages I was when I arrived in Japan (age 13) and when I left Japan (age 17). Going through these years with my own children, I realize there is much about being a teenager that is common to any place and time, but also the ways in which my own teenage years were largely defined by the amazing experience of living in the Tokyo in the 1970s: the freedom of being able to get anywhere by myself on the trains and subways and not depending on my parents to transport me; the odd sensation of being a "gaijin" and not just having the normal teenage illusion that "everyone" is noticing how odd you are but REALLY having people stare at me every time I stepped out in public; having my horizon expanded at a very young age by being part of the ASIJ community with students and teachers from all over US and the world and from so many different family backgrounds--corporate, missionary, diplomat, etc.
 
It was wonderful to see people again who for 30 years have been frozen in my mind by their yearbook picture! I talked with people I had never spoken to in high school but the conversation came easy because we had something so powerful in common. My life in Japan has never felt very connected with the continuum of the life I have built since then. This reunion allowed me to weave those dangling threads into the fabric of the life I live now. Tim Carr's talk about Third Culture Kids was a real "a-ha" moment for me--putting words to a feeling I have long had about those ASIJ years but could never articulate. It was wonderful to have my husband there to meet many of my friends and classmates from that time and to hear the Third Culture Kids phenomenon explained. We both came to understand a part of my growing up in a new way.
 
Spending the whole weekend together allowed us to build deep connections that one event of a few hours couldn't do. Thank you, Brent Ware, for your amazing generosity in bringing us together. The service on Sunday morning was especially moving. Thank you, Lisa DeYoung Jastram, for organizing such a lovely gathering which brought us to a tender and poignant place of remembering our departed friends and family and also gave us a chance to reflect on the blessings of being reunited with old friends to both to share memories and build new friendship going forward. In that moment I felt all those who couldn't be there with us "hovering 'round".