Deja vu

Last night I had an experience of deja vu. Almost exactly a year ago Marcy and Keion and family gave Tetsu and me new digital camera. Ours wasn't so great and it was quite bulky. Keion and Marcy had purchased one for themselves and for my niece, and were urging Tetsu and me to buy one. When Tetsu and I decided against a new purchase, Keion and Marcy bought one for us instead. I felt terrible that just because I'm too stingy to buy a new camera, my brother and his wife have to buy one for me.

That camera led me to or at least aided me in, the development of my blog. Less than a month after receiving the camera I was introduced to blogging and not long after started my own blog. With this great camera I've enjoyed supplementing my posts visually almost every day!

However, in early June my camera started making these clicking sounds and the camera store wasn't too helpful about helping me. Oh well. The camera works! It just clicks and uses up a lot of batteries! But it still took great pictures!

Once arriving in the States, Marcy noticed the clicking and we talked about getting it fixed. It hadn't been a year yet since it had been purchased, maybe it would be cheaper than having it looked at in Japan... It wasn't really that important to me. The camera was still taking great pictures.

Yesterday, guess what Keion and Marcy presented to me. A new camera. A gorgeous, state of the art, high quality camera! I shouldn't comment on their financial situation but remember, they did just remodel their kitchen, buy a new van, and re-landscape the backyard. It is not like they have money to throw around! They have better ways to use their money than to buy me expensive toys!

The camera is wonderful! I went out this morning on a different walk route and took more pictures just to see what it can do. I love it! I feel terribly guilty! As someone pointed out though, I get a thousand times more use out of my camera since I started blogging than most people do and many more people get to see my photographic attempts than if my pictures were just put in an album. (I'll do that too.)

It is hard to express my gratitude to Keion and Marcy. I simple "Thank you" just doesn't do it. Nor just taking them out to dinner. I'm not just talking about the camera. They do the hard work during the year looking after my mom. They keep track of Takumi (he doesn't actually report in very much but they keep him on their minds). They are both just very loving and generous people. I hope someday I'll be able to help them the way they have always helped me and my family. They aren't blog readers so they may never know how grateful I am but I feel very blessed.