It’s even more confusing as Mrs. Nishikawa, whom Kimiko calls “okaasan” is still consoling herself over the death of her husband.
From the cave where they hid and where Sonetaro Nishikawa breathed his last, Mrs. Nishikawa thought there was no other option left for her and her two remaining children than to return to their home in the farm.
Sister Antonieta clearly remembers how despite being grief stricken and overcome with fear, they found themselves surreptitiously tracing their way home by following the railroad tracks.
Then from nowhere she heard gunshots. The next thing she knew, her mother dropped to the ground. Her brother was hit too.
She says she thought her mother was already dead.
But there was no time to grieve over her “lifeless” body; she and Taiichi fled to safety. Fleeing from the bullets that she thought killed her mother and wounded her brother, she says she and Taiichi ran as fast as they could. They ran like livid dogs were chasing after them and they lost each other in the jungle.
Serendipity led her to the company of Okinawan women who took her with them as they all searched for a safer place to stay.
Ambulating in the jungle one time, she finally found her brother. But that reunion was short-lived, she says.
Not long after, they had to come out of hiding and join the others in the Camp Susupe.
She vividly recalls how they were all loaded onto trucks and taken to the camp.
She says she missed her father and mother badly. “When you miss somebody, you cry…that kind of feeling,” says Sister Antonieta as she described how she felt.
In her conversation with Variety at the Maturana House of Prayer, Sister Antonieta remembers how her adoptive father, Juan Ada, took her from the Japanese section of the camp and brought her to the Chamorro side.
Unknown to Sister Antonieta, her mother barely survived the gunshot and was taken to a hospital in San Vicente. Her Japanese mother was able to relay to Mr. Ada that her adoptive daughter had been taken to the camp.
In an interview years ago, Sister Antonieta said she saw her mother once but that meeting was their last.
She also said in a previous conversation that her adoptive father could not adopt her brother Taiichi as non-Japanese can not adopt Japanese males.
Arriving at the fenced camp, Sister Antonieta says she was happy to find breadfruit and all the more she was happy to see her adoptive father, the “alcalde,” taking her with him to the Chamorro camp.
“My Ada father — he looked for me and took me. My Ada family was happy [to see me],” she narrates.
Compared to living and hiding in the jungle, Sister Antonieta says staying at Camp Susupe “was good.”
Seeing her father, Mr. Ada, was like finding light at the end of the tunnel for her. All the longing for her parents was finally nipped.
Not only did she find hope in the company of her new parents; she found her faith at the camp where she was baptized Catholic and when she assumed a new name: Antonieta Ada.
Asked by Variety how she thought about her adoptive parents, she says, “I think they loved me and I loved them. They are very kind. They treat me like their own daughter.”
For the retired nun, it’s enough for her to know how the Ada’s loved her.
When the gates of the Camp Susupe were opened, the Ada’s and majority of those in the camp stayed in Chalan Kanoa.
Sister MaryAnn Hartmann says she remembers their visits to the post office and how Sister Tonie would tell her they once lived in the area.
After the war, life resumed for Sister Antonieta. She went back to school where she says she learned her “ABC” and spelling.
She says she had faint recollection of the years she spent in school.
But all those years, she learned to forgive and overcome her grief.
She says she’s thankful to God that she survived the war.
Asked how she became acquainted with the Mercedarian sisters, she says her Ada family was close to the nuns and they would often visit their convent.
It was through these visits that she became more aware of the teachings of God.
As she counts her blessings, how God made manifest his workings by keeping her safe, she soon had a realization: she would like to be a nun.
In the beginning, she says she found it difficult knowing how painful it would be to leave her Ada family.
But she says there is no other place she can be.
Prior to entering the convent, she says her Ada family was looking at helping her start her own store.
Sister Antonieta says she just doesn’t see herself cut out for any other profession. She wants to be a nun.
Sister MaryAnn helps bridge the memory gap for Sister Antonieta.
Sister Antonieta was an accountant for the Navy where she worked on payrolls.
She says the nun kept doing the same job through the Trust Territory years until she finally decided she would enter the convent.
Asked about her job, Sister Antonieta says, “it’s difficult to balance money but I like it.”
From 1966 to 1970, Sister Antonieta attended the St. Mary’s College in Leavenworth, Kansas where she obtained her degree in accounting.
She came home for a year after graduation, then was assigned in Palau until 1972.
In 1973, she went to the Philippines and worked at the East Asia Pastoral Institute. From 1973-1977, she was back on Saipan.
She was in Japan from 1977-1988.
Then she returned to Saipan and stayed at the Mercedarian Sisters’ Little House in Chalan Kanoa from 1988-1995; 1995-1997, Maturana on Navy Hill; 1997-2000, Little House; 2000-2003, Maturana; 2003-2005, Little House; and 2005-present, Maturana.
Sister MaryAnn, who has been with the Mercedarian Sisters in Micronesia for 31 years, says Sister Tonie started encountering memory deficit on her last year of teaching at Mt. Carmel in 1994-1995.
Sister Tonie, as Sister MaryAnn fondly calls her, taught Japanese and says she likes working.
In all the years that she has been a nun, all Sister Tonie wants is to serve God.
In the convent, she says, “I am safe from the war.”
She also knows that God works in mysterious ways, how she as a little girl ended up being raised by the Ada’s.
She is thankful how God brought her to a loving home.
The Ada’s sowed in her love, a virtue that up to this day helps her quell the sad memories of war and heal all wounds.
And that same love helps her find her peace in the company of the Mercedarian Sisters and in the wo rk where they all share God’s abundant love.
