Legacy | Katherine Tatsuda

Deana Brown Mitchell: Hello, everybody. It's Deana again, back with another author. And today I'm with Katherine Tatsuta. And she's in Ketchikan Alaska. Like, how cool is that? Such a pretty pleased. And we're going to talk a little bit about her chapter. And then we're going to talk to you about how you can register for our launch event. It'll be a virtual that on February 22, and then how you can get the book and re read everybody's chapter. So welcome, Katherine. And I hope you can give us a little overview about what you wrote about.

Yeah, Stefan Utley, I am very excited to just even be a part of this project. I know that my story is just one of many, many, like 20, I think, that are stories of resiliency, and, and, you know, people turning significant loss and pain and using it for for strength and good. So I'm just thankful to be able to be a part of this. So my story is very unique. And it involves is really a story of my family, that goes back for four generations. And it's a story of my family and how they started a little grocery store back in 1916. And how, you know, for 103 years or so we carried on and said our community in more ways than just selling food. And I'm on talks about my growing up inside of that business, and then ultimately, how I've worked on overcoming the loss of that giants. Legacy. Yeah, so So that's in a nutshell, without too much. That's what it's about.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Yeah. And it is a very unique story. And I think it's, it has a lot of different aspects to it, that I think people can glean different things out of without saying she was. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

It's, you know, my grandparents, my great grandparents came over in the early 1900s, from Japan, so they were Japanese immigrants, and, you know, making their way and, you know, working towards their American dream and, and yeah, facing tremendous obstacles that, you know, that people face in life, and then some that were uniquely theirs, or because they were Japanese. And so, yeah, it's a it's a pretty, it's a pretty interesting story. So, yeah,

Deana Brown Mitchell: you could have just written about, you're part of that, and it would have been a great story. But it's really about the legacy of 100 years of everything. And it's, it's really interesting, I think, I think people enjoy reading, I know. And I have another question for you, which is, being part of this project and writing your own story down on paper, so you know, everyone can read it, and what that experience was like, for you.

I've told this story, my family's story a lot over the over, you know, the years, and like, mostly just verbally and you know, sharing it and in different bits and pieces, but mostly just my family story, not not so much my own personal story, which a lot of it's included into into this chapter that that's going to be in the book, and speaking and writing are very different things. And for me speaking comes very easily but writing takes me a lot more time and effort and energy. And doing this chapter was was really actually really challenging for me to just not just to sit down and like actually put it all on paper. But in many ways, there's some really emotional pieces in it that are still for me, very, very, very raw. Even if they're, they're not as close to the surface, there's time has passed since you know, something's happened. And so it was actually surprisingly emotional for me to to write it, to put it out on paper, and then to be okay with saying, Okay, this is going to get put into this book with all of these other incredible stories of resiliency, and it's going to be shared with the world. It's, you know, so there's a lot of like, for me, there's some fear, fear, you know, vulnerability and emotion that's been really tied to it.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Yeah, it's true. I think that that that part is true for everyone involved is some of them have written books. The whole books by themselves, and some of them have never written anything for public consumption. And I think we've all had a similar journey, because it's such personal stories, you know, we can always write things that are maybe fiction, or maybe business stuff or maybe other things. But when you're talking about the stories that are in this book, they're very, very personal, then sometimes they're hard for us to write because we still need to process some of that. And then sometimes it's hard for us to write because we are struggling with saying it in the right way or because we don't know if we're ready to put it out to the world. You know, all those things combined?

Yeah, yes, absolutely. It you know, it took me I don't know how many times I restarted it, and then deleted it. Because it was like, oh, no, this isn't right. Oh, no, this isn't right. You know, how am I going to how am I? How am I going to share the story. And it's and, and for me, because it's not just like my personal stories, but it's really is so much also representative of my, my family, my great grandparents and my grandparents and my father, and my mother, and how are they being represented and just like to Steven there, that makes me emotional. And, yeah, and being true to you know, my own experiences, but also, you know, respectful and loving and recognizing, yeah, the incredible legacy that was built over time, by beautifully, perfectly flawed human beings, which is what we all are, you know,

Deana Brown Mitchell: That is very, very true. I think it's this, just interviewing everybody has been really eye opening to because I've read everybody's chapters, I heard a lot of the stories even from each of you before we started this project. And so it's still I read the chapters, and I already know them. And I already know the people and I'm still emotional about a lot of it. So I can't wait for people to read it. And to, you know, get their own takeaways from the book and from each person and how it can inspire and motivate someone else at a difficult time in their life and how it can help them maybe feel not alone and feel like someone else has been through this, or, you know, somebody said earlier today, like, I think my story is so hard. And then I read some of the other ones. And I'm like, I must be a web because I can't believe what other people have gone through and stuff like that. And I think that is that is telling about how personal these stories are. And also that no matter what it is you're dealing with, it's not. It's not wimpy, it's all. It's all real. And it's all adversity, and it's all stuff that we need to learn how to process and deal with and move on. So it's, I'm just excited.

Yeah, that's yes. Well, I'm very excited to and that's, it's so easy. I know, you know, for me, I can fall into that comparison trap. And we do that for all sorts of things. And that includes the hardships and the stress and the pain that we go through. You know, and, and like my story is very, very, very different from other people's and but it is just as much a loss. And it was traumatic, and it was painful. And it was terrible. Just as much as as anybody else's. And and I'm not doing myself any favors by comparing that to somebody, you know? Well, yeah. So

Deana Brown Mitchell: It's true. It's true. I think it's because, you know, sometimes when we've been through something hard, we're so close to it, that it's easy for us to say, Oh, it was no big deal. But we have to let ourselves understand that it is a big deal. Yeah, what is not a big deal to me, might be completely unfathomable to someone else. Yeah, it's really it's really a diverse group of people with with very different stories. And and I'm I know that it's going to catch people and save lives, hopefully in the in the long run. And I want to just let everybody know that listening is that this all of the proceeds from this book are going to go to the realized Foundation, which is all about suicide prevention. And we believe that personal stories and an authentic conversation and community is what is going to change the statistics of suicide because whatever we've been doing for the last 50 years is not working And there's lots of great tools and resources out there. But I think it's human connection that is really going to help solve this problem. And that's kind of our mission. So we hope you will join us. We're gonna have a virtual event for our book launch on February 22. And there's an Eventbrite link that I will post below this video, and you can register for free and join us, it'll be probably about 60 to 90 minutes, it's not going to take up your whole day. So you can, you can join us for a little while and learn a lot about all the authors and in a little more about our foundation and what our mission is. So I have this weird white from the window on my neck but and we hope to see you there, we hope that you can join us in and read this book, or maybe you don't feel like you need the book. But maybe there's somebody in your life that really does need the book and you can give them a copy or send them a link to kindle or something like that. So yeah, we hope to we hope to see you there.