ありがとうございます

Dear Isao,

It's been over a year since I last heard from you.  By now, you've graduated and started your new job.  Perhaps you married that girlfriend of yours.  I can only imagine great things for you.

I laugh now to think about the fact that a year ago, on the reviews for certain conference presentations, I brashly wrote on yours, "This presentation changed my life."

Except it did.  You did.

The morning I marched into your session, immediately noting the lack of familiar faces, I wondered if I had mistakenly chosen a session that would be of no help to my research.  While you spoke and shared your research, for the first time in a while, my own research came alive - I couldn't seem to wait to get back to my lab and test new things and examine my work through new eyes.

During the months that followed, your example was motivation: "If Isao can do it, so can I."  Despite the number of times I threw aside my work in haste, I always came humbly back, ready to try again.

Sometimes I still think about that smile you gave me when I ran into you in the hallway hours after your presentation and the way you said my name.  We weren't simply strangers but friends.  I had hopes then that it was always meant to be so.

But a year has passed and we have no contact, no reason, even, to contact.  You are no longer in research, no longer in aerospace -  I don't even know if you are still in engineering.

I keep wondering, hoping if some time in the distant future, our paths will cross again.  Will I see you at the little cafe you wanted to manage with your wife?  Will we recognize each other?  And talk as we once did, as if we were old friends, even though we were really little more than strangers?  Will I see your family and see your face light up, just looking at your little ones?  What would cause me to see you again?  Will I still be doing research?  Will I be in Japan working or just visiting?  Will I be able to speak more than just the basics of Japanese?

But in the meantime, this will have to suffice:

Thank you for your excellent work in research.
Thank you for treating me as a friend.
Thank you for showing me that good things are worth our effort.
Thank you for showing me that the best things are worth our best efforts and even our greatest sacrifices.

From the bottom of my heart, arigatou gozaimasu (ありがとうございます)

Love,
Me