My grandmother, Setsuko, has lived many lives and made many fresh starts. I’ll start at the beginning. She was born in 1930 in Osaka. Growing up in Japan and as a girl in the Kumami family, Setsuko’s childhood felt like a dark time she’d never escape. Setsuko’s father died of tuberculosis when she was 4 years old, so she grew up with her cold mother, two younger brothers, and older sister Kyoko. While her mother was an anomaly as a successful business owner in a male-dominated culture, she showed no special qualities as a mother. Love was conditional and affection was nonexistent.

At age 9, World War II began. Setsuko’s mother sent her brothers to a safer city while the girls remained in Osaka where the city was on constant alert for bombings. Dead bodies littered the streets, people spent the night in bomb shelters, many of her classmates died or fled the city, and while fleeing a bombing, a piece of shrapnel ripped into her chest and barely missed her heart. At the hospital, doctors pulled the shrapnel out of her chest with no anesthetics. She was quickly dismissed from her bed because they felt her injury was of a lower priority. Setsuko’s childhood in Japan made her feel disposable, worthless, and unloveable.

When she was 20, she met Paul, an American soldier. They dated for a year and eventually moved to the U.S. to get married. Marrying an American and moving to the U.S. led to her family cut off all communication. Setsuko and her husband Paul raised two kids in a modest home in San Diego. She learned English through her own efforts, and her children gave her a newfound purpose. Paul never recovered from his own traumatic past as a neglected foster child. He took his pain out on Setsuko and the kids. When Paul passed away from cancer in his forties, Setsuko had mixed feelings. Life without him felt lonely at first, but she found a job and started a new chapter of self-discovery and independence.

Setsuko’s is now 91 and lives with her little dog Abby in San Diego. Having a dog created a new chapter for Setsuko. New interests and relationships were formed by spending more time at the park.

In the last ten years, Setsuko discovered the satisfying nature of collecting cans and trading them in for cash at the recycling station. My family found it strange at first. Collecting cans is often a task for the homeless or those hard-pressed for money. But we see that this daily task gives her purpose and we have heard many stories about the gestures strangers have made to support her.

My grandma has a network of people in the community who will save their cans for her and drop them off at her house. One group in the network is a men’s baseball team that saves their cans from games to deliver to Setsuko. She picked out a case of beers to give to them as a thank you. Another woman comes to her house to drop off a bag of cans every week. Setsuko is always collecting recipes to make homemade treats as a thank you gift for these generous efforts.

The consistent acts of kindness I see strangers make to offer their time or effort to support my grandma is reassuring. These things aren’t being recorded on the DoDo for likes on Instagram, they are little things invisible to everyone else and just as meaningful. I have many to thank for helping keep my grandma safe and feel cared for, something she never got to feel as a child. I feel thankful knowing there are people in the world who want to help and expect nothing in return.