“On her high school picture, Aki wrote, ‘When it’s God’s will… we will come to meet.’” LONELY AFTER MY HUSBAND DIED IN 1992, I FOUND myself longing to get in touch with my childhood pen pal, Akiko Toyama. In 1944, when I was 10, my mother read about the Heart Mountain Japanese internment camp in Wyoming and suggested that our Omaha, Nebraska, church mail Christmas gifts to families there. Aki, a girl my age, sent a thank-you note. Soon we were writing every month, stories about school and friends and Aki’s life in the camp. Unjust as the camps were, Aki was always upbeat. At the end of World War II, her family returned to Los Angeles, then moved to Hawaii. Our correspondence continued. On her high school picture, Aki…
