Mother always managed to turn hardship into opportunity.

I’ll never forget our trip to Japan in the summer of 1976.

Mother, Luke, and I traveled first to Portland to visit with older sister, Judy. After a few days with her, we flew to San Francisco where we had a long layover until our flight to Tokyo.

Of course, I was way overloaded with too many suitcases.

Mother had argued with me about bringing too much, but I would not be reasoned with.

I just had to take this outfit and that outfit and these shoes and those. After all, I was going to be staying in Japan for a full year.

(Of course almost none of what I packed was really appropriate for Japan! My suitcase was full of midriff blouses, short skirts, and platform shoes. But what did I know?)

By the time we got to the airport in San Francisco, it was obvious that we had too much. We were over the limit with too many suitcases.

The ticket agent told us we would have to pay for overage.

Never wanting to spend money unreasonably, Mother decided to eliminate one of the suitcases and cut down on our luggage count.

And so there, in the middle of the San Francisco Airport, we opened our luggage and engaged in an impromptu triage of belongings.

“What about these shorts?” Mother asked, holding up a pair of ragged cutoffs. “Do you really need them?”

“Yeessss! I’ve already told you. I wear them all the time.”

(In fact, once I got to Fukuoka, I never wore them again!)

“Well, see if you can squeeze them into your little red suitcase.”

“How many pairs of socks do you have, Luke? Do you need all of these?”

“I guess not.”

We started a pile of things to discard.

Eventually, we managed to shift items from one suitcase to another until we had completely emptied one. It was the little brown suitcase that had carried our belongings to India and back.

Mother was hardly sentimental about it. That suitcase represented an unreasonable penalty, and she was more than willing to let it go.

“What are you going to do with it?” Luke asked.

“I will abandon it,” Mother replied sharply.

When she said the word “abandon,” her eyes flashed with a near diabolical intensity.

Luke and I thought it was so funny that we repeated it several times, giggling after each iteration. “Abandon it!”

Mother never wasted anything. To see the delight she felt at throwing away a perfectly good (though battered) suitcase was absolutely liberating.

Thank goodness we derived at this plot to minimize our baggage before airports began worrying over unattended luggage.

Mother placed the suitcase alongside a trashcan, before quietly tiptoeing away.

Even after our suitcase caper, we still had hours before we could board our flight.

“Why don’t you kids leave your bags here—we can stow them in a locker—and take a bus into town? You can go sightseeing.”

“Are you sure? What if we get lost? What if we’re late and miss our flight?”

I was uncertain we could manage without Mother.

She was uncharacteristically sanguine about sending us off on an adventure.

She helped us find the bus headed towards Fisherman’s Wharf, and off we went.

I remember watching the scenery from the bus window as we clipped along the highway from the airport into the city. We felt so brave and free. Small-town kids in the big city.

We poked around Pier 39, looked out over the boats and ships, and ate a delicious meal of clam chowder with a slice of sourdough. We thought about heading to Alcatraz Island for a tour but worried about the time.

We found the bus to the airport and headed back.

Later Mother told me that she trusted us to find our way around. I wonder also if she just needed a little time away from us! We were bored sitting in the airport, and that made us insufferable, I’m sure.

Now that I’ve traveled so much, I better appreciate how exhausting it must have been for Mother. All that responsibility. All those countries. All those children.

She did it with such courage. And with such amazing preparedness. No matter where we went, Mother always had what we needed when we needed it. Or she managed to find what we needed. Even if it wasn’t always what we wanted.

I wonder whatever happened to that little brown suitcase. It must have ended up in a landfill somewhere.

“Abandoned.”

In its stead, it left us with a delightful story.

Luke and I still giggle at the memory.