My father passed away from stomach cancer at the age of 53.
I was 17 that summer, so it’s been over half a century now.
He had left the railroad company where he worked before turning 50 due to strained interpersonal relationships.
Thanks to an introduction from my brother-in-law, he was able to find a job collecting payments for a power company.

He was naturally a serious and sincere man, so the job seemed to suit him well.

One evening after dinner, he said, “Hey, look what I’ve got,” and placed a large coin on the low dining table.

“Wow! That’s the Olympic 1,000 yen silver coin!”

My mother was astonished and he explained, “An elderly woman at one of the houses I collect from didn’t have a 1,000 yen bill on hand, so she gave me this instead.”
It became clear that he had immediately exchanged it with his own 1,000 yen bill and brought the commemorative coin home for the family.

“Wasn’t that coin probably a treasure to her?” my sister said.

“She probably got scolded by her family afterward,” added my mother.

My father’s expression changed.
He had thought everyone would be delighted, but now he seemed to feel as though he was being blamed. The cheerful mood in the living room suddenly grew heavy. Only I, a grade-schooler at the time, remained excited—flipping the coin over and holding it up to the fluorescent light.

“If that’s how it is, I’ll return it tomorrow,” my father said, slipping the silver coin into his wallet. His profile looked lonely. It’s a distant memory now, but whenever the Olympics approach, that moment comes back to me. I’ve long since surpassed the age my father was when he passed away. I have a family of my own now, children of my own, and I’ve come to know the joy of gathering around the table with loved ones. I understand now—almost painfully—how my father must have felt at that time. He just wanted to see everyone smile.

That day was my eldest son’s 12th birthday.
I finished work on time and hurried home to my family, who were waiting for me. His requested birthday present was already prepared.
But somehow, it didn’t feel quite right to show up empty-handed on the day itself—so I decided to pick up an extra gift at the bookstore near our house, hoping to make it a bit more dramatic.

Knowing he liked books related to games where monsters evolve and grow, I browsed the shelves for something fitting. As I wandered the store, I suddenly heard my son’s name from the other side of a shelf. His name is fairly unique—there’s no one else with it in his grade—so I was certain the voice was referring to him. Peeking through the shelves, I saw a group of three upper-grade elementary school boys whispering and calling out my son’s name again.

“Could it be… is my son being bullied at school?” I wondered uneasily, hiding in the shadows of the shelf to observe them. “Don’t tell me they’re planning to shoplift?” I listened closely for a while, but found no signs of bullying or theft.

Eventually, the three boys picked up a soccer magazine, paid for it, and left the store. Even so, my unease didn’t go away. I bought the game-related book, had it gift-wrapped, and returned home.

When I got back, my son’s face lit up with joy as he saw his presents: his original gift, a handmade cake from my wife, and the bonus book. My younger son, three years his junior, was equally ecstatic about a little “extra” gift he received too.

My son, perhaps because he is an only child, was never fond of competition and rarely asked for things.
Even when he did want something, the adults around him would eagerly grant his wishes, so he never really needed to assert himself strongly to get what he wanted.

When he reached his final year of kindergarten, the school announced a special overnight event for the Tanabata festival.
We went over the list of items needed, provided by the school, and packed his backpack together.
His face showed a mix of small anxieties and great excitement—it would be his first sleepover away from home.

The parents’ association was planning to set up a mock “festival” with little stalls, and we were instructed to give our children 500 yen as spending money—specifically, five 10-yen coins, three 50-yen coins, and three 100-yen coins—in a small purse worn around the neck.
It would be his first night away from us, and his first time shopping by himself.
For him, it was a tiny summer adventure.

The next day, I went to pick him up, half-worried—Did he wet the bed?—but when I saw him standing a little taller than usual, I knew he had enjoyed himself, and I felt relieved.

With sparkling eyes, he began to tell me all about it.
“Before shopping time started, the teacher took us to the festival classroom and showed us what was there. That way we wouldn’t get confused when it was time to buy things. And when it started, I ran to the stall so I wouldn’t lose to the girls!”

I wanted to ask him all kinds of questions, but I held back, waiting for him to tell the story in his own order.
Before even saying what he bought, he reached into his backpack and placed his first-ever purchase in my hand.

It was a slightly heavy, pink necklace.

“They asked me, ‘Are you sure that’s what you want?’ And I said, ‘It’s a souvenir for my mom,’ and they told me, ‘How wonderful!’ I used the rest of the money to buy some sweets!”

There he stood, holding out that pink necklace—his trophy from his very first competitive moment.
In my eyes, he was a tiny knight, and that image of him is etched forever in my heart.

Maybe it was because I had turned twenty, or maybe it was because my older sister had just started her first year working and begun living on her own, but my mother started opening up about parts of the past I had never known.

My father, who had inherited and was running a family business that had been passed down since my great-grandfather’s time, was being pressured by his parents to produce a male heir. But after my sister was born, and then I came along, my mother experienced two miscarriages.

As she grew older, concerns about late-age childbirth began to grow. When she was over forty, my father apparently said to her, “It’s okay, we don’t need a boy.”
Still, my mother had left her job upon marriage and joined the family. The unspoken expectation of bearing a son from a different father—my grandfather—had become a heavy burden.
Alone, she knocked on the door of a shabby apartment in Shinjuku, where a blind fortune-teller was waiting.
She asked, “Will I be able to give birth to a boy?”

The fortune-teller told her:
“You two are nothing alike in terms of hobbies or personality, yet you always make decisions at the same timing. That’s a wonderful thing.
I see two adorable little girls riding in a handcart. The two of you are turning equally sized wheels at the same speed, and the girls are bouncing along happily, ‘yo-tto-to, yo-tto-to,’ enjoying the ride.”

It was then, my mother said, that she finally felt at peace—realizing that having two daughters was enough.

I had never known about her miscarriages, or that she once longed for a son.
In a family, there are many moments when big decisions must be made.
With two daughters, the financial burden alone is doubled.
And yet, despite having to constantly make one decision after another, I’ve never once seen my parents clash or grow distant from each other.

Two years ago, my father made a clean decision to close his company during the economic downturn caused by COVID.
Now, he enjoys gardening, photography, and mountain climbing—fully embracing his hobbies.
My mother lets him do as he pleases and leads a laid-back life.

They’ve become a pair that can weather anything.

Someday, when I find someone I truly want to marry, I want to show him to my mother first and really listen to what she has to say.
I want to learn her secret—how to keep the cart moving forward, no matter the road, no matter the storm.

It came like a shock.

“Mom, from today on, can you wait for me behind the next utility pole—not right in front of the cram school?”
“Huh? Why?”
“Just… please.”
At the time, my son was in fifth grade. I had been picking him up and dropping him off at cram school. In fact, I’d even gone so far as to buy a compact European car—a two-seater “S”—specifically for that purpose. The narrow alley in front of the cram school was crowded with children, and I thought my husband’s large RV was far too bulky and dangerous to navigate there. In contrast, the small but sturdy “S” seemed perfect for the job.

But then, one day, my son emerged from the school and practically dove into the car, crouching low as he said, “Hurry, let’s go.”

When I asked, “What’s wrong with the car?” he replied:

“It’s weird. And the fact that you come pick me up… that’s what’s wrong.”
Apparently, some of his friends had teased him.

From that day on, he stopped walking with me. Even when we went shopping for clothes, he insisted on “meet there, leave there” arrangements.

“Let’s meet at that shop on the second floor of Aeon at 10:30,” he’d say.
And once the shopping was done, he’d casually part with:

“Thanks. I’ll go from here,” before heading back to the same home we shared.
“Is this rebellion? Puberty? What even is this?”
I sighed and asked my fellow mom friends.

“Oh, that’s nothing. Mine says I’m ‘annoying’ and ‘gross,’” one laughed.
“What should I do?”
“Just leave him be. If a boy stays clingy to his mom forever, that’s more of a concern.”
Fair point.

From then on, even when my son cold-shouldered me, I kept telling myself: “It’s a sign of growth. Just a sign of growth.”
So, when he was in high school and one day said, “Can you drive me to the outlet mall?”
I was so shocked I blurted out in a goofy voice: “Wh-why, yes, of course!”
He looked a bit embarrassed and said: “Yeah… please.”
Now, my son—who made it through his rebellious phase and grew into a fine young man—is getting married this October. He’s found a wonderful partner, and he’s absolutely glowing with happiness.

They’re about to begin their own family story.

Congratulations, my dear.

I used to think the two fathers in my life couldn’t be more different.

I was raised by a man who could have stepped straight out of a textbook on stern, old-school Japanese fatherhood. He was strict, yes—but he gave me everything I needed and never let me feel deprived. He never missed cheering at my club games and drove me to and from high school every day. Most of my memories with him are centered around sports—playing catch, going for runs. Every summer, during the high school baseball tournaments, the two of us would sit side by side in front of the big TV in the living room and watch the games together.

It wasn’t just a good balance of closeness and distance—if anything, I was doted on.

Then came the other “father”—my father-in-law, whom I met after getting married.
He’s a great cook, loves to clean, never forgets to take out the trash, and gets along easily with my son’s friends. He’s the total opposite of my own father: gentle, soft-spoken, and warm. When his first grandchild was born, he beamed with pride and happily helped take care of the baby. He takes walks every day with his grandchild and his beloved dog. He’s the epitome of the kind, peaceful countryside grandpa.

At first glance, they seem completely opposite—but in truth, they’re surprisingly alike.

To put it kindly, they both live with conviction, following their own path with unwavering love for themselves. Less kindly, they’re incredibly stubborn and a little self-centered.

My father spends his days off practicing softball with his local team and drinks as much as he pleases every day. He pours his time and money into the things he loves.
My father-in-law? Fishing. The shoreline isn’t enough for him—he boards boats and heads out to sea. He, too, spares no time or money for his passion.

Watching the backs of these two men, I couldn’t help but feel a bit envious. Part of me wants them to change, and another part wants them to stay exactly as they are.

They’re like boys who just happened to grow old.

Strange and endearing, these two fathers of mine.
My husband is steadily growing into the image of them both.
And I wonder—will our child one day follow in their footsteps too?

Whatever the case, I’m proud to call them both my fathers.

As a working mom, the walk home from daycare is the most exciting time of my day.
Once we get home, it’s a whirlwind of dinner prep, bath time, and bedtime—leaving little space for a relaxed conversation with my son.
That’s why this walk home is so precious to me.

The walk would only take ten minutes at an adult’s pace, but with my three-year-old, it becomes a leisurely 15 to 20-minute stroll. During that time, I get to experience a whole spectrum of emotions from him—cute, funny, and sometimes, let’s be honest, exhausting.

My car-loving son watches the traffic and excitedly points out, “That one’s cool!” or “That car’s pretty rare!”
If a firetruck or police car passes by, we both exclaim, “Lucky!” and cheer together.
In summer, we search for cicadas; in winter, we admire holiday lights and snap selfies together like we’re on a date.
During his “stair phase” (every kid has one, right?), I would just stand by and watch as he climbed up and down the steps on our route over and over.

When he had just turned two, he suddenly said one day, “Shall we go shopping at the milkman’s?” as we walked our usual path.
The milkman? I followed his gaze and saw the familiar blue sign of a certain convenience store.
Sure enough, there was a little milk can logo on the sign, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

But then I wondered—how did a Reiwa-era child even know what a milk can was?
I asked him, “How do you know that’s milk?” but, as expected, got no clear answer. He was two, after all.
Since then, that store has forever been “the milkman’s” to us.

In just a few more years, he’ll be in elementary school, and we probably won’t walk hand-in-hand like this anymore.
That thought makes this time feel even more precious.
Sure, there are evenings when I’d love nothing more than to plop him into the bike seat and speed home.

But for now, I want to savor this fleeting, irreplaceable time with him just a little longer.

Lately, my 92-year-old grandma’s forgetfulness has gotten much worse. She remembers her wartime experiences and youth with astonishing clarity.
Her long-term memory is still sharp, but her short-term memory has become incredibly fragile. Watching her decline day by day is heartbreaking.

She often says to my mom, “What was it again? I just can’t remember anymore,” when trying to recall how she spent her day or whether she took her medicine properly.
I’m short-tempered, and I sometimes find myself getting irritated with her.
But my mom gently reassures her: “Yes, you took your medicine—I saw you,” or “The helper came today, remember? How was that?”

I once vented to my mom, “You’re amazing. I don’t mind dealing with dementia patients at work, but spending the whole day with Grandma on my day off drives me crazy.”
She replied, “It’s not like I don’t feel anything either. I get frustrated too. But Grandma doesn’t forget things on purpose. It would be cruel to blame her for that.”

Maybe it’s the difference between a daughter and a granddaughter—the way we perceive things, the way we feel.

Lately, though, my mom has started saying things like “What should I do? I don’t know,” or “I’ve forgotten again…”
And I think to myself—Ah, the time has come for Mom too.

Being together can be frustrating at times.
But it also brings joy—going on trips, sharing delicious meals even though her appetite is fading.

It’s okay to forget. It’s okay not to understand.
Let’s just stay together.
Because you are someone I love.

“You’re a good child. Stay well today, too.”
This was part of my mother’s daily routine—stopping her walker on her way home from her morning walk
to greet the Jizō statue that stood at the entrance of the elementary school in front of our house.

Whenever she encountered a Jizō statue during her travels, she would gently pat its head and speak to it as if reuniting with a long-lost child.
She would wash the weather-worn statues, faded from rain and sunlight, and carefully dress them with red caps and bibs that she had sewn stitch by stitch.
She prayed for the health and safety of her children living far away—something she only recently told me.

I now realize that, by entrusting her children’s well-being to these statues as they left her side, she was also filling the emptiness in her own heart.

The many photos I have of my mother standing next to Jizō statues across Japan vividly bring back memories of our travels together.
As the years passed, my mother’s expression grew gentler, more serene—just like the Jizō statues beside her—and even more beautiful.
It was as if the hardships she had endured throughout her life had nourished her soul and deepened her grace.

Today, my 92-year-old mother lives in a care facility and the Jizō statues are no longer part of her daily life.
While I wondered what might fill that void, she once surprised me during a visit:
“Look at this!” she said, unbuttoning the chest of her blouse to reveal a small, rolled-up piece of thick white paper that she had made herself from hand-wiping tissue.

I was in sixth grade when my father—who had left our family—sent me a VHS tape of a movie.

At the time, I was obsessed with Jackie Chan and Dragon Ball, and had never watched a Western film. I couldn’t understand why he had chosen to send me that tape,
but it became the first foreign movie I ever saw—with subtitles.

Later, when I was in junior high, my father said to me, “Let’s go to America together during summer break.”

He took me not once, but twice—once during summer vacation and once during winter break.

It’s not like he had money. After leaving the family, he started from nothing.
He worked the assembly line at a car factory, tightening hundreds of bolts a day—so many his finger joints bent from the strain. He worked night shifts,
lived in a dorm, and saved every yen to be able to take me on those trips.

Of all the places we went, New York left the deepest impression on me.

He handed me $20 and simply said, “Be back at the hotel before sundown.”
Then I explored the city by myself on $1 buses.

Intersections.
Traffic lights.
Graffiti.
Homeless people.
Yellow cabs.
The Statue of Liberty, barely visible in the distance, no bigger than my pinky finger.

It felt like I had wandered into the world of a movie.

In New York, everyone you see breathing the same air—including me—is undeniably a New Yorker.
Not Japanese, not Asian, not white, not Black—just people, with no borders between them.
That spirit of openness is what New York gave me.

Back when I was still single, before I got married, I once went on a day trip with my father. We were trying out a method for boosting our luck that a
fortune-teller had told me about: take a trip in a lucky direction. Coincidentally, my father had the same lucky direction, so we decided to go together.

Our destination was Katsuura, in Chiba Prefecture. After enjoying a meal at a seafood restaurant near the fishing port, we visited Tanjō-ji, the temple
where the monk Nichiren was born. As we stood looking at the map by the entrance, I noticed a small building labeled Ota-dō—Ota Hall—tucked in the
corner. My maiden name is Ota, so I couldn’t help exclaiming, “It’s Ota Hall!”

My father pointed to the little illustration of the building and said, “That’s where our ancestors are.”
He added, “A relative who lives nearby takes care of it.”

I was surprised, of course, but we didn’t actually visit the hall—we just headed home.

Years later, after I got engaged, the memory of Ota Hall came back to me. “I need to tell my ancestors I’m getting married,”
I thought. Normally you’d visit your family grave, but for some reason, Ota Hall was the only place that came to mind.

So this time, I invited my fiancé (now my husband), and the two of us made the trip to Katsuura.

Seeing Ota Hall for the first time, I was taken aback by how small and—if I’m honest—worn down it was. The structure was very old,
with a single small bell hanging in front. We had arrived late in the day, and the sun was already setting. It felt like the kind of place where a ghost might appear.

Still, we bowed respectfully and made our greeting:
“To our ancestors, I wanted to share the news—I’m getting married. This is my fiancé.”
Since we were there, we rang the bell—gong—and snapped a photo in front of the hall, flashing peace signs.

But when the photo was developed, it came out so dark and eerie it looked like something straight out of a collection of ghost stories.

Later, back at home, I told my dad all about our visit while he was reading the newspaper in the living room.
“I went to Ota Hall today,” I said.
He replied, “Huh? Why would you go there?”
“You said our ancestors were there, so I went to report my engagement!”

He slowly put the newspaper down, looked up at me, and said:

“Oh… that? That was a joke.”

I practically fell backward.
Apparently, not everything parents say is to be taken as gospel.
Maybe this was a belated first step toward true independence.
Or maybe—just don’t make weird jokes that don’t make sense.

It’s one of those memories of my father: expressionless like a statue, making dry, unfunny jokes.

In January of this year, my father passed away. He was 81.

I had long regretted that I hadn’t done anything for him while he was alive. He was always so close… and yet…
Now, my memories are filled with one regret after another.
But about six months after his passing, I gradually began to come to terms with those feelings.

Then July arrived.
We began preparing for hatsubon—the first Bon Festival after someone’s death. Since it’s customary in our area for many people to visit your home during hatsubon,
I decided to tidy up my father’s bookshelf—something that had remained untouched since the funeral.

I stepped into his study. It still carried his scent—one I had loved since childhood and from that study, many nostalgic items began to surface.

First were the photographs—so many photos he had taken over the years. My father loved photography. With his trusty Konica camera, he had filled old, faded albums
with snapshots of memories. There were pictures from company trips, family gatherings, everyday moments. Each one labeled in his neat, precise handwriting, noting
when and where they were taken. Those careful notes made the memories even more vivid—and all the more piercing. I found myself saying “How nostalgic…” aloud
again and again.

Next, I uncovered pamphlets, flyers, and newspaper clippings. Ticket stubs from movies we saw as a family. Articles about my father’s achievements. Essays he had written.
These were precious pieces of his life—proof of the way he had lived. It struck me: He must have truly enjoyed his life. All these pieces of his story were thoughtfully stored
together, beautifully organized in boxes.

Finally, I opened a drawer in his desk. Inside, I found the diary he had written in every day. I had known he kept a diary, but I had never once looked inside. Now, curiosity got
the better of me. I opened it and the moment I did, the tears came—and wouldn’t stop.

The pages were filled with entries about me, his eldest son. The day I got married. The day my children—his grandchildren—were born. The outings we took together as a family.
He had carefully recorded all those everyday moments with us. Each entry ended the same way: “Today was another happy day.”

In that moment, I realized how deeply he had loved me—even though I had often felt I was a disappointing son. He had worried about me. And still, he gave me his unwavering love.
The final entry was dated May 15th—the day before he collapsed, on May 16th.

May 15th: “Worked in the garden in the morning. It was hot today. Had dinner with Hiroaki and his family in the evening. Today was another happy day.” It took six months after
his passing for me to truly understand—Just how deeply he loved me, how much care he put into raising me.

Soon, it will be his first Bon Festival. For his sake, I want to show him I’ve become a reliable eldest son.
Now that his study is finally cleaned and organized, I can say it with confidence:

Thank you, Dad.

My son stopped going to school around the age of 13. He became a typical “shut-in” who spent his days playing video games. Emotions were high and we had a lot of terrible arguments. Then one day he suddenly announced he was gong to get some part-time work.  He went out and got himself a job at the fish market. He had a 30 minute bike ride to work, so he needed to get out of the house early. At work, he was handling freshly caught fish, piling them into fish boxes and hauling the boxes around the market. It was hard work, but soon enough his voice seemed to get deeper, his skin tanned, and he got stronger. One day that summer, he came home with a big, fat bonito sticking its head out of his ruck sack.

“Mom, look at this! It’s a gift !” he announced, twirling round to show me the fish halfway out of his backpack.

 

I laughed so hard that I cried.  It was such a big fish, I wasn’t sure how to cut it up.  But my son was so happy and excited that I just went ahead and cut out three filets for sashimi and boiled the head to make soup. My son kept repeating how delicious everything was. All the days of bickering and back biting seemed to fade far into the background. From that day on through the years, it’s not so much fish that my son brings home to me everyday as bright smiles and physical well-being, and I thank him for that, thank him from the bottom of my heart.

Whenever I asked my mother if things at our home were ‘normal’ just like anybody else’s family, she’d look sad. As it was, I had never laid eyes on my father, but I don’t remember ever feeling sad about it. I just wrote it off as “the way things are”. On the other hand, all my friends had fathers, so I sometimes suspected our home wasn’t “the usual”. Sometimes I’d put the question to my mother, “Is this what a regular home is like?” My mother brought me up all alone. She ran a tight ship, making every effort to limit expenses. Even though I knew that’s what she wanted, I would whine at the Game Center when she wouldn’t let me play as much as I wanted. I never had all the toys and games that other children did. So as a child, I was troubled by the differences between me and the other kids in the neighborhood.

 

I don’t remember ever thinking about how things would be if I had a father.  I just took everything out on my Mother. Sometime towards the end of elementary school, my mother took me to an amusement park. There was a roller coaster there that I’d heard about from my friend’s and on television.  At first I was anxious to try it, but the actual velocity we took off with shocked me so much that it ended up being a traumatic experience for me. Still, I was fascinated by the novelty of the whole experience.

Then, when I was in high school, I began to do part-time jobs.

 

My first salary.

I got my first salary just before Mother’s Day and decided to get a gift for my Mother. Since I had no idea what my Mother liked, I bought a cream puff for her at the convenience store.  When I gave it to her, she looked satisfied even before she’d tasted it. After that, I got into the habit of giving her presents on Father’s Day too, thinking that up till then, that particular day hadn’t been of much use to us. My mother wasn’t very comfortable with the idea, but after all, she’d been both Father and Mother to me since when and it seemed like that was good enough for double presents. I just looked at her and asked again “Is all this really normal?” And for the first time, that question got a smile.

Recently, our family has started holding a special family-only field day at our house.

We have many of the same races you can find at a school Field Day, but we’ve also added some special ones of our own making.

The best example is the Piggyback Race.

That’s where contestants divide into a Piggyback pairs who all compete for the best time in a race around the house. 

My little sister came up with the idea, and it makes a great race.

The first time we tried it, my sister teamed up with Mom and I went with Dad. On my mother’s team, it was my mother who did the carrying, and on our team, after a lot of arguing, we decided I’d carry my father,

I thought this was a losing proposition from the get go, but I gave up arguing. I wasn’t given much choice, and got my father on my back for a trial run.

He was a lot lighter than I thought he would be. Or maybe I was getting stronger, but it turned out to be something else.

 

In fact, anyone who took a good look at my Father would probably say he looked light. On top of that, he’d been complaining recently about lower back pain as well as worrying about his hair falling out. He’d even gone so far as to order miracle medicines from abroad.

“So my Dad the joker is back and up to his old tricks,” I said with a laugh. But as I carried him off round the house, it came to me that my Father was just getting older.

Then my Dad said, “Your Father’s job is protecting this family, but my my company’s  transferring me and I’ll have to go away. You’re the next strongest around here, and it’s up to you to take care of everyone while I’m gone.” But, I thought, if my Father gets much older, I’d end up the strongest whether he was home or away.

My Father and I won the Piggyback race. “You’re the strongest,” my Father called out.  That surprised everyone.

Then he added, “From now on, you should carry me every Field Day.” This was a kind of baton pass from my Father. Up till now he’d carried the weight of the whole family, but from now on, I would be taking on some of that weight.

My nephew’s a third grader. I asked him what is favorite food was.

He screwed up his face and started to groan,

“Hmm…  Umm… “, then abruptly lifted his eyes and said “Ramen !! Ramen’s what I like the most !”

My sister-in-law seemed to slump down in her seat, “What! But there are so many other things I’ve made for you!?”

Everyone started to giggle.

My Nephew went on the defensive, “Yea, but we just ate ramen coming home from the movies ! and it was really good !!“

The ring of smiling faces around me reminded of something.

It was a quarrel I’d had with my brother something like 20 years ago about what was the best thing to eat.

When I said Grandma’s Chawan Mushi, my brother came back at me with Ramen too.

“Ramen ! That’s just some food you can get anywhere.”  I answered, then went on trying to steamroll my opponent by emphasizing Chawan Mushi’s unimpeachable glory. My brother wouldn’t budge an inch.

“The ramen we just ate on the way home was the best thing ever, all of us together !” he answered.

Even today I can’t get those words out of my head.  At the time they startled me

because I realized that it wasn’t about the ramen, it was about our all being together.

When you look at it that way, even my habitually loathsome brother began to look a bit cute, so I had nothing more to say.

Even at this age, soon to be eighty, there’s a postcard my mother once sent me that I’ll never forget.  You could say it was just one postcard out of the many that I got from her if it weren’t  for what she’d written on it. I can still see those words clearly etched in my mind:  “You graduated from College ! Thank you !!”

Not “ Congratulations for graduating” but “Thank you for graduating”. And her writing was blurred in one spot. I knew it was from my Mother’s tears.

 

When I was in my first year of Middle School, there’d been lot’s of talk about building a new port down by the seaside and of well-known companies moving in to take advantage of the opportunities that would be created, when one day construction suddenly started. They were excavating the estuary where two rivers met before running into the sea. Sand and soil from the work went to extend farmland, making it into a vast plain where enterprises could install their infrastructure.  Children of farmer’s who’d sold their land to the developers were promised priority selection if they applied for work from the new companies. My parents decided to sign on to this deal.

 

Two years after graduating from junior high school, I spoke with my parents about going to high school. My mother gave her approval but was hesitant. She worried over how long my priority work placement held me to that job as well as my enrolling in the local high school two years late. Finally, I made my own decision and arranged to go to a high school in Tokyo.

 

Once I started school in Tokyo, I had my hands full making up to the two years I’d missed. The day I was accepted by a college, my mother was really happy. While at college, I started to take sides with the weak against social injustices.

 

I still remember going back to my apartment after the college graduation ceremony and finding that single postcard in my mailbox. After a few words on taking care of my health, there was that single sentence marked by her tears, “Thank you for graduating.”  Reading that sentence, I finally saw what a tremendous weight had been taken off my mother’s mind. It took my breath away. I could just see my Mother’s wizened smile. At the same time, I was a little nervous.

“Thank you for graduating.”

 I’d never been portrayed as such a winner !

I’ve treasured this postcard all of my life.

Writing my Mother’s name. I write it on chopsticks, I write it on bowls, I write it on her toothbrushes, her clothes and any and every other thing she owns. I write it carefully and clearly. I make sure there are no mistakes or omissions, that it’s all easy to read. My Mother is 89. Her dementia had worsened to the point where she had to go to a Mental Hospital, but since she showed no signs of improvement, they discharged her, and we had to take her to a specialized facility. Having lost her dear husband, my father, she spends her days alone in a private room in the facility.

We hear a lot about living to 100 these days. Is this what it’s all about?

We’ve made tremendous advances in medicine as well as medical technologies and social infrastructure, and it has served to extend life expectancies.  Our generation has lived to see things our ancestors would not have dreamed possible, like being able to see your grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow up. There have been advances in science we would never have imagined. Truly, it’s a wonder. But, dealing with my mother’s problems has made me realize that behind the scenes, all these advancements have left us with a long line of unthinkable suffering and family troubles.

It wasn’t so long ago when I started elementary school, and my  mother wrote my name on each piece of my clothing. On my slippers and shoe bag. One by one, on each of my math tables, my learning tools and my watch. On each of my pencils, just in the small space shaved clean when you sharpen the point. One after the other, each letter invested with all her hope and desire for my future.

I wonder if I’ve lived up to all those hopes.

And that is what I think of, when I, this Mother’s son, write in turn her name.

I write it murmuring  “Thank you. Thank you. There’s no need to worry.”

One day out of the blue, my wife was injured and had to be hospitalized.

Nothing like this had ever happened before. Our daughter was born with a disability, and now, even as an adult, she was unable to speak. My wife, who had been her biggest caretaker, would be away for a while and I worried that my daughter’s life would be totally upset by her absence. Would she even want to eat without her mother being there?  My daughter graduated from a Special School and now spent her days at a Special Facility. We had a Communication Log with the facility that allowed us to follow our daughter’s daily progress.  As time went on, there seemed to be no change in my daughter’s behavior. At home too, everything went on as it had. My daughter showed no signs of being distraught. She even ate everything I prepared for her. Maybe I was just being a worrywart.

Eventually, there were some incidents.

My daughter would sometimes start crying out of the blue.

Not screaming or sobbing, just silent tears.

And then they would stop just as abruptly as they had started. I supposed that she missed her Mother. How could it be otherwise when someone who’s always been at your side suddenly vanishes. My daughter must worry that she’ll never come back. Still, in so far as she continued to participate in her daily activities without change, hadn’t my daughter, in her own way, understood the situation?

“My Father is making food for me since my mother is away. I too need to be strong…” I supposed that she must be thinking something like that while fighting desperately against her own anguish. Even today, just thinking about our plight at the time can make me cry.

 

I was shocked when I first found out my daughter had a disability. It was even troubling for me to just look at her. Yet life goes on, and we grow as we go. The day I saw that my daughter had grown to care for me and my wife, it was a revelation. Your child’s attention is probably the single greatest joy in parenting. There’s just no way to turn your back to it. Those two months my wife was away at the hospital turned out to be an irreplaceable experience for my daughter. Since then my daughter is always smiling because she knows she has a family who watches out for her. If we can all hold on to our gratitude for everything we have, my daughter will find her way to her own happiness.

This son of mine, I went through miscarriages and infertility treatments to finally give birth to him in my 6th year of marriage.  At some point, I got to thinking that I had to bring him up to be strong since he was an only child. I enrolled him in martial arts training and told myself that my son was growing up.

 

Around the age of 10, he began saying that he didn’t want to fight. I thought I’d been pushing him too hard because I didn’t immediately see how much he took after his father: sensitive. And that’s when he started saying I had a mental age of 2 because I was somebody who believed that whatever they thought was right. When my son needed someone to talk to, he went to his grandmother. All my Mother ever said to me was,“You don’t really need to do that,” which didn’t help me understand anything.

 

On the other hand, my son went on repeating, “You’re never going to understand who I am.”

Recently though, there’ve been some changes. He’s started to say that he envies my character and has begun to talk more about his own feelings. As a young adult, he is out in society. It’s broadening his experience and getting him to grow up.

 

So, I’m kind of missing the days when things were simpler, and I could just want him to be strong. And I wonder if he’ll change his mind about my mental age of 2?

Then again, if calling me 2 makes him feel better and more optimistic, well then, I’ll just take it as a compliment !

My Father never had any parents.

I realized this in the middle of fourth grade when I was talking to a friend about  relatives. It suddenly came to me that I’d never ever met my Father’s parents.

It troubled me, so as soon as I got home I talked to my Father about it.

I was excited and just blurted out, “Dad, where are your parents?”  His answer was unexpected. “By the time I knew what was happening, they were gone.” Then he added, “Of course, you know, back then I lived in a youth home that was full of children like me.” “Whaaat!?” I replied…I was shocked and just couldn’t get my head around it. Time’s gone by since this all happened, and my Father has started speaking a little more freely about his past.

 

Whenever my brother and I get to quibbling over some stupid little thing or parading our own special brand of selfishness around the house, our Father comes back at us with his past, like, “Both of you guys go to cram school, you can buy what you want and go to the school you want, but I never had any of those things. To this day, I live each and every day with thanks for each and every thing we have now.” There’ve been stories like this since forever in Japan, about appreciating what you have, but I really do have to thank my Father. After listening to his stories over the years, I’ve come to see that the things we take for granted are things we should be grateful for.

 

My Father is actually much more sensitive than he lets on. He may seem rough, but he always carries my Mother’s things for her and always steps in to handle difficult stuff that everyone else in the family is shying away from. We had a pet bird that seemed lonely and my Father did a wonderful job taking care of him. Even when he has only one day off of work each week, if there’s somewhere I want to see, he’ll take me without making a big thing of it. Maybe my Father grew up in an institution and never had a Father as a role model, but I can’t think of a better Dad, and I really admire him.

When my father hit retirement age in 1953, he was 55 years old. He told my brother who was working hard to get into college, that he had to give up any idea of going on to higher education. My brother was devastated. He fought back, telling our Father over and over again, “All my school friends are going, why should I be the only one to stay home?” My Father just listened silently without ever giving an answer.

 

My Mother attended my brother’s graduation ceremony. Though she always dressed very simply, I saw her putting on an obi and sharply tightening round her waist in a gesture of determination.  Maybe it was some kind of atonement. Coming out our front door, she was dressed in formal attire and had even added a thin layer of makeup, something I’d never seen on her before. Perhaps she was trying to to print the figure of her son who couldn’t go to University on her eyelids. When the two of them came home, they seemed more forlorn than filled with the joy of graduation. The only thing blooming at our house was the plum trees in the garden.

 

Now that I am way beyond the age my parent’s had at the time, I can clearly see the signs of their regret, even agonizing, at not being able to send my brother to college. It was undoubtedly tougher on them than on my brother. Born in the Meiji Era, neither of them saw any need for explanations. They had struggled to put aside money all through the hard times, but with the currency reforms and steep inflation after the war, their savings weren’t even worth the paper they were printed on. I heard all this from my sister some years after our parents passed away.

 

We all went down to the station to see my brother off when he left town to search for work. My Father told him to watch out for his health. My Mother handed him a large package wrapped in a furoshiki. “Food for the train ride,” she said.  It was a two tier lunch box that she’d spent the whole night preparing. My brother said, “Thank you. I’ll be fine and do my best!” You could see a single tear running down his cheek.

We stood there and watched until he disappeared from sight.

He never looked back.

My relation with my Father was mostly built on photographs.

Even today, there’s a photograph he took hanging just above my bookshelves.

It’s a picture of an old man wearing a turban in a place that looks like the Middle East.

Next to him is a child who must be his grandson. 

They’re both laughing, looking at the camera.

It’s a photo panel I put together on the anniversary of my Father’s death.

 

My Father worked as a photojournalist, always had a Nikon dangling from his neck, and spent his life photographing oppressed populations all over the world. He was rarely at home, and often, when he did come home, he’d head straight to a dark room he’d set up at home for developing and printing his work. I don’t really remember playing with him or going on any family outings, but I do remember when I once opened that darkroom door. My mother had told me that opening the door could ruin the film, and I was constantly being reminded not to touch it.  But so much forbidding just peaked my curiosity, till I just had to open it. One day, I finally got that door open without making a sound.

 

There was a red bulb attached to the wall shining down on my Father’s back where he was busy at work. He actually looked more like he was in some kind of trance, like a kind of magician working stealthily on a magic potion. My heart was pounding as I spied on my Father from where I’d opened the door just a crack. He was so busy with what he was doing that he didn’t seem to notice me. Then, when our eyes finally met, he burst out laughing. I clearly remember the cigarette he held clasped in the corner of his mouth turning upward, deep wrinkles pooling at the corner of his eyes, and my Father beckoning me into the darkroom. Once in his world of red lamps, I continued watching my Father’s back moving under the light.

 

Sometimes I find myself staring at the picture over my bookshelf, and I think of my Father. And what I always go back to is that red, red room. That’s how I remember him. A magician invoking magic potions in an oddly colorful space. But my Father isn’t here anymore. And the darkroom is inside my head. I still see him under the red lamp, bursting into laughter.

I throw up my hand and my son, beaming with his broadest smile, slaps my palm.

That’s how we begin each day.

Maybe this may not sound like much but from where I stand, it makes this mother very, very happy.

 

My son is now eight months old. He can’t speak yet, but maybe he gets the gist of what his Mother is saying. He does respond to his name, and anything that catches his eye will hold his attention. He laughs when he’s happy and cries when he’s not. I kind of envy the simplicity of his life style. I learned pretty quickly after his arrival that a baby’s hands are often sticky. As they get older, they become aware of their hands and spend time looking at them or sometimes licking them. When they get good at moving each finger, they’ll start grabbing the nearest toy or latch onto the crib handrails to try to pull themselves up.

 

You can see your child’s progress just in how he uses his hands. My son, who didn’t even know he had hands, can now clasp them together in response to what I’m saying to him. His precious hands fill me with love and joy. I don’t remember when we started with the Good Morning High Five, but I think I’ll keep it up as a moment of physical bonding. I want to cherish these moments. that bring our hands together and me closer to his daily progress.

Good Morning High Five !! The beginning of another day.

I went to elementary and middle school at a place way out in the country. At class reunions, all the boys were of one voice to say, “Your Mother always looked good in a kimono.” And I would mutter to myself, “No, that wasn’t a kimono. Just work clothes! “It’s been sixty years now.

I was born in Oboro, Hokkaido, whose train station has become the number one Lost Train Station* in Japan. I used to take the train to the neighboring town of Rebun to go to elementary school. Ours was a family of 6. I was the youngest of four siblings. We were poor but happy. My fondest memory of my mother is her first school visit, Parent’s Day when I was in first grade.

A group of Mothers had arrived and were being noisy at the back of the room. Amongst them stood my Mother, ever petite and clothed in her habitual monpe work trousers with a matching top. A young teacher with a loud voice, who till this day Yutaka the farmer calls “Auntie,” came into the classroom and started a math class. Michiko’s Mother had finished looking at Michiko’s workbook and was now taking a peak at mine.

So then, Kojima’s mother, who lived in the National Railway’s official residence, came over to her kid’s desk and started running her own class, explaining carefully and announcing repeatedly, “And that’s is the way this gets done,” before moving on to the next page. At that point, all the mothers took that as a cue to step in and do the same with their own children. It was a free-for-all, and our teacher just stood there on standby.

I was all the way at the back of the classroom. But still, as long as I waited, my mother didn’t come. I finally looked behind me and saw my mother with her back to the wall, standing just where she had been, smiling at me. The warm sunlight coming through the window lit up my mother like a spotlight. All she had for makeup was her lipstick, and she was wearing a brand new, indigo blue monpe, top and bottom, for dress-up.

Once I was home, I lay my head in my Mother’s lap while she cleaned my ears.
“Today you were the only one who didn’t come with the children. Why didn’t you?” It was a frank question at a comfortable moment.
“I’m sure you know the answer to that without me telling you, don’t you?” she answered, which was not at all the explanation I had been expecting, but one that made me happy. And in that same moment, the image of my Mother, the only one not swept away by the crowd of Mother’s, standing at the back of the room filled me with admiration.
My Mother passed 40 years ago.
Even now, I can’t think of my Mother without recalling her in that classroom.
It’s like the key scene in a movie.

Long before my daughter ever woke up to the world, she always kept an eye out for me. As a person with ASD, I have trouble thinking about two things at once, so making decisions about what is best or how to get ahead is not my forte. Moreover, I am often absent-minded. I have a mountain of newly bought & untouched Lip Balm to prove it. In the courts of the mislaid and tardy, I am an habitual offender. But there is someone who keeps me out of trouble before it ever happens, my daughter, always by my side. She tells me when I’ve left a half-cut carrot behind, if I’ve walked off and left all the lights shining, and takes care to let her needs be known one at a time. I’m so ineffective and ill-prepared that everything takes time, but she’s never bothered by my own lack of patience. She plays, taking her time and happy to wait.
No one taught her how to get along with me, she just came to it naturally.
Nonetheless, she’s not always happy to give me a hand. Sometimes, when she’s tired or in a bad mood, she clearly says no or whines about it. There’ve been many times when we were out in public together when we both panicked and burst into tears. Of course, my daughter doesn’t think of me as being handicapped, so for better or worse, she regularly tells her friends the stories of my failures, which they all take to be hilarious. Now, since she’s a senior in high school, she also uses the stories for her composition class.

Some might wonder if I’m not embarrassed, but I’d say no, I’m comforted by the fact that my daughter appears to have taken her life with this strange mother here as normal.
“Parents lead their children by the hand” may seem like common sense, but that’s not the way we work. Maybe people will find that strange. I can’t count the number of times I’ve lost confidence in myself as a parent. But each time, it just made my daughter smile and laugh.

Whenever things got out of hand at the house my father would put on his headphones. That’s not as outlandish as it might seem. We were six bothers and sisters, and everyday was filled with disputes : one day I fought over who gets seconds of fried chicken, the next I cried over hand-me-downs. Most of the time my mother would impose order by throwing down thunder and lightening, and that’s when my Fathers would put on his headphones. Maybe it was just his way of saying “be quiet,” but as a child I always felt it was a little cold.

That Father of mine.. when we found out that he’d been diagnosed with a terminal illness, he had very little time left to live.
“Why didn’t you say anything!?” “Why, Papa!” “Daddy, why?” We all felt flustered and lost, and we ended up getting mad at him.
His first answer was “Because I didn’t want to trouble you,”but he quickly got tired of us all pestering him and turned away to put his headphones back on.
“Please Daddy, stay alive!” “If you die, we’ll never forgive you!” …our mouths overflowed with grief, but our Father said nothing, turning away from us to listen to his music.

On the 49th day after his passing, I was putting away my Father’s things and I found those headphones. When I looked carefully, I noticed the cable was broken.
“Your Father heard every word you kids said!” Mom announced in a voice filled with her own longing. I learned that after that day, my Father spoke of switching from palliative care to more aggressive therapy to prolong his life. In other words, he tried to answer his children’s call.

Once, when I cried about having to use a hand-me-down school bag, he arranged for a loan in secret so that he could buy me a new one. Though he often pretended not to listen, the fact is nobody heard more clearly than our Father.
“Hey, what are you doing with those broken down headphones?!” My brother was staring at the beat-up cables with an air of regret.
There’s nothing to say. But when I think about my Dad, I can feel my heart get warmer and warmer.
I’m sure he wanted to live. To live with all of us together. I’m sure now, really sure.
“Thank you, Dad.”
In the end, the headphones covered your tears.
Now you can cry freely.

My name is Sachiko. My mother has called me “Sat-chan” since I was a little girl. But now, at 90, dementia has made her inarticulate. She can no longer call me Sat-chan, just barely “Saa-chan.” In her younger days, she was game and hard-working. “Sat-chan ! time to eat,” “Sat-chan, I’ve made you a dress. Try it on!” Going so far as to grab seats for me when we got on the train, “Sat-chan! there’s a seat over there!” With all this doting, I got through 60 years of my life without a care as far as my Mother was concerned.

Especially loud and shrill calls for “Sat-chan” have always been a signal that my Mother needed my help with something, so it’s never disturbed me. But once into her late 80s, her dementia gradually got worse. The unrelenting pain of rheumatism finally confined her to her bed, from where cries of “Sat-chan,” “It hurts,” “Help me!” and “Water!” were simply a small way to continue to impose her will on the world. Once into her 90s however, dementia made short shrift of her, and my mother lost the use of language. All of it but a single word: “Saa-chan.” Whether she wanted a diaper change, a back-rub or a glass of water, she would call out that word: “Saa-chan.”

Sometimes throughout a whole afternoon or on waking in the middle of the night, she would call dozens of times, “Saa-chan, … Saa-chan.” When I got fed up and left her on her own, she would quickly fall asleep whispering my name.
When I see my mother’s thin, wasted body, I remember the timid child that I was and my mother’s recurrent pep talks. When she would cry out “Sat-chan!” I too felt her desire to “DO YOUR BEST” and always felt energized.

Now, though every day there are 100 cries for “Saa-chan”, it is the only way she can cry out for help. There was the “Sat-chan” that brought me up and nurtured me, filling me with love. And now this “Saa-chan” that entreats and moves me to do things. My Mother’s chosen word is drawing strength from the wells of memory and meaning, and today, once again, I pray I can answer her call with the loving care it deserves.

It’s night. I’m in bed with my smartphone. I look at News and the social networking sites. When my phone slips through my fingers, I know it’s time for sleep. So am I really going to fall asleep this way again tonight? Just at that warm and pleasant moment, I hear the sound of footsteps quietly stirring downstairs. Right, this is when my son wakes up.

Our son is a truant and a recluse. He’s awake all night, plays video games till morning then finally sleeps, and it goes on and on. We hardly talk to each other.

I turn back to my SNS. I’m looking at tweets from other truants and their parents caught in the same circumstances as I’m in. They blame themselves for whatever went wrong and try to encourage each other. “How about trying to go back to school?” “What will you do now,” they ask, even broaden their concern to family siblings. I’ve been through all of this. We all go through it somewhere along the way. So now my feeling is that that’s all OK. Whatever happens happens is my present standing.

Still, it’s not like I’m not worried about my son’s future. It’s just that we barely have any time together, I’m actually always preparing what to say when we do, thinking of the shortest way to say things so he’ll understand immediately, so as to encourage him to have more contact with society. But will words really have any effect? I doubt it.

Maybe it is more important that parents show their children how much they are enjoying life. I’m not exactly saying parent’s need to take the lead by making examples of themselves. That’s an old way of thinking with an heavy odor of Showa sticking to it. And I don’t mean that parent’s should somehow get pushy about it. I’m saying that in the end, parents should be enjoying their lives, going out to visit different places, trying new things, exploring what’s around them everyday, making their own choices, in short: just plain having a good time.

In some way, my son chooses only things that are meaningful, but in trying to do only what you believe to have merit, you lose sight of what life is all about and can’t make your own choices or decisions any more.
Isn’t it better to think of life’s meaning when it’s over? If you start by basing your life on a meaning it doesn’t have yet, won’t it just all be meaningless? It’s useless to force things. I think I’d like to live a life of total nonsense from now on, to the point that others perceive it as some ancient wisdom.
It’s pointless to worry over life’s meaning till its end.

My Mother likes to talk. On the other hand, my Father doesn’t. Hell just sit there going “uh-huh, u-huh” and listen to others talk.
A few days ago, my Father suddenly died. My mother and I both got two months off work. Even though she was deeply sad, she just kept rattling on like a machine gun.
When I remarked that she was talking a lot, she immediately replied without any hesitation, “If I stop talking, it means I’m sick.”
Though she went on with everyday conversation, I was worried she’d say something sorrowful like “So, your Father’s gone off and died before me.”
During our vacation, I took Mom to get vaccinated. I drove her there, then waited in the parking lot till it was over. And of course, while I was waiting, I thought about my Father.

When I got the same vaccination, my Father said, “…with your anemia and all, you might faint,” and he drove me to the hospital for the vaccination. When I came back to the car, I was struggling with the pain of the injection. “Hurts?” my Father quipped. I lost it and screamed, “Yes it hurts!!”
I was just thinking about how that really wasn’t my finest moment when my Mother came back to the car. She got in the car and immediately started talking about how she’d made a friend. She’d met a woman in her sixties and the two had sympathized over their situation. My thoughts had made me melancholy, but seeing my Mother happy over this chance meeting cheered me up.

“So, …it hurt?” “Yes, it hurts” she screamed.
Talk about déjà vu.
In fact, my Father often said, “They way you’re talking, you sound more and more like your Mother.” Maybe I am.
But the thought of keeping up with her made me chuckle.

The thought of being a match for this older woman, my mother, made me chuckle.
Trying to think of how I resembled this
Trying to think of how I might resemble this elder woman, my mother, made me chuckle.
But the thought of keeping up with her made me laugh.

I finally realized when I became a parent that I had only gotten to this point because I’d been protected by a series of miracles.
For example, the fact that I’ve never been involved in any incidents or accidents. Sensational events are occurring daily throughout the world and yet I’ve never been involved in even one of them.
Or another example is food.
Since I started living, right up till now, there’ve been people around me who put a lot of effort into what they cook. Left on my own even if I had the money, I couldn’t make the same kind of food.
Then there’s education: having the time to study.
That is not a given. You need both time and money for it to be within your reach. Only money can buy the cram school and reference books you need to really learn.
The source of all these miracles has a name: PARENTS.

When we’re young, we rarely realize all the effort that parents put into keeping us safe until we’re bigger. As we grow older, we taste the frustration of being unable to do this or that. Once you’re a parent, that frustration gets stronger when you stop thinking only of yourself and start to think “this child…” Things don’t always go as you hoped. Sometimes you get mad. But all these things become memories you look back on with pleasure. That’s why I think that the next time we meet, I need to put this into words and thank you.
I’ll say, “Mom, bringing up kids isn’t easy. So, thanks so much for all that you’ve done for me.” And I’ll probably cry.

Things were spread out across the 8 mat tatami floor.
Clothes, underwear, towels, even cups…
I started putting my parent’s names on everything.
Tomorrow they were moving into a nursing home.
Trying to prepare everything for two people as directed in the list the home had handed out, particularly the name tagging, was turning out to be surprisingly difficult.
I had a feeling that I’d done something like this before.
Was it helping my daughter get ready for kindergarten or maybe elementary school ?
I remember how putting my daughter’s name on all the pieces of the math set had made my head spin. But getting ready for school also made me dream about someone’s bright future. Looking at my daughter’s pencil box and it’s contents, reminded me of happy school days and lightened my work.
Today, I’m doing the same kind of name-tagging, but with a heavy spirit.
My Father has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and my Mother has broken her bones so many times that she can no longer move freely. With all this, they could no longer live alone. The Nursing Home would provide 24 hour care. But they would be leaving the home they had lived in for sixty years, What could my parent’s be feeling about that? Was this really the right decision. Could this daughter have done more for her parents? I kept going over it in my mind.

Finally, I think it’s for the best.
Getting used to life in this facility may be difficult for them. but they themselves see that their health and well-being will be better served there. My thoughts are that we should all hope for better days, so let’s finish getting ready without all these dark thoughts.
Over fifty years ago, my Father used his knife to carefully carve my name into each of my pencils, while my Mother nimbly put labels on everything my brother and I needed for school. With all these memories, I threw my heart into readying my parents’s departure.
The relation between parents and their children is special. One day, you find yourself rendering all the services you yourself have received through the years.
All the love I received flows back to them, bit by bit, with all my heart.
As for myself, I believe that tomorrow will bring new hope, of a better life, one where they will be set free of the constraints of their infirmities.

“Hello Mom? Now listen: Thanks for giving birth to me !!”
That’s what I said to my Mother over the phone on my last Birthday.
I’d heard that Birthdays were not a day for you to be celebrated by the people around you, but a day to give thanks to your Mother for risking her life to give you yours.
I’d been through 50 Birthdays, but I’d never thanked my Mother.

After graduating from Middle School, I went to a sleep-away school for High School. After High School, I left home and got a job. So in all, I spent just 15 years with my parents. Nonetheless, I’ve married and take my children home for Obon and New Year’s. I have no problem getting along with my parents. I guess you’d call our family normal as far as that goes.

But I don’t call my Mother very much at all …like they say “No news is Good News.” So my idea was to make a surprise call and say my lines right off the bat to see if my Mother would break down. And I tried that but I couldn’t go through with it. I just got the beginning out, got embarrassed and clammed up.
That wasn’t what was supposed to happen. I never even got my strategy into play. I should have at least gone to a separate room to telephone, a place where my wife and child weren’t spectators. That might’ve helped.
As for my Mother, she didn’t bat an eyelash: “Happy Birthday ! But, I’m the one who should be thanking you. Thank you for coming to find me and becoming my son!”
There’s a line from a famous poem by Yoshida Shōin, the last poem he wrote after being informed of his imminent execution, which goes,

No matter how much we think of our parents, their love will be greater
So now, after today’s letter, I cannot bear to keep them in mind

When I thought back on my Mother’s words, I burst into tears.

I have a 4 year-old son.
My job keeps me busy on weekdays, so, though I can’t do it every week, I make a conscious effort to reserve us a day together on a weekend at least every two or three weeks. On that day, my son gets to do pretty much whatever he wants.
First, he wakes up to his favorite breakfast: waffles, and gets to watch as much anime as he wants.
After that we break out all his toys and make a giant train game.

When he tires of that, we’re off to the park where he goes from swings to RC Car and from the slides to playing tag.
For lunch we go to the neighborhood onigiri shop and buy fried chicken with nigiri.
During the afternoon we take a train ride.
We head for the big station in the neighboring town. After watching all kinds of trains come and go, we buy my son’s favorite doughnuts on the way home. We eat dinner, play in the tub, and I put him to bed where we trade the day’s stories till he drops off to sleep.

Usually, I’m at his side throughout the day, putting heart and sole into each new game until he’s had enough of it.
My child loves these days.
Children have boundless energy. I’m reminded of it when I see how far he can go. It’s awesome. And throughout it all, he is so, so happy. He always asks, “Is it still morning?”
Right in the middle of lunch, or even if it’s evening in the park, he asks again, “Hey, it’s morning, right?”
When he asks his question, his eyes are dead serious.
At his age, he has a sense of time and knows the answer to his question, but he wants his happiness to continue. If it’s morning, then there is still more time.
Such innocence, a child’s question unadorned by any doubt.
Obviously, the answer is “NO,” but if I said so I would see only regret in those very eyes whose tender regard I myself seek.
I myself become a parent playing as hard as I can to hear those words.
It’s because I know that he will not always ask “I is still morning”that I try to cherish my time with him now.
This Sunday my agenda is clear.
I wonder if he’ll ask me again if it’s still morning.

During our last two winters, I learned how there can be ild and tender climates even in winter.
One day in December of last year, there was an incredibly beautiful sunrise whose flush, red light shone in my window.
That was when my Father suddenly died.
It was just two weeks after my wedding. I was running around in the midst of everything with no time to go through all my feelings, and suddenly my Father’s funeral was over.

On the ride home, I stared absentmindedly out the window while holding my Father’s funeral urn on my knees. There was so little of him left. He fit easily in my lap. The lingering warmth of the ashes sank bit by bit through my lap, spreading from my knees throughout my body. This must be what it feels like to hold a new-born baby, I thought. Even though my Father had quarreled with me right up till the last time I saw him, I sensed warm and tender emotions welling up within me. I suppose it was a moment when I should have been feeling empty and sad. I felt sure that once people gave up their mortal existence, they certainly returned to the state of a newborn child.
Just a half-year later, I discovered that I was pregnant.
It was the winter after my Father’s passing.
I gave birth to my first son on a beautiful day full of blue skies.
I held a newborn for the first time. Holding that small soft body, I could feel that same tender, loving warmth again
My one and a half year-old Ōchan is always happily smiling.
It may sound odd, but he points to pictures of my Father and says“Gramps”even though he never had the chance of meeting him.
“They must have crossed paths in the sky,”my husband says.“He must have told Ōchan to come down and be your baby to take away any sadness over his own passing.”
Every time I squeeze my baby when he’s lying on my chest, I feel that same warm and tender love. It reminds me of when I had my Father on my knees filling me with warmth.

Some years ago we did not go back to the family home for the New Year, but I still wanted to do something to mark the occasion. So, on New Year’s Day, we got up early, had a quick breakfast of Ozōni, and the three of us set out for Meiji Shrine. On the way home, we were walking down Omotesandō, which was much less crowded than usual, when my husband suddenly ran in front of me with our son on his shoulders.

At the time, my husband was often in a bad mode due to illness. I was having trouble deciding how to deal with him and in many ways had come to ignore him. He paid little attention to his son and his son’s upbringing. So that day, like most others, my position was that it didn’t matter if my husband was with us or not.

At the Shrine that day, I had prayed that our Family would find its way to its very own form of happiness. So I was shocked when I saw my husband carrying our son on his back down an Omotesandō that felt a bit different than usual. It was as if the Gods were playing with me, saying,“Hey now, here’s that happiness you asked for!”

Just at that moment, my lively memory brought back the image of the man who was once a caring husband. Even now that image makes me cry. But happiness is not something you can perceive in a few well-defined spots. It’s more of an accumulation of moments which capture your heart, From that day, I decided to let go little by little the way I’d become accustomed to doing things let my husband do as he wanted with our son.

I thought it was natural and for the best.
Just look at the smiles on the two of them. I’d been dealing with my husband’s illness and fighting to bring my son up alone, but all the pride and willfulness of that struggle had no meaning at all.

Now my son is in his second year of elementary school. As for the Father, his son has gotten a little bit too heavy to put on his shoulders, and the son finds it embarrassing to be there in front of his schoolmates. Nonetheless, the other day he quietly whispered in my ear, “You know, I really like Dad a lot.” That convinced me that my happiness was always right there in front of my eyes.

When was it that I stopped taking baths with my Father? I know it was over by middle school. My secondary sexual characteristics began to kick in and that was that.
As I remember it, we always bathed together up till then. Mom bathed with my sister. I naturally bathed with Dad. Generally he was a quiet man, but he talked a lot in the tub.
“How’ve you been doing lately? Do you like school?”
“So do you have any close friends now? Where are they from?”

I was obedient and would do my best to answer earnestly. But then my Father wasn’t much of a conversationalist, so maybe he was just asking because he felt he should have something to say.
I remember he once invited me to go fishing when I was in elementary school. This was even though he would usually get up in five in the morning and leave alone. I thought that might be a pain, but I said yes since he took the trouble to ask me. That made him light up with a bright smile. “We’ll need to get up and out of the house early tomorrow,” he said with a chuckle.

The following morning I couldn’t wake up. My Mother helped me get ready, and then I fell asleep again as soon as I got in the car. When I opened my eyes, my Father got me up and we set out to fish in a mountain stream. My eyes were so blurry from sleep that I could hardly see my rod, but I’d barely gotten my line in the water when a giant fish hit my bait and started to fight desperately to get away. That woke me up!
My Father helped hold my body steady and we fought as one to bring the fish in. We kept at it for a long time but finally the line snapped. We both landed in the water and were totally soaked.

As soon as we got home we both headed straight to the bath.
“That fish, it was a char. If it was just a trout, it’d never have that much strength.”
Losing that fish brought us together, and after that, I always liked going fishing with my Father.
My Father died five years ago. We keep a fishing rod in his old room as a keepsake. My mother always tells me I should use it. Using it without him would just be a waste of time, so I just leave it in his room.

Senile dementia causes changes the character. And so it is with my 96 year-old Mother, who now lives her life with less heart and limited emotions. As if singing,“Met and seen, forget my fears, the night’s dark road alone…”she sang a lament for so much living through so many years. There was nothing I could answer to that. From morning on, my Mother sang her lament in the hospital ward.

Things floating in the heart, everything pent up in her lifetime is purged in Mother’s songs, sung to strange melodies. They are not just ordinary songs. “I’m too much longevity, I’m this world’s parasite, And that world’s Lord Enma’s mis-entry”

Many of Mother’s songs are incoherent. That’s when I pretend to take no notice. If I look earnestly into my Mother’s eyes then, she loses all her will and tears come to her eyes. “I can see the sea. The pure, red sea. The old, wooden comb is floating, the toothbrush with worn-out bristles is floating.”

I wonder if everything that sunk into the heart’s darkness will surface now to increase my Mother’s suffering now. I know that my Mother was often poor. In/From an old dresser drawer : a wooden comb soaked dark black in Camellia Oil, a toothbrush with worn-out bristles, a bottle with salt to be used instead of toothpaste. Despite what I may be thinking, my Mother’s expression is bright. She keeps singing. She bleaches her heart in the bright lights of the hospital room.

Can these songs be born in some place unconnected with my mother? I believe it’s possible. These songs are made to allow her to return to the life of silence that was hers. Perhaps I am the only one she wants to hear them.
“I’m the one who gave birth to you.” she says.
There are times you look at me with those words in your eyes.
I was your frail feet and hands.
I comb out your pure, white hair.
“Even if I die, I’m your parent.”
I still can’t say that word.

My family ran a small printing shop in Morioka. The store was old and built on the road to the school I attended, so my classmates often looked at me with curiosity. Still, for me, who had watched my Father work up close, there was no doubt my parents were proud shop owners as well as proud parents.

When I finished school, I left home and got a job with a company in Sendai. Since my work was concerned with only internal affairs at my Company, I never had any need to make a visiting card. Once, however, the company suddenly decided to send me on an errand to Tokyo, and all of a sudden I desperately had to get some visiting cards. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time, so finding a shop that could react that fast seemed difficult.

“I apologize for the rush, but I would like you to make a visiting card for me.” At the other end of the line, my Father answered immediately in an aloof tone,“My pleasure!” Even though it was New Year Card season, so he must have been busy, I soon received an email containing a PDF file with images of some design suggestions. I chose my design, corrected the proofs and two days later 200 visiting cards arrived by express mail.
When I called home to thank him, my Father just asked if he’d sent enough.
When I answered that just 20 would have been fine, he just laughed with embarrassment.

My business trip went off without mishap, and I’d been back in the office for a while when I got a telephone call from my Mother.
“Your Father was so happy you asked him to make some visiting cards for you. It’s something he’s always dreamed of doing. He was so happy working on them. He was quick, right? The fact is he made the designs years ago, hoping that someday you might ask. Making those card for you was his dream! Thank you!!”

It’s been more than ten years since I got those cards and in the meantime, there’ve been many changes in my position within the company.
Nonetheless, I’ve kept the cards my Father made for me.
In fact, I must have about 180 cards that I’ll never use.

It’s what he wanted more than anything in the world.

I’ve hated my Father for as long as I can remember.
Which doesn’t necessarily mean he was a bad guy.
He shows up at work even when he’s sick, doesn’t go out drinking, and always gets home on time.
On holidays, he works mutely in the garden, and is always ready to drive me to school and back.

However, he was a regrettably clumsy man. Judging by exterior appearance, he looked like an affectionate Father, but I was sick of his uncommunicative nature. He almost never started a conversation, and I hate the way he eats, passing the whole meal without saying a word. But the sum-mum was my coming-of-age ceremony.
I was so excited that I put my kimono on at around 4:00 in the morning and then just sat there waiting till it was time to leave for the ceremony. When my Father saw me all he had to say was, “Looks a little tight.”
Really, …if he found it too embarrassing to say how pretty his daughter was, I still would have liked it if he took some pictures of me dressed in my finest.
That was the last straw. I tried to forget the man existed.
Which is why I never spoke to the man at the turning points of my life.
I graduated from college and got a job. Quit the job and set up my own business.

I became independent in my early twenties. Starting my own business with little more than twenty years of experience was the harder than I ever imagined it would be. I had trouble with money, half-starved and cried over how pathetic I was. But never once did it cross my mind to talk with my Father about it. He’d never cared about me anyway…

Then came my 25th Birthday.
It was the end of another long day when a short message came in on LINE.
“Happy Birthday. Are you OK?” From my Father.
Indifferent words from an awkward Father, but still it was the first time words from him actually made me happy. Just when did I start hating my Father? Before I realized it, I was saying I’d never marry anyone like him. But this year, at 28, I’m marrying someone very much like him.
My two awkward men laughing while exchanging drinks at table.
I wish this could go on forever. I hold this thought in my heart but need to put it into words to tell my Father the next time we meet.

It’d been a while since I’d gone out with my Mother to eat lunch together. She was walking just a little ahead of me in a crowded restaurant district when she suddenly lifted her hand in the air with her palm turned upwards and started waving it around. Since she was facing forward at the same time, she looked just like a runner in a relay race receiving her baton.
What in the world are you doing?! She twisted her head round for a second, and I had a tremendous jolt of déjà vu, so strong it was like being swept into another a time.

I was a child full of curiosity, who showed interest in anything and everything around him. Whenever we went out, I would run off on my own ahead of the others, dragged forward by all I was seeing and never getting enough of it. So my Mother, who worried about me getting lost in the crowd, rather than just yelling, “Over here, over here!” would throw her hands up in the air and move them so I wouldn’t get lost in the crowd.
When I saw her hands like that, I would zero in on them like catching fish in a barrel and take her hand in mine.

As long as I could see her hands in he air, I could never be lost, Those fluttering, swimming hands were like a landmark that gave me sense of security I can still dimly feel to this day.
No, but I’m way too old to be holding hands …suddenly laughing, I blurted out, “Im not a child anymore!”Then my Mother looked surprised,“WHAT !?” Apparently, she wasn’t even aware of what she’d been doing. It was an old ingrained habit, built up over years of usage.

Maybe that small, unreliable child I was is still living somewhere deep inside her heart. Since it had been more than 20 years ago but I immediately knew what those fluttering hands meant, it was evident that the same young child lived in me. And maybe someday, when I have my own child, I’ll act just like my Mother, singing out, “Over here!” and waving my hands in the air.
That’s when I’ll tell my children about their Grandmother.

The first time I learned I would not be with my family forever, I cried. I was six. It was mother’s day, and the song we sang that day was about leaving home. The idea of being alone scared me.
With time, I came to realize that change was inevitable. Not only did children leave, but also parents, siblings, grandparents. Sometimes willingly, sometimes not. However, in a sense, families are forever. Even if people leave, something remains with you. Further than memories, what stays with you are little things. Lessons, feelings, ways of thinking; invaluable gifts that are a memento of people important to us.
It is thanks to my family that I am who I am today.
My older sister, who taught me family could also mean friendship. Being siblings does not mean constant rivalry, instead it is a bond filled with chatting, philosophizing and endless laughter. She taught me that books were powerful and entertaining; the constant presence of her books around me made me interested in picking one. It was a compelling experience that would change my world forever. The continuous sound of her Japanese tv series made me intrigued in the language they spoke.
My dad, who taught me comfort and discipline. I would do my best in school and come home to show him my results. His proud smile would make all the effort feel worth it. Strict and comforting at the same time. He would come home from work at night, and I would lay my head on his lap while he patted my head. It was in those moments when I felt the safest. He was, and is, a constant reminder of what a safe place feels like. For me, that place is my father’s arms.
And finally, my mother. There aren’t enough words nor paper to write my gratitude for her. She taught me to believe in myself when I couldn’t. “I would like to learn Japanese but I don’t think I’m capable,” I said to her one day. “Why don’t you try it?” She told me. “I would love to help indigenous people around the world but maybe in another life, I don’t think I can in this one,” I commented when writing my career proposal. “Why not in this life?” She answered. And here I am, with a N1 JLPT certificate, applying to an anthropology major in a Japanese public university. “Don’t leave things incomplete” was her motto. If it weren’t for her, I would have left my dreams to be only that: dreams. Instead, she taught me that aspirations could become reality. It is not “I would like” but “I will.”
I am nineteen, and I am still scared of being alone. But all I need to do is remember their lessons, smiles and the love they gave me to realize I will always have my family with me.
We are walking legacies; a collage of mementos from our loved ones.

The much-awaited Olympics, now one year late,  are set to start this summer, and I’ll be becoming a father. We just passed the one-month to birth marker. My daughter is warm and happy in her mother’s belly. I’m caught in the gap between expectations: “I can’t wait to meet her!” and hesitations: “Will I make a good Dad?” 

Whenever I think about being a parent, the first reference is, of course, my own parents. My father was timid and kind-hearted; my mother lively and cheerful. The two of them raised me along with my younger brother and sister. Now that I am about to have my first child, I’ve realized what makes our parent’s love seem so powerful to us.

Though he worked full time, my father never failed to take us to visit the seaside or mountains whenever he had a long weekend. Out of concern over my little brother’s asthma, my mother dusted and cleaned on her hands and knees, daily and relentlessly, without once failing to thrill us with her wonderful cooking. I was a big fan of superhero Ultraman. I don’t know how many places my parents took me to so I could see or meet him. At one of these meets, Ultraman gave me a light. It lit the core of my heart and soul for years. These are all such strong memories.

Once the three of us grew up, my parents divorced. At the time I didn’t give much thought to “our parent’s problems,” just about them not being together. The Mother who had always been there was gone, leaving an overwhelming absence behind. It’s a bitter memory, but it’s not just because my mother had left that the tie between us was broken. Our parents weren’t together anymore, but they each gave us their love as a parent.

My Father in his clumsy fashion.

My mother whose presence drove out loneliness.

Just like when Ultraman Zero is given the Space Boomerang by Ultraseven and is reminded of how much his father’s love means to him, I too have felt my parent’s love profoundly.

Dad, 

Mom, 

thank you.

Now it’s my turn. I don’t know how much I will be able to do for my daughter. I hope I can help her get what she wants and support her in all that she tries. I’d like to pass on to her all the love I received from my own parents. And then, maybe someday we could all meet Ultraman. The whole family, laughing together.

I got married last year.

My wife likes sunflowers. She grew them every year, and from the time we met, she would send me a photo of each year’s crop in full bloom. When we began living together, we lived in an apartment. One day, it came to me that she wasn’t going to be able to raise any sunflowers there. “I’m sorry,” I told my wife, “You can’t grow sunflowers here.” “Well then, next time we go visit my home, we can have a formal ceremony for passing on the spade,” she answered.

Later, when we did go to her parents home, she handed her sack of sunflower seeds to my father-in-law saying, “I’m entrusting you with our sunflower seeds. Make them bloom large and round.” My father-in-law didn’t seem much like the gardening type. I muttered something like “Is it OK to push your Father like that..,” to my wife.

Some months later, her father arrived with a broad smile, “Our sunflowers are two meters high and look marvelous.” My wife and I went out to take a look, and it was just like he said. The garden overflowed with sunflowers. Smiling as broadly as her Father, my wife  laughed saying “They’re so pretty!”

According to the story, my mother-in-law told, my wife had put a note with extensive instructions into the bag with the seeds, giving points on planting, different kinds of sunflowers, and such. Her father, knowing how important these sunflowers were to his daughter, had thrown himself into his chore, making up for his ignorance of gardening by showing his daughter’s memo to the people at the neighborhood garden supply shop and seeking advice on things like fertilizers while spending more and more time in the garden weeding and watering. “There gonna be big,” he kept saying. “When those two come back to see them, they will really be surprised.”

She added that in the beginning, her husband hadn’t seemed very happy about going out to the garden, but once the sunflowers had begun to sprout he was inspired, rushing out every day to check and take care of them. Then, when she finally went out to see them in bloom, she was both shocked and enchanted at how big they were. The two of them broke out the sake and spent the better part of the afternoon enjoying the flowers, their smiles as bright as their sunflowers in full bloom.

I was going through a dresser at the house when I discovered a small, old box in the back of one of the drawers. “What in the world,” I thought as I opened it to take a look-see. Inside the box was a present and a letter I’d prepared for Santa Clause when I was little. The present was a Santa Clause mascot I’d made from felt. The seams on Santa’s coat were coming apart and looked about ready to pop. There was a hand-woven muffler, clearly a few sizes too small since it barely made it around Santa’s neck. I seemed to remember breaking into tears for fear of not getting things done in time. And then a letter, filled with pain and gripes about school that for some odd reason I’d decided to address to Santa Clause along with my thanks. And of course, my parents had read all this. Just thinking of that made my face burn.

But then I recalled that I myself had a carefully preserved letter from Santa Clause. “Thank you. You’re my favorite,” it said in English, written a number of times on the same page. At the time, I’d been happy about the letter, even bragged about it to my friends. I’d used a dictionary to work out what it said, and I still remember reading it over and over again.

My Mother had probably poured over the same dictionary I’d used when she was trying to figure out what to write. The idea of my mother desperately struggling with a dictionary to write a letter from Santa in English still makes me laugh. Yet even today I sometimes find myself taking that letter out to reread it. It gives me courage. I haven’t mentioned the letter to my mother. She’s easily embarrassed.

Mom and Dad are getting older. They spend their days working in the fields, living a quiet life. I’m busy with child rearing and work and only see them rarely. How is it that one day I was suddenly on my way out of our home, confident I could deal with things on my own. Certainly, it’s what they wanted. In fact, it’s the very reason why they’d brought me up with such care, I thought, while gazing at the little Santa Clause I’d once made.

“All said, my parents may have been awkward, but there was a world of love and thanks in this little box, ” I told myself, as I carefully closed it’s lid.

There’s nothing discreet about my Father.

Even when people say nice things about me, he just seems to sop up all the compliments.

Let’s say a relative we haven’t seen for a while stops by and says “Your daughter just keeps getting more beautiful every time I see her,” Well then, my Father would just give a hearty laugh and answer, “Well, of course, she does. In fact, I’m worried about her getting too good-looking!”

When I was little, I didn’t even know words like discreet and modest even existed. I was proud of a father who was generous with his praise for me. But I do recall clumsy and embarrassing moments from when I grew older and began to understand more about things.

After finishing college, I signed up to work for a company but quit almost immediately. I heard what an acquaintance of ours said to my father, with a large twist of sarcasm in her voice.  “So they say your daughter dropped her job just three months into the contract she’d signed with the company!” Apparently, my Father came right back with, “After working so hard to get the job, I think stopping so soon must have been really rough on her.”

When I heard this story, I was taken up short wondering when my father had begun to see things from my standpoint: it was a shock. My Father surrounded me with his love and refused me nothing. I thank him deeply for that. More so now that I am a Mother with two children. Now when people say, “Such a clever child,” about either of my children, I answer, “Thank you, they really do their best,” just like my Father would, even if I do feel a bit embarrassed.

A dry whack ! ! and that bright, white ball flew off into the morning mist.

“Nice shot!” I heard from behind me where my Father stood watching.

“Look at you! Just get your hand on a club and it all comes back. Just look at that. I don’t think I can match it,” he said, looking a bit worse for wear. And yet, happy. In fact, the last time I’d seen him so happy was ten years ago.

“I’ve been practicing all this time.”

“Really. Well it looks like I’ve got a new rival then…” he said, laughing.

But we could only be teeing off at Heaven’s Country Club then, because my Father died in 1993.

My Father, who liked golf more than anything, was killed on the Tōhoku Expressway on his way to his favorite course when, in the midst of dense traffic, he was hit from behind by a six-wheeler. He was 67 years old at the time.

He left me carrying a load of regrets.

I wish I’d played more golf with him when I could have because it made him so happy. Instead, all I had left to do was to get my game up to par for the next time we would meet. 

“OK! Let’s surprise the old man by getting really good. I’ll be ready for our next 18 holes !”

The problem was that I didn’t know anything about golf, but now, now I was ready to take it seriously. I went 260 times a year. But either I wasn’t much of an athlete or I just started too late, because I never got better at the game fast enough. There were bad habits that I couldn’t get rid of. I kept sticking my left elbow out when I tried to swing. I was sure my Father would laugh at this. I tried so hard and again and again, but my elbow would never listen. 

Then one day I found an old, yellowed photograph in the back of a drawer. It was a stop motion capture of my Father’s golf swing broken into ten images. It was the first time I’d ever really looked at my Father’s swing. In the tenth shot, his elbow was clearly sticking out.

Even though we were in the middle of Corona lockdowns, the driving ranges were open for business.

“I’m really going to show that Father of mine!”

That’s what I say on the way to the driving range.

And I’ll be back saying it tomorrow.

Just looking at us, you can see that our character and taste are direct opposites. My mother’s petite with a kind of wide-eyed cuteness whereas I’m tall with sharp, slanted eyes.

My mother’s bright and friendly, good with people, and I’m retiring and shy of strangers.

Mom is liberal arts; I’m science. She likes sweets; I tend to liquor.

On the other hand, I’m dexterous while she is clumsy.

I’m so little like her that I got worried about it when I was in middle school. I finally grilled her, “I’m really your child, right? You gave birth to me, didn’t you? We carry the same blood?”

I was profoundly troubled but my mother just laughed, “What are you saying? The answer is obvious. There is no doubt that you’re my daughter.” So saying, she dove into her drawers and came back with whatever papers would prove her point. Her Maternity Notebook and an old album.

In the album was a photo of my Mother when she was pregnant, and then a photo of my mother hugging me lovingly when I’d just been born. There were some memos by the photo. “May you be born without mishap.” “She looked at me and laughed. So cute!” They made me so happy I could hardly hold still.

It doesn’t really matter what I might have said about our differences, I never really thought she wasn’t my mother. I know what good care she takes of me. It’s just that even being the one being raised and pampered, seeing the proof of all that love and care and even being able to hold it in your hand is such a pleasure.

“But really, Mom, you and I, we’re just not alike.”

“Really? Wait, just hold on! We both have two eyes then, don’t we?” 

Say what? …my mother just has an answer for everything.

Just a glance at my mother’s coy look and I found myself laughing, and finally laughing so hard my eyes teared.

We’re the sun and the moon, the white and the black, the sky and the sea.

Absolute opposites, but it’s fine because whatever I’m missing, my mother’s got, and whatever she’s missing, I’ve got it on board. Whatever the problem is, we’re there for each other. That’s the one big thing we’ve got in common.

After eight years of teaching, I left to take over the family business.

Last year, my eldest son started elementary school.

When I saw my son’s exercise book, it reminded me of my teaching days. The same reading and writing exercises I’d handed out every day. “Have your parents check your homework.” “Who listened to you repeat your lessons yesterday?” These were the instructions I repeated morning and night at our homeroom meetings. Reading and writing are the base for all studies, so I insisted on them more than anything. I had all my students read together with boys and girls taking turns choosing and reading their favorite paragraphs. I invented all kinds of schemes and surprises to make the work stay happy.

I took my son’s exercise book and we sat down to go over his reading. I thought it would bring back old times, but my son had trouble reading smoothly. I realized his reading skills were poor. When I was a teacher, I studied desperately so I would have practical advice on upbringing and tutoring to give at roundtable discussions and parent-teacher meetings. When my child started elementary school, I wanted to put into practice all that I’d learned. But, things weren’t so simple. Motivation, determination, the joy of learning: everything I’d told all those parents to reach for were like dreams. All the difficulties of home learning came down on me. I finally came to feel what all those parents must have been feeling.

I decided to make a fixed time for reading every day.

My son and I, our index fingers tracing the words on the page, trying to read each word carefully, slowly, and in chorus. 

It’s been a year now since we started our sessions. Working on his homework has become a moment for us to get together every day. And I have moved from being a teacher to being a parent. Now instead of checking students’ notebooks, we get ours checked every day. And every day, it’s full of stars. When I see those stars, they are like a prize for parenting lined up with the words my son and I are reading.

Going forward, I hope to hold on to this precious time spent my son over his studies.

It’s 6:30 in the morning.

It’s broad daylight outside. My son is sleeping next to me. His hair feels a little damp.

He’s gotten so big, I thought, looking at how his legs were sticking out from the bottom of his pajamas.

I wrote that on the 10th of July, eight years ago.

It was sunny too, the day he uttered his first cry. He still looks the same when he sleeps, with the same even breathing.

My eight-year-old son pointed to his Ultraman underwear and said “Tomorrow, I will stop wearing them.”

I think he was around 3 when I caught him riveted before the television where he’d just gotten an eyeful of Ultraman, and it surprised me how earnest he looked. I still remember the look on his face.

Shy, always trailing bashfully behind me, my son now appeared before me clenching his Ultraman figure in one hand and the other lighting up the transformer device, proudly making common cause with his heroes from the screen.

He wore his hero’s picture book to shreds going over it and over it. He also remembered all the katakana.

On a freezing winter day, his cherished hero appeared before him in the flesh.

And for the first time, my son let go of my hand and moved forward on his own, answering to his own emotions. 

When his hero knelt before him and held out his arms, my son’s face filled with emotions of wonder and hesitation until he was swept into his arms.

Even today, the memory is vivid. It was the moment my son, my child, took his first real step.

You were born on “Ultraman Day” and made it this far with all the Ultra Heroes.

“Really. I see,” he answered while reaching back in his memory.

That’s when you took your first real step forward.

And it set you off down the road to a future that still remains before you.

I hope I’ll be there at the end of that road, and that it will be full of smiles like the wonderful one you showed me in your heroes arms that day.

But for the moment you’re in a place where I can still reach you.

Because you’re the one who is still hiding his favorite hero mascot in his handbag.

“I want you to marry someone who likes to drink.” This was one of my Father’s stock phrases. Since he himself liked to drink, he drank every night. From beer to shochu, wine to highballs, my Father loves all kinds of alcohol and repeated his stock phrase to me enough times for me to end up thinking I really should marry someone who drinks. But, the thing is, the person I was actually planning on marrying didn’t drink alcohol at all. 

When he came to our house to ask my Father for my hand, my Father offered him a drink despite the fact that I had warned him not to in advance. I guess my fiancé didn’t feel he could refuse because he took a sip and was out cold five minutes later. Between the future son-in-law who didn’t drink, the obvious fact that he couldn’t drink, and the family up in arms about serving alcohol to a non-drinker after they had warned him not to, my Father looked miserable.

After we married, we’d sometimes go back to my parent’s house for a visit. Though my husband usually doesn’t drink at all, there were times when he was visiting when he felt like trying a drink. He’d finally gotten to the point where after drinking a little, he’d just say “Headed for bed” and leave the room without further ado. 

My Father always seemed to regret the whole situation, but I liked the time after my husband went off to bed. I got to spend time drinking with my Father. From the time I was little, watching my Father drink, liquor had some magic about it. So maybe my Father was unhappy about his son-in-law going off to bed, but for me the time we spent drinking together just the two of us was dear to me.

I’m too shy to tell my Father as much, even if I think he sometimes looks receptive.

And then, isn’t it a family visit? Since I brought the sake, I’d like to be able to say “Let’s have a drink together.” And while we’re at it, and a little drunk, I’d like to tell him how happy I am to be there.

I’ve always found it odd. Why did my Mother marry my Father?

Compared to my Mother who is as charming as she is caring, my Father is a man of few words who doesn’t pay attention to even his wife’s small demands.

Let’s say she’s a woman of standing; why would she marry an ordinary office worker? You’d think he’d probably have to have an outstanding character or be exceptionally caring. Without some overriding reason, there would be no reason for the marriage.

It’s not that my Father has a bad character. There just appears to be no reason for my parent’s getting married. So why did it happen?

When we were younger, my elder sister and I used to talk about it. “Our Mother married the wrong guy,” we used to say. And our Mother? She’d just repeat the same thing, “I’m telling you, you’re Father is just too cute!” So, she was so taken with him that she couldn’t see straight anymore. But this kind of thinking only served to displace our criticism from my Father to my Mother.

Time went on and I grew to be an adult. I was finally able to see my Father as just another adult, not always my Father …and, my Father is a darling. Every evening when he finishes work, he always calls to say he’s headed home. And he does this even if he is alone and his three women are off on vacation somewhere. He is always sending us the image of a stamp we got him for Father’s day that looks just like our pet dog. He doesn’t need to say thank you for the gift.  He just sends the stamp. He does the same with clothing. On family outings, he always wears the T-shirt I gave him for his birthday. Once I said, “You’re wearing my shirt!”  “Oh, so I am!” he replied while smirking provocatively.

Papa is cute.

Now I’m an adult, on an equal footing with my parents, and I can understand what my mother sees in our Father. I feel like I finally see why she chose him.

When I was still a teacher, some people would ask who I found more endearing, my own children or the children I taught. Needless to say, the most natural answer was “my own children, of course!” but was that really true? I have a feeling that may not have always been the way things were.

Once, coming back from a three-day camping trip, I was turning my wards over to their eagerly waiting mothers. I was dog-tired, and this was the last thing I had to do. Once over, I was off and hurrying home, not a care in the world. Little did I know what was coming.

“I saw one of your daughters trudging down the road loaded with camping equipment, but when I offered her a ride, she said “no,” turned her back on me and continued on her way.”

!! – I’d totally forgotten. My own child’s camp outing was over that same day.

If anyone ever said that I would forget such a thing, I would have answered, “I’d die first.” I’d seen the Mother’s lined up to receive their children, the children latching on to their mothers. But for all I’d seen, I’d forgotten my own child.

“I’m going to be a full-time homemaker.”

“Me too, I don’t want to be like you Mom, always off at work.”

That’s what both of my daughters had to say to me when they got married. There was nothing I could say. I just had to bow my head and take it. But ten years later, their attitudes changed. I started teaching when I was 35 years old. Oddly enough, on reaching the same age, one daughter went back to school and became a nurse; the other went back to college and became an interpreter.

“We never wanted to be anything like you, but that’s just exactly what we are now,” they giggled at me. They can repeat it a thousand times. It will never erase the terrible sadness I felt that day I forgot them. It beats in my heart like a wound, and I’ve never spoken to them about it.

Recently, my mother’s been calling a lot.

Is she worried about her far-away daughter? —Not really.

She just wants to get her granddaughters on the phone. And then comes getting tips on how to send photos and do video calls.

At this point, how many times have we explained how to send a photo?

More than twenty, at the least.

Video calls? …you push this button, and then this one…

I’ve patiently explained the steps over and over again.

It makes you wonder, like, “…maybe school teachers do have it rough?”

My mother’s real pleasure is watching her granddaughters grow up.

Including her younger brother’s children whom she also regards as her grandchildren (for me they’re nieces and nephews), that makes eight grandchildren all together. 

They were all babies until recently when all of a sudden they were putting on their own pajamas and had teeth coming in.

Kids grow up so fast.

If I had a wish, it’d be that my Mother’s ability to handle her gadgets could develop as fast.

Still, her pictures are the best.

I love the one of her holding the bouquet I sent her for Mother’s Day.

And the picture of her harvesting tomatoes in her garden. She was so proud of them.

Because of the Coronavirus, I haven’t been able to meet with my mother for 2 years now, and every time I see my Mother’s smiling face on my phone, I’m so deeply relieved …which is why I’m willing to go on teaching her the same thing over and over. But please don’t tell I said so.

 

Our Family Account on LINE looks like an ongoing festival full of notes and photos capturing daily events. If you look at the big smiles and laughing faces of all the grandchildren along with my own Mother’s, there does seem to be a family resemblance. The whole family gets crescent-shaped eyes when they laugh. The slightly crooked eyes of the nephews and nieces look just like my Mother’s. There’s no fighting it: we’re a family.

All I need to do is open my smartphone.

The Family photo is there, their faces shining like sunflowers.

No matter who you pick, they all have parents. 

And being the ones who gave birth to you, they’re important to their kids as well.

And then, these kids are also be having children and becoming parents.

I have two children. They’re both important people for me.

Until the arrival of the Corona Virus, I think we had a peaceful life.

Of course, we had our little problems just like everyone else. Just, compared to what was to come, we had a peaceful life.

Then, the schools and kindergartens closed. I was forced into a prolonged leave of absence. On top of it all, we were terrified not knowing what kind of virus we had to contend with. I was afraid to go out. There was no way to know if a simple walk in the park was okay or not. Once you reach that point, the only place the children have left to play outside is in your own garden. Once we figured that out, I spent time every day in our narrow, little garden with my kids. We collected pill-bugs and tried to raise them. Up until then, we’d never had so much time together.

Even in a small garden, there are all kinds of living things, plants and insects. It was the first time we’d ever really taken them into consideration. There were so many discoveries there to be had, more than enough to keep the kids happy every day. As time went on, our activities got richer and more complex.

We got something I could never did get from my own parents: real family time. It was so precious that I still think back on it with wonder. Maybe when they grow up, they’ll remember our time in our garden as a marvelous moment of their youth. Nothing would make me happier. Happiness is never far. It’s just health and being together. My days in our garden with my kids taught me that this is all it takes.

I suppose I’ll be getting a package this summer with cucumbers and pumpkins from my Mother. An apple carton filled to the brim with goodies. There are apples and grapes in the fall and more apples in winter along with radish and leeks for vegetables. Spring vegetables include fresh onions and potatoes.

I came to Tokyo ten years ago and have been receiving these seasonal packages from my mother ever since. Rice, miso, and soy sauce are always in the starting lineup. Besides seasonal vegetables, my Mother often includes some of the things she makes herself: shiso juice, cucumber pickles, and even chive rice crackers.

In some ways, I think my Mother is being over-protective. Still, these are things I love so much, they”re practically out of the box and into the pan: all gone by the coming day. But what should I think about her asking me to send back the Tupperware and bottles her preparations come in?

Just think about it. It’s actually cheaper to buy new ones than to pack them up in the empty apple carton and send them back. Or, maybe I could just take them all along with me next time I visit home. That way we save on the postage. But once I was home, my mother would just fill up my carryall with more Tupperware (full this time) for me to take back to Tokyo, and then I’d just be back where I started. At age 29, getting all this food from home was making me feel like I was still living a college student’s life. That’s the way I was beginning to see things.

And then, I have a boyfriend.  Just like me, he came from the country to try to make his way in Tokyo. When I first went to his house, there was a pile of odd-looking containers. They were full of meat. When I asked him what it was, he replied that it was a duck his Mother had sent. This was the answer from a 35-year-old male. So, male or female, we all had the same Mothering problem. What are parents really thinking about their kids? I still can’t figure it out. Maybe later, if I have my own children, I’ll come up with an answer. That’s why, while I’m still on the child’s side of parenting, I want to say these things :

Thank you for always sending rice just when I am about to run out.

But how did you know how much I like your chive senbei?

You can send me more if you like.

And thanks for the strawberry jam.

But I know you only make 2 jars a year. You don’t have to send me the big one.

Please share it with your friends.

Thank you for all those apples, each and every one, each and every year. 

The kiwis too, but don’t leave the price tags on them. 

And they were expensive! …even though you’re usually more frugal.

You always watch over me, think of me, understand me: thank you for all your care.

I’ll be bringing your Tupperware back this year, just like last.

And I’ll be bringing those Tokyo cakes you’re always saying you want to try.

I can’t wait to see you.

Our Family holiday was taking off as usual.

The sun isn’t even out yet and our second son, 1 year old, is in a rage. Shortly, the four year-old, our elder son, will be up and at his merriment.

My wife was in a fluster trying to get the two kids to go back to sleep. I was by her side. Hoping desperately for just one more hour of sleep, I pulled our quilt up over my head. Just about the time you could sense our room sinking back into the early morning calm, I heard a my wife’s heavy breathing. My wife, a full-time homemaker, had spent most of last night putting the boys to bed and keeping them there. I doubt she got a lot of sleep. Just when our second son was born, I started catching a lot of overtime work, and I began to see my wife’s look of utter exhaustion with worrisome regularity. Yet she was up at the same time every morning making breakfast, emptying the dishwasher, taking out the trash and getting on with her routine chores.

 

I’m not trying to extoll my wife as a one person operation handling house chores and child care on my behalf. I’m just trying to say that I’m well aware of what she has taken on and think she is as brave as she is capable. Somehow, sitting at the table watching my wife work for our family was like watching somebody else’s business, and watching is what I did while sipping coffee every morning. All I could think is that she was really pushing it. I couldn’t help but wonder how long she could keep it up. With a look of reproach, my wife breeched her usual complaint. “It should be a pleasure to watch your children grow up. I don’t want to hear anything about how tired I look!” With a tone of disgust, I let go with my habitual reply, “No matter how aware I am of our children’s growing up, we’ve become a couple who hardly meet, living in a toxic atmosphere.”

And BOOM !

And a strident sob from the younger brother in the back room.

 

The little one must have had a bad landing.

In a flash, my wife’s irritation focused on the older brother.

The two of them were laying on the floor arms and legs spread wide.

“Listen, ah…, I was helping my brother do some stand & walk exercises! …he even walked some on his own!!”

My eldest son’s confidence had taken a dent, but he went on, “He’s growing so fast, he must be exhausted!”

My wife’s eyes cycled to beads, and I let a snide giggle slip out.

“You’re right, it must be that he’s exhausted!” my wife chimed in. “And from now on you’re taking out the garbage and doing cleanup because I’m exhausted too. So please help me just like your brother, right Papa?”

My own eyes cycled to points, but this time, it was my wife who sneered.

It should have just been an ordinary day on a typical holiday.

As for strident sobs from the kids, they’re louder today than ever.

It’s 2:00 in the morning, a time when everyone and everything is sleeping.

But one small body is rolling out, fighting pain and heading for the kitchen.

“Good Morning Mister Pickles!”

A wrinkled hand in the folds, slowly and carefully pulling out strands of Chinese cabbage.

Dad’s favorite pickles: “Mom’s nuka-zuke.” She took an offering of it to her Buddhist alter, clasped her hands and closed her eyes for the longest of times. Then she whispered, “I thank you for today as I thank you for every day. And as I thank you for keeping me healthy.”

Mom was born in 1939 and grew up during the war.

She was born in downtown Tokyo and witnessed its bombing firsthand.

When the fires of war burned high, she lost her family to civilian re-locations back to the homelands.

Many in Tokyo were tormented. The people in the countryside were up in arms.

“You’re just robbing all our food! Go home, go home !!”

Even small, little girls had stones thrown at them.

Fleeing, fleeing, and falling. On a bank by the river they came to, she ate stems plucked from the grass pushing up steamy and hot from the soil as if in a dream, the sweet taste of Spring.

She came back to Tokyo from the re-location camps only to fall on more food shortages that seemed to go on forever. My feeling is that my mother suffered a great deal living through long periods of hardship. Yet I’ve never heard a single word of complaint from her nor any stories of her difficult times. I think the word “hardship” was left out of my Mother’s dictionary. I always had my Mother’s back and learned all I could from her.

There were the fires in Tokyo, and then once the war had stopped, there was severe famine. There was sukipon and takipon, but often just eating grass from the fields.

The one who could make delicious dishes without the real ingredients was the Lil’ Head Chef. Just 6 years old !

She made meals for her eldest sister and a family of seven.

Wondering how to make her suiton hot pot more delicious, she found her own ways.

Drying out radishes brought out their sweetness, so let’s mix in radish skins.

The seed coat from nuts found in the woods could be dried and used for spices.

“Mr. Radish, give me your taste. Mr. Suiton, let’s get delicious !”

The little girl begged her ingredients to be genial. 

Food needs to be beautifully served, to better stimulate her family’s appetite.

She put all her wits into making them healthy.

From that point on, as young as she was, she mastered how to cut and how to serve.

★ Her family always smiled when their little chef served them food.

“Kumiko is a real artist, isn’t she !” the whole family would chime in together to show their satisfaction. Her “Little Chef Specials” were always welcome. 

The whole family was always ready for more.

My Father’s favorite Persian Silk Trees were in bloom when he became concerned about a cold he couldn’t seem to shake and went to the hospital to see about it.

The doctor called me in alone to tell me the name of my Father’s illness and what his prognosis was. My Father finally checked into the hospital without ever really hearing what he had. It was when my son and daughter were in elementary school. They loved their Granddad so much, that we never had the courage to explain. Only my mother, brother, and husband knew that Granddad would not see the silk trees next year. In two and a half short months, he was gone.

Once he was gone, I suffered over my choosing not to tell him what he suffered from and the decision to allow life-sustaining treatments. Had I been right? Was this bad for him?

And now, through the years, whenever I see a silk tree in bloom, I think of all this.

When my daughter was in middle school, she said to me, “Mama, if you ever got cancer, I would do everything I could to take care of you. And then, if your life was shortened, would you hate me for it? I don’t think so. I think you’d say, ‘I’m sorry for all the trouble I’m causing. I know it’s rough for you. I’m sorry.’ Granddad was just the same. Why do you keep telling us that you should have told Granddad that he was dying and that you’re sure of that now? You just never wanted to make him sad …and we feel the same way. But if anything like this happens again, please don’t hold back for fear of hurting us.”

Her clear and simple words put an end to all my suffering.

Maybe, after all, my Father knew what was ailing him.

Seeing his child’s relentless efforts to put on a happy face, he just pretended not to know what was happening to himself. While my Father was in the hospital, I had no place to cry. I would get into the bath and put my mouth in the hot water to quell my sobs. My husband pretended not to notice.

At the time, the hearts of my Father, my husband, even the children, overflowed with encouragement. It’s actually because we are family that there are things we can’t talk about. And everything, right along with the things left unsaid, it all falls on the family.

Parents and children.

Having children makes us parents.

Our parents help us to see straight.

The silk trees are blooming again this year …and Dad died 21 years ago.

Our son started first grade this spring. Every day, when he comes home from school, the very first thing he does is get a hug from his Father. My son was not at the same school from kindergarten through to first grade, so he’s been a bit lonely since his new school started. On top of that, with the Coronavirus, he’s had to keep a social distance and wear a mask at school where even the lunch periods don’t leave him much time for talking.

Contact with his schoolmates is restricted during school activities, so the children have very little actual contact with their classmates. With all this going on as it is, I think his Father has come to play a major role for him in our family. He opted for ‘Working From Home’ so he could stay home and lend a hand. His presence has been so reassuring for both my son and myself. 

There’s also the fact that seven years ago when I gave birth, I damaged my hips and haven’t been able to carry heavy things since, so this limited my opportunities for close contact with my son. From the time he was a newborn to this day, my husband has stood in and taken up the slack. That’s why he heads straight to get a hug from Dad when he gets home, something I’ve seen close up for seven years.

It’s often said that mothers need to sing their own praises since, without going and coming to work, they become invisible. But I think it’s the same for Fathers since we really don’t see what they’re doing out in the world. Once at home, aren’t we all on the same footing and dealing with our kids? For my son and me, the answer is obvious: more than any super salaryman, company president, or superhero, my husband should be getting a medal.

Thank you for making yourself an enduring source of warmth deep in our son’s heart, and please keep it up!  Our son feels the same way. He wrote “For doing your best” on the medal we made for you out of origami the other day, the one you proudly put on the wall by your workstation where it shines brightly.

I was raised by a loving, caring, nurturing and supportive mother and father. These words alone are proof of good fortune. I had a wonderful childhood, with my mother and father playing opposing roles in their personalities and upbringing style. My mother was active and engaging and loved rock and roll and pop music. My father was more quiet and solitary and listened to opera and classical music. My relationship with my father changed over time, improving constantly until his death at age 70 in 2017. Lindsay was my father and I loved him very, very much. This story is about David who became my stepfather. 

When I was about 19 years old, my parents divorced, and David became an additional father to me, even if I wasn’t completely ready to accept it at the time. So what makes a father? Is it simply enough to transfer your genetic information to another person and create a child? I don’t think so. What I have received from David, consistently and unfalteringly since I’ve known him, has been love, support, encouragement, generosity, advice and lots of fun. 

David has a remarkable ability to see and act with a heart full of compassion, fairness and equality. During the years when Lindsay was disabled, David invited Lindsay to stay with him and my mother and even helped him to eat. David played a complex role in supporting my mother and father, which he mastered through his lack of jealousy and his overwhelming sense of support to our family. 

He was a father to us all at that time, teaching us how to be better people and how to really care for others in a silent, honorable way. No father is without faults, as no human is without faults. Lindsay had many, as I’m sure I do. Whenever David makes a mistake, he is quick to apologize and even quicker to begin the process of fixing whatever feelings have been hurt. 

David loves to share from his immense knowledge and will explain things patiently to anyone. He has always been an exceptional communicator with my wife, regardless of her level of English and his lack of Japanese! He is caring in what he says, able to distill complex ideas into simple and easily digestible conversation. 

Support. Love. Care. Patience. Generosity. Inclusivity. Sharing. These are things that begin to make a father. My family and I are the lucky ones, because David possesses them all and uses them freely and frequently. Our lives have been made richer and happier because of his presence, and I hope that other people can find these qualities in their own fathers, whether they be fathers by birth or fathers by circumstance. The only thing that matters in life, is how we treat each other. 

Thank you David for being my Father. 

There’s a phrase in the journal from my first year in elementary school: “Never stop laughing,” something I added with my Mother when we fell into hysterics on the way home from school one day.

That day, I was carrying home some school circulars when my I lost my sandal in the river. We even ran home to get something long to trap it, but it wasn’t long enough. We were in stitches. And then when we did finally get my sandal ashore, we actually managed to lose it again in our scramble to secure it. And that seemed even funnier.

Truth be told, even today, my Mother and I have a tendency to laugh about things. When I was little, my Father would squeal, “Here we go again,” whenever my Mother and I would go into hysterics, and my brother would scramble out of the room with a fat grin on his face. Almost thirty years have passed since then, but my Mother and I still seem joined at the laugh. Now I’m married and don’t get to see her as much, but when we’re together it doesn’t take much to get us going. After that it’s infectious and impossible to stop. Then as now, this special relation I have with my Mother feeds my feelings of security and well-being.

Still, some things have changed. What’s different is that now it’s my children and husband watching my Mother and I break up—because it’s not like everyone is laughing together. No, they’re sitting there saying, “What happened? What’s wrong?” But when were cutting up, neither my Mother nor I have the wherewithal to answer. We’re too busy laughing and holding our sides to get a single word out.

My Mother and I laugh about the same things and when we do it brings us even closer. These days we spend much less time together, but all we have to do is meet to laugh again, and this, more than anything, makes me happy.

About 5 years into my first job, I took a trip to Hokkaido with my Mother. It was the first time just the two of us had ever traveled together. I didn’t make any vacation plans with my friends. I reserved that summer for my Mother. We would start with a long walk through the Kushiro Marsh, then head to Shiretoko Peninsula by car for a tour of Eastern Hokkaido. I actually rented a car at Kushiro, settled my Mother in the passenger seat and hit the accelerator. Hokkaido’s dry air put us in a good mood. Up till then, family vacation drives had been engineered by my Mother and driven by my Father with me, their only daughter, in the back seat. This was going to be different.

At first my Mother was nervous about my driving, but once she got used to it she was in high spirits. We were headed north on our way to Shiretoko, just about halfway, when we made a rest stop. While we were there, they asked us if we’d been to see Lake Mashū. Lake Mashū wasn’t on our itinerary, but their question peaked our interest, and we decided to go out of our way to see it.

Looking down from the observation platform at Lake Mashū, we saw a slight mist over its surface. Through breaks in the mist, we caught glimpses of a strange color between green and blue, the deep color of the lake’s water. It made the Lake seem mystical.

“Tomo-chan”
Looking back, I discovered my Mother with a dazzling grin that I’d never seen before. “Lake Mushū is certainly mystical, but for me you are much, much more mysterious. You were so small when you were born, and now look how you’ve grown up.”

All at once, I realized that if I were careless with my life, just how sad I was going to make my Mother. For my Mother, her very existence as a Mother began the moment she held soft, little me to her breast. From that moment on through the years, she surrounded me with her affection and sought to make me safe. And I did feel safe.

This little detour taken on a whim left me with an unforgettable memory, and not just for Hokkaido’s famous scenery.

My Mother will be 91 this year. Her knees and ears are weak, but otherwise she’s extremely sound in mind and body. I have only praise for my Mother, except maybe one little thing that I really wish she would drop. I wish she would stop calling out my name when we’re in public places like department stores or super markets. I remember once when I was still a bachelor and took her to a department store. I dropped my Mother off in front of the store and went to the parking lot to park the car, then went in through the first floor entrance into the store. Once in the store, I quickly became aware of a far-off cry. “Takashi-chan !! Her I am. Over here!!” it seemed to be saying. I’d know that shrill voice anywhere. I kept thinking, “This is embarrassing. How I hate this…” while pretending not to know the woman. “Here, over here!!” she yelled while waving her arms at me. Of course, both the sales personnel and the shoppers were turning around to look at me. Soon enough, they would see I was not some young child but an adult, and I could almost hear them start chuckling. I casually sidled up to my Mother and told her, “Stop yelling after me! I’m no child anymore !” To which my Mother replies, “Why should I? You are my child!”
“That’s not what this is about. Aren’t you the least bit embarrassed to be carrying on this way. No matter how many times I tell you, you just go on doing it.”

Later, after I married, the three of us, my wife and my Mother and I, went to a large supermarket together. In the midst of everything, I heard her start up, “Takashi-chan!” My wife, who knew what I thought of my Mother’s bad habit, decided to kid me saying, “Oh, listen! Mother is calling!!” All I could do was sigh. A little more than ten years after that, when six of us, including my three daughters, went out together, things got worse. All three of my daughters, giggling madly, turned on their bald-headed Father and called out, “Takashi-chan, listen ! Your Mother is calling !!” a perfect imitation of their Mother years before.

All I could do was smile bitterly. At city hall, in hospitals and in public parks, on occasions too numerous to count, all I could do was wait for that call. What else can I do?

Two years ago, as a Mother with children, I married for a second time to a bachelor. We were all piled together and struggling with our new life when a family speaking a lively Hiroshima dialect moved into the room below us. It was a couple with a daughter called Ai-chan, who ended up attending the same kindergarten as my son. The kids became inseparable, and soon enough, the parents too.

The word artless was coined for kids like Ai-chan. When all was smiles and the conversation flowing, she’d make no bones about repeatedly interrupting, taking center stage and being a bit too bold, but at sterner moments, she’d fall silent, puff out her cheeks and pout.

“C’mon Gramps !! GET THE DOOR !!!”
Talking to her Father like that, when I thought back on it, was close to the way I’d sometimes address my husband. I still remember the look my son gave me. He was always reserved and on tenterhooks with his Father. But when I spoke to my husband like that, he’d stared at me wide-eyed.

Still, the direct and audacious Ai-chan and my reserved and prudent son made a good combo. I was looking forward to watching them grow up together. Unfortunately, after a year and a half, Ai-chan’s Father was transferred to work at a faraway place. The two families spent as much of the remaining time together as they could, as if we were all trying to close the holes that had been ripped open in our hearts

Our final day together was also the day for the closing ceremony for the second semester of first grade. I arranged things so Ai-chan’s parents could stay at home and pack right up to the end, and our family took charge of getting the kids to the ceremony. On the way home, the children were so quiet. My husband tried to get a laugh out of them, saying, “Now you two, you must be really happy?”
“What’s to be happy about, stupid !”
Ai-chan was trying to kick my husband who’d playfully swept her up into a hug. And my son broke in shouting, “Hey, that’s not nice!”

Looking at them play, I felt that my son and his Father had grown closer over the last year and a half, and it was heart-warming to see that being close to the brazen and ingenuous Ai-chan had freed my son to discover his own childishness.

Six months after that, people who met us saw a real family. I am so thankful for this year and a half that so deepened our family ties that I think of it as a miracle.

This all happened forty years ago when I failed my first college entrance exams. My first choice, my second & third: all failed. Both my parents tried to comfort me, but their words didn’t reach me. Under the shock, I shut myself up in my room, wrapped the bedspread over my head and closed my mind to the world.

My Father came in and tried to take me out of my room by force. He wrenched the bedspread off my head and dragged me into the living room. It was a depressing scene. I just wanted him to leave me alone. I got out of my Father’s grip and went running out of the house. I didn’t think that my Father was going to be able to catch up with me since I’d been running 30 minutes every morning to stay fit while studying for exams. He never exercised and had a well-developed beer belly. He could never keep up. …but he was keeping up! I cranked up my speed. The next time I tried to look back, my feet got tangled and I fell. My Father wasn’t going to let me go. He came at me with a desperate look, waving his arms wildly.

“What do you want. Can’t you stop following me?”
I got back on my feet and tried to get away from my Father. I was beginning to think what I was doing was stupid, so I ran into a park and sat on one of the benches. Soon enough, my Father joined me. He was huffing and puffing.
“You’re too fast. I thought I was going to croak!”
“Who even thought you could chase after me!?”
“I know: it’s a miracle!” he said laughing.
“Listen, these entrance exams, they’re just one little moment in your life. If this year doesn’t work out, you try again next year. And if that doesn’t do it, again the year after. And even again a year later if you still haven’t got a school you want.”
“Hey c’mon, it’s difficult to believe I could fail that much.”
“There you go then!” my Father exclaimed. And he laughed, and so did I.
That day, thanks to my Father, I was back on my feet and right back on track for the following year’s exams. I never cease to be thankful for what he did for me that day.

His calendar brimmed with work dates.
My Father didn’t show up at athletic meets, Parent’s Day or graduation ceremonies. No birthdays, no Christmas. Neither of us ever sang Happy Birthday together, and I can’t recall eating any Turkey with him. All I remember is that he was never there, that and how lonely it was to miss him. Because I really did, from the bottom of my heart. That’s why when choosing a husband, I looked for someone who was the opposite of my own Father. “Let his salary be low, as long as we dine together.” That was my deepest wish.

My Father’s calendar was swept along with the world’s increasing technical advances and moved to the scheduler in his mobile phone. Nonetheless, as always, he never had any free time for me, and when you hit B on the keyboard, the first word to come out was business. The more his overtime increased, the more his life was shortened. But that’s how he handled his work.

A year after taking retirement, he collapsed with a cerebral infarction and never returned home. This was just when he thought he might start a new life. My Father’s regrets must have been immeasurable. After the ceremony for our 49th day of mourning, I was straightening up my Father’s room when his mobile phone, that should have already been shut down, began to ring.
“Huh? …sounds like a phone call!”
“That’s too creepy !”
Neither my Mother nor brother wanted to pick up the cell phone. Taking it gingerly, I peeked at the screen. It wasn’t a phone call, it was a scheduling alarm. When I saw what was written on the screen I was speechless: “Yumi’s Birthday.”

My Father had set up my birthday in his scheduler. I was shocked and bewildered, but I was also filled with an indescribable flush of gratitude. No matter how old he was, my Father never forgot my birthday. Though he was not at my side, his heart had never really strayed from me. I sincerely regretted ever hating him.
The truth was that he had always wanted to be with me.
He wanted to spend much more time with his family.
That was him.
A mixture of sorrow and affection.
Dad, thank you for loving me so much.

“Clever boy!♪” ” Clever boy!♪”
When was it that the two of us always walked hand in hand?
I’d hold his left hand, my Mother his right, and my one year old nephew would toddle on, leaning slightly forward and pulling us all to the fore. Sometimes he’d look back over his shoulder, and we’d all catch a glimpse of his sparkling smile set in those soft cheeks. My Mother and Father as well, from where they watched, would grin back.

Ever since my sister’s pregnancy, I was at my parent’s side helping to take care of this child. Even with the four of us to help at bath time, someone could get peed on, and if you put the baby down it cries, so we’d take turns holding him till our shoulders ached. I’ve heard that the more time you spend with a baby, the cuter it looks, but I never would have believed just how true that statement is. In short order, my parents and I became the local “grandchild & nephew doting team.”

Though I’d sometimes felt ill at ease spending time alone with my oh so taciturn Father, he now ran a running monologue on flashes from the kiddy room: “You know he can stack three blocks now!” “Today he learned how to clap!!” When I got upset because my Mother reprimanded me for making my nephew cry when I didn’t change his diapers quickly enough, he cheered me up when he said, “Everyone needs time to learn. That’s the way we all start out.”

One Saturday afternoon, when I wouldn’t let my nephew do exactly what he wanted to do, he hit me as hard as he could. “Ouch, that hurt,” I squealed while laughing it away. But my Mother stood up for me without a moment’s hesitation: “Don’t you hit my dear daughter,” she said.

Four years ago, I fell ill with an intractable disease. My parents had sent me to college so that I could fulfill for my dreams, but I didn’t make it. I’m sure my parents must be disappointed. I’m no longer the young child showered with praise. I think their grandchild is now their number one.
“I am older now, and you are as dear to me as ever,” my Mother said on the spur of the moment. I thought I would cry. Her hand had never ever left mine. It was still there to warm and guide me.

I’m pretty sure it was when I was in elementary school,
the one time my Father made my lunch box for me.

I don’t remember why, but I do remember, if only vaguely, that my Mother was away.

I happened to wake up in the early morning and caught sight of my Father’s back in the kitchen.

When I caught a whiff of sausage frying, I thought he must be making someone’s lunch box.

I knew right then that it must be mine.

Back then, we lived in a shabby, little apartment.

Just one little room, an even smaller kitchen, and my Father standing in it.

He was quite heavyset, but his back seemed small, maybe all that weight was rounding his shoulders.

If memory serves, the only time he ever wielded a kitchen knife was when cutting braised pork, a particular favorite of his. He left the totality of household affairs in my Mother’s hands. So now, this man, the perfect embodiment of the Showa Father, was standing in the kitchen.

And I was there, looking intently at this spectacle.
I was neither shocked nor delighted. It was all a complete abstraction for me.

He stood under the hard-white, kitchen lights, fighting drowsiness and clumsy hands, with his back wound round some awkward attempt to get my lunch out.

As much as I regret it, I can’t even remember what was in that lunch box.

It might have been pretty much the same kind of thing my mother made, but somehow I remember it as being exceptionally delicious.

We’d sat down for dinner when my eldest daughter, now seven, said bashfully, “Mom, could you close your eyes for a second.”
“Okay…” I said and closed my eyes and counted up to ten. When I opened them again, I saw a line of pretty presents arranged on the table with flowers, cookies, a portrait, a letter…
“Oh! Thank you! I’m so happy…”

I was deeply touched and gave my eldest daughter a big hug. At that instant, my younger daughter repeated her sister’s words.
“Mama, close your eyes.”
“OKAY…” I said and began to slowly count to ten.
“Can I open them now?” I asked brightly.
“Nooo, no, not yet!”

Murmurs and rustling, little feet and little hands moving about. What were they up to… I too was so excited, it was hard to wait.
“Okay, you can open your eyes!”
At the call of such cute little voices I opened my eyes, and what did I see? I saw my younger daughter smiling widely with sheets of dried seaweed stuck to her lips. And in her hand, she was clutching a giant bag of grilled seaweed.

“Oh, so that’s what you’ve been up to. Trying to stuff down a whole bag of seaweed while I had my eyes closed, huh!?”

We drew around the table and laughed and laughed. I can’t wait to see what mischief they’ll cook up for me next year.

My child is born. Giving birth took such a long time. It was grueling, but it was little compared to the demands of changing diapers and giving milk to a baby who wouldn’t stop crying. I literally didn’t have time to sleep. It was all more than I had imagined. So when my parents called to say they were coming for a visit, I couldn’t help but sigh. I was always clumsy with my Father. I just never knew what to say to him when we were together.

The two of them showed up promptly at 2:00 in the afternoon, the opening of visiting hours. My Mother was overjoyed to see the newborn, swept the child into her arms and started chortling. On the other hand, my Father stood by idly, looking over at the baby without moving to hug the child. When his silence began to weigh on me, I finally blurted out, “You’ve come all this way, why don’t you give your grandchild a hug?” “No, that’s OK,” my Father begged off, but I felt he was more interested than he let on because he kept glancing over at the child. I tried again, a little harder, “Maybe this’ll be your last chance to hold a newborn child. Why don’t you try it…”

With a little help from my Mother, my Father took the child in his arms. He seemed to be nervous since he was squinching up his shoulders. He looked terribly awkward but somehow, painfully beautiful. If one of the nurses happened into the room now and saw him, wasn’t this the kind of scene that would move her to tears? My Father kept repeating, “You’re the one, the one so cute,” in a low voice. He wasn’t saying it to anyone in particular, but he wasn’t quite saying it to himself either. Nor was he addressing the baby in his arms. It seemed to come directly from his heart, words as necessary and unconscious as breathing.

After my parents left, I continued to hold my baby. Absentminded, my Father’s face filled my mind. When I was a little baby, my Father must have held me, I thought. And he must have looked on me while whispering, “You’re the one, the one so cute.” And anyone who saw us might be moved to tears looking at my baby-face. I was seeing an image from some 30 years ago, of my Father snuggling up to my Mother in a hospital room, and my heart wound round it till it hurt. Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that my Father loved me, allowing this attitude to become an obstinate kind of stance, and now I regretted it. I held on to my newborn child and thought of the Father who loved me through all the days of my life, and I cried like a baby.

“Go ahead and leave. But if you do, never come back again.”
That’s what my Father said, that I would be disowned. But it’s not as crazy as it sounds, because I’d abruptly left college to become an apprentice to a Master of the stage.

The morning I left, the only one there to send me off was my Mother. “If anything goes wrong, please come home,” she said, while wiping away her tears. But all around us, due to his absence, we both deeply felt the abstinence of my Father.

My life as an attendant began as soon as I got to Tokyo. Not only did I make the Master’s meals, but I served tea, cleaned house, did laundry and carried the luggage. I was scolded for whatever I did and bungled whatever I attempted. My world was both busy or merciless. After just one month, I started to go bald. Three months after that, I began to get painful rashes here and there on my body. After a half a year, I suffered from palpitations and hand tremors while sleepless nights stacked one on the other. Then, one day, I had a lesson with my Master that I will never forget. I fainted while sitting upright in front of my him.

I woke up five days later, and when I did, my parents were there. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I’d taken off for Tokyo without permission just as I’d allowed myself to keel over in front of my Master. I fully expected to hear my Father tell me to stop. But what my Father said was this: “Why don’t you come home for a few days.” Those words echoed in my heart rather than my ears. I wept in spite of myself. I wept and didn’t care who saw it. I wasn’t frustrated. I was grateful. Grateful that after leaving home like I had, this Father could take back his son.

I thought my Father was obstinate and inflexible, but that wasn’t the case. For all his severity, he was full of love. I thought he might be the last person in the world to say “welcome back” to anyone under such conditions.

Sometime I want to invite my Father to the theater. Not to show myself on stage, not to make him laugh, just to express my gratitude.

The first time I held you, I became a parent.
When you were born, I breastfed you every three hours and then held you till you slept.
I kept checking to be sure that you were still breathing.
Even when I went to the toilet, I would hold you close by me.
You would holler when I went to do some laundry. When you slept, if I moved away, you’d reach out to grab me.

One evening when I was preparing dinner and couldn’t free my hands to pick you up, you kept reaching out to me. Without turning to look at you, I said, “Just a second…” and went on with my preparations. When I finally had a chance to look back at you, I found you staring at me with eyes brimming with tears. “I’m sorry to’ve kept you waiting,” I said. “How about a hug?” With that, your face broke into an expression of utter joy. Your small hands reached round my neck while I held you to me and I was filled with a feeling of deep contentment.

I have a feeling that if we could live on my laughter alone, this child would be happy to be at my side forever. My daughter has always given me a love that asks for nothing more in return.

My daughter invests all her life in our moments together. She throws all her small body into communicating her feelings. And as for me, I want to respond to those feelings. If my daughter finds contentment now, in these moments between us, isn’t that everything? Our whole world is in those moments when nothing is more important than her smiling face.

My six year old son is a real clown. If I happen to laugh at something he does, he’ll do it over and over again. He’s particularly good at weird dances and odd songs. Because I’ve struggled so long with illness and am often bedridden, he understands immediately when he sees my face unconsciously stiffen. I’m sure he can read my signs and moods. When I laugh, he smiles as if I’d showered praise on him. My son’s innocence often reminds me of someone else I know. When I was a child, I was just like him.

When I was little, my parents often argued. At the time, my Father had changed jobs, and my Mother was dead set against the new situation. She’d start a quarrel every night. My brother, who was quite a few years older than I, was in the height of puberty. So when my parents clashed, he would join the fray, and the three of them would have at it. We were all strained to the edge at the house, just waiting for the next spark to ignite. Being so young myself, all I could really do was cry, but as I grew older I began to want to change the ugly atmosphere we bathed in and started to react by doing the oddest things I could. When my brother and Father would see me jerking around, if I could just squeeze a laugh out of them, I’d be happy and keep repeating it. And the entire family’s mood would soften.

My family called me “the clown,” and in my heart I hoped, “I want them all to laugh.” Little by little, with the passage of time, my hope was realized, so much so that we finally became a happy family once again.

Soon enough, I too was grown up and married with my own family, but the suffering of illness chased anything like my younger innocence far from my mind. I finally noticed that a tide of tensions had come to our house. I never imagined that things would turn out this way. When your present is fraught with illness, thinking about the future just makes you uneasy and fills you with worry. Yet, for the sake of this family that does so much to support me, I’ve decided to fill my life once again with as much laughter as I can.

Hey my son, thank you for making your Father remember something essential. Let’s laugh now, and enjoy our family life together. I’m here, and we’ll get through this together.

Listen Mom, you haven’t seen your husband for 30 years but now is your chance, or are you just going to let a little more time pass?
Though she’d been ill in bed for so long, just a week before passing away she asked that her final wishes be heard. She joined her hands and began relating her wishes bit by bit. “I want to leave this world without a cane and on my own two feet, and I want to be wearing the shirt I bought in Hawaii.” And then, with our encouragement, “I’d like to put on some makeup before crossing over the final bridge. And carry a bento of Inari-zushi…” Her voice was weak but she spoke without faltering.

Truth be told, I’d understood immediately. All these wishes were not for herself, they were for my Father’s benefit, for when they would meet again. The makeup was to look her best when she’d see him again. They had bought the Hawaiian shirts together to look more like a couple. And it was my Father who relished Inari-zushi.

Since those were her wishes, at the time of her funeral I put Inari-zushi, a makeup kit and her Hawaiian shirt in her coffin, along with a bouquet of flowers for the moment when she’d rejoin her husband. My Father had died just after turning 70. My Mother was in her mid-nineties. Looking at her, I began to wonder how my Father reacted on seeing her. As I offered incense to the deceased, I wanted to ask how things had turned out. And let’s have none of your evasive giggling, Mom, just tell me how it went. And then, there’s another thing, Mom, right up to the end, I know you worried over your vegetable garden and how much I loved the taste of your curry dishes. Well, your daughter-in-law has promised to master both. And then, for a moment, I felt you were still alive. Please, go in peace now.

Parents know more about their children than anybody. Honestly, I always thought that was a lie. Once I hit adolescence, I flat-out lied to them, resisted them in every way and even got rough with them. Day after day I screamed about how they didn’t understand a thing about me. In the end, I finished by thinking that there was only yourself to understand what was happening for you. Until one day something happened…

It was just last year, a good six years beyond adolescence. I was on a home-stay program in Canada, living each day in a place where both the language and customs were different, and of course, the host family was not my own. I wasn’t capable of expressing myself as I wanted to, so I had to bear up and tough it out. Under these conditions, the first two months seemed incredibly long to me. Then, just as my third month was beginning, a big package arrived at the house addressed to my name. I saw that it was from my family, far off and away in Japan. I rushed to open it and discovered it was full of gifts. From rice, seaweed & miso soup to dried & shredded squid, rice crackers, smoked chicken, cheese & udon. There were also anti-fever patches and throat lozenges, thick socks and a muffler to ward off colds. All the things you could find in typical Japanese stores. And finally, feeling at the very bottom of the box, my hand brushed against something else, a letter from my parents:

“Congratulations on your 21st birthday. Please do your best to look out for your health. And have a good time !” All the bad feelings I’d pent up for the last two months suddenly flooded out of me and I began to to sob. I hadn’t noticed when I opened the package but finally taking stock, I realized they’d sent me all my favorite things. All the food I’d always called delicious. Fat fluffy socks and cold medicine to save me from colds. Each item was wrapped in my parent’s care. That’s when I finally understood how closely parents watch their children as they grow up. And that’s why they knew me better than anybody else could.

When my Father was in kindergarten, the teacher asked the class to draw a fish. My Father drew a long fish barreling towards the viewer head on. It was one my Father’s favorite tales.

And I’ve heard that in lower school when they asked him what the opposite of “hot” was, he’d say “not hot,”and for “tall,” “not tall.” He stubbornly went on that way until my grandparents took him to the hospital to be sure he was all right. Of course, there was nothing wrong with him.

My father told that story at a relative’s memorial service, serenely and without the least hesitation. There are many ways of looking at things, so where’s the problem, he thought. It’s precisely because different people have different ways of seeing things that the world can change, he went on.

My father’s kind of a weirdo. As for me, I’m proud of him. He worked for a large, long-standing Real Estate Company but retired early and opened a home renovation business long before they trended. Even the term “venture business” didn’t exist back then, but without a doubt, that’s what he was up to.

Day in day out, all his efforts were in vain. “I’m too far ahead of my times, but people will catch up soon,” he got accustomed to saying. Soon enough, Asahi Television started their “Great Remodeling ! Dramatic before & after” program, and renovation became a big thing. Suddenly my father was being called all over the country. “What’d I tell you,” he’d say laughingly.

My father died during my second year of middle school. He had a heart attack. One of my father’s last gifts to me was a Vocation Dictionary. When he handed it to me he said, “How’s this? Go out and create a job that isn’t listed in here.” I resemble my Father in both my looks and character. “You’re his living image,” people say. I wondered what my Father had had in mind in giving me that dictionary.

When I was in high school it was my mother who fell ill. Complications after surgery left her paralyzed from the waist down. She lost her job, and along with that, her will to live. In a heartbeat, I found myself saying, “I’m going to make you my new vocation.” It was the part of my father living within me that had spoken out.

Four years later, I founded a company with one of my colleagues from work. Japan’s first and only “Barrier Free Consulting Firm”. Up till this day, I go around the country and abroad with my mother in her wheel chair. People have begun to say I’m just as odd as my Father was. And that’s the part I’m most proud of.

Our daughter’s started kindergarten. I was near 50 when she was born, so with 48 years between us, people probably take her for my granddaughter when the two of us go out for walks. I couldn’t make up my mind whether or not I should go to the kindergarten’s entrance ceremony. I mean, usually any parent with a son or daughter joining the class would go, right? But if I went, everyone was just going to think that I was some grandfather who was so taken with his grandchild that he just couldn’t keep himself away.

On top of that, for 20 years now, I’d been running a juku close to the kindergarten. Many of the parents who’d be at the entrance ceremony were likely to be my old students. That bunch was going to be really excited.

On the morning of the ceremony, when I was worrying over the gray in my hair, my daughter spoke up, “Forget about white hairs ! If anyone calls you my grandpa, I’ll let them know who you’re my Dad !”

“C’mon Daddy, let’s go” she said, pulling me along by the hand all the way to the ceremony. Once there, as predicted, everybody was young. I’d just about managed to seat myself unobtrusively in the back when I heard, “Professor Kurosawa, what in the world are you doing here?” I was quickly surrounded by a crowd of former students and beginning to feel embarrassed. But then, looking at all these familiar faces now grown up to be fine young parents, I finally broke into a smile: so it goes.

Next up is the Kindergarten Athletic Meet where I’m listed in the Parent’s Relay. I’ll be running against my former students. Maybe be I should start training for it now.

Whenever I noticed my father’s back it was large, and then, distant.

When I was little he used to carry me on that back. Now, some twenty years later, it’s all I can do to chase after it. My Father is so exacting with everyone around him that even I feel I’ve let him down. He discovered what he wanted to do at an early age and spared nothing to succeed. He retired after working for many years at the same company, and now, as a university professor, he struggles every day with his lessons and students.

I myself had never been any better than an average student, and there was never anything in particular I was interested in striving for. Moreover, I was so stubborn that I’d easily get sidelined by how people spoke to me or treated me. I failed to get into the school of my choice at both high school and college entrance exams. Without the college’s help in job scouting, I closed myself out of the seller’s market, so I had an equally difficult time fixing on my final employment. I’d been out in the world for about three years when my father began to invite me out drinking.

One such night just as I was wondering how long we’d been the only two people left in the bar, my father said, “The happiest thing in my life was meeting you. …And I’m really proud of you” My father seemed so out of character looking at me with moist eyes that I wondered if the sake had gone to his head. Next, he went on to review my whole life story bit by bit. How my oversensitivity to what people said and did brought me to the brink of quitting school, my time as a student who lacked direction and didn’t study, how my more shrewd friends seemed to be having it worse than I did, my parents getting me through college in the midst of poverty…

“You’re actually a lot like me. You’re a late bloomer, but you keep moving right along !” My father had noticed. I’d finally found something I wanted to do. And then, after a short silence he slapped my back, “I was a dropout myself, and I’m telling you it’ll turn out fine.”

Barely holding back our smiles, we raised our glasses to each other.

Walking in front of me, my father’s back was just as large as always. It didn’t seem like my tendency to self-abasement was getting any better. But, my father’s hand as he hugged my shoulders, was, in memory, the largest and warmest I had ever felt.

Watching birds fly back and forth bringing food to their chicks, I thought about how natural it is to care for them.

Human, animal, and vegetal, we instinctively feel the need to nurture, educate, and defend our offsprings.

At the time of her high school graduation, my eldest daughter announced she was leaving to do volunteer work overseas. She’s physically the smallest of our children, quite demure, and it wasn’t so long ago that she was hanging onto my skirt’s hem crying “Mama ! Mama !”

She was heading for a country that was only known for its most recent war, Georgia (we used to call it, “Gurujia”). Since the place was unknown to me, my worries increased to fill in the gap, right up to the point where I thought I was going to lose it. My daughter, on the other hand, didn’t so much as bat an eye. And then she was gone ! I started wailing right in the middle of the airport, and I didn’t care who was looking.

From that day on, my whole body resounded with questions of her survival: was my daughter eating?, was she cold?, was she sad?, over and over again. I counted the days and waited for her return, till finally she came home.

Flushed with eagerness, I was preparing all her favorite foods while stacking plans for even more meals. That’s when my daughter announced she had lined up a part time job in another foreign country, some 900 kilometers away. Torn between shock and disappointment, my head went white right down to the roots of my hair, and my mind brought back images from the past. Finally giving birth after a long and difficult delivery, all those visits to the hospital while she was young, her being late about speaking, all the different lessons chasing after undiscovered talents, sending her to a private girl’s school, days full of pick ups and send offs without number. It’s a tough game. The only thing that got me through it was being her mother, nothing more: because she is our child.

Which reminds me of something else.

Thirty years ago, at a time when I was changing jobs, I myself suddenly decided to leave Japan. I had always been someone who did what they wanted. At the time, my mother must have felt pretty much what I am feeling now. Some day, my daughter would know what I felt, and what my mother had felt before me. She’d taste that mix of bittersweet and brine just as I was. Only living things live this drama: the drive to preserve our seed on and on through time. Isn’t this what parents and children are all about?

Athletic Meets are a mix of heaven and hell.

Since the senior class Parents and Kids Race was about to start, the loudspeakers were asking the children’s guardian’s to get ready.

“Ok Mom, you’re up!” I reminded my wife.

“This time you go !” she fired back without taking her eyes off the on-going competition.

“What? What do you mean me?” I thought she was joking.

“Tae-chan’s mother, you’re turn to go” one of the other mother’s reminded my wife, who promptly answered, “This time her father’s going !”

“Are you serious? I can’t !!” I fired back, keeping the volume down so no one could overhear the squabble.

“This is the kindergarten’s last Athletic Meet, your last chance. So let’s get on with it…” This was feeling more like an order than a plea.

“Will Senior Class guardians please gather at the gate please” came another announcement.

I had polio when I was 2 years old and can’t walk without a brace. My participation in athletic meets was from the stands, not on the field.

There was a sudden blast of Csikós Post to mark the end of a race, and a crowd of young kid’s were running towards us. I spotted my daughter galloping in from the side.

“Daddy, hurry … It’s going to start !” she cried while pulling me by the hand. One of the teachers who had come along with her said, “You should come and join the race.” Acquaintances sitting nearby also encouraged me to participate. “C’mon Okutsu-san, give it a try !!”

I lowered my voice so my daughter couldn’t hear so as to better entreat the teacher, “You know, running isn’t really…”

  “Daddy―we all get across the finish line together,” said my daughter giving my arm an extra yank. And so my first experience of competitive racing began.

Twelve parents and children were lined up. The object was not to run but to walk as a line towards the goal. Saying I couldn’t run as my daughter pulled me towards the starting line wasn’t going to get me out of anything.

We were in the last group to go. Her friends were calling their encouragement: “Let’s go for the finish line !” “Tae-chan, let’s go !”

“I want to go with my father !!”

Since I couldn’t let my daughter down, I got my first taste of athletic competition.

“I never thought of you any other way but alive.”

These are the most powerful words in my life.

Eight years ago, it’s what my mother said to me when we fled the Tsunami during the Tōhoku earthquake. At the rescue shelter, I could see she was frightened out of her wits until we found my brother because he was set to come home at the worst time, and her head must have been full of tragic scenes. She blurted out at me, “I was absolutely sure you were alive.” Even if it was a lie, couldn’t she just tell me something about being worried about me? At the time, I was just an elementary school student and she really hurt my feelings. Now I understand. She was telling me how much she believed in me.

Now that I am 20 years old, there are some things I would like to give thanks for.

It’s something I realized when an American friend asked me if I knew Kenji Miyazawa. “Sure, I can recite him sometime if we get stuck waiting in a restaurant for our orders,” I boasted. My friend looked surprised and said that he’d never met anyone from Japan like me.

My parents tried to help me understand all kinds of emotions by reading to me every single evening until I started elementary school. As a result, I remember countless stories of people’s feelings. Now I’ve been in America for almost a half a year. I’ve learned to translate expressions that we only have in Japanese into another language. I’ve learned their fine, sometimes elusive differences. My ability to read emotions effortlessly is my greatest force. If I have this talent, it’s because my parent’s cared.

You never stopped reading to me.

You were always positive and backed up my choices.

Before I even started my life, you adopted the premise that I had a future, without the slightest doubt.

And finally, as I fell asleep under your warm blankets, the tone of your voices brought me through the night, changing the shades of my life.

Dear Parents,

Crybaby and troublemaker, ambitious to boot, I think I’ve been a handful. Nonetheless, you brought me up with a great deal of emotion, and now that I have gone out in the world, what will I become? If I love this life as I do, it is thanks to you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

“It’s time to harvest the rice again.”

My mother’s voice, so familiar over the phone… So, it was harvest time again, I thought, and my heart swarmed with old memories.

When I was little, my major, summer event was the rice harvest. Each year, the whole family, including my Mother, Father, Younger sister and myself, went out to the fields. My father would make rice-drying equipment from bamboo. Mother and Father would set the harvested rice to dry. My sister’s and my job was to pass the bundles of rice to our parents. With all the stooping and standing, over and over again, our backs were soon aching, but when I said as much to my mother, she would always reply, “You’re young, you can stand it,” laughing away my complaints.

When we took our lunch break, the whole family sat on one of the paths separating the rice fields, and we ate lunch boxes Mom had prepared at the house. Maybe it was because we were outside, but my mother’s country-style, jumbo nigiri never tasted so good. I can remember their taste even now. Dad would reach down into the brook that flowed by the edge of our field and pull out the watermelon he’d put there to chill in the early morning, now ice-cold. Such a delicious, wonderful meal.

Then we’d go back to the harvest. After the rice dried, there was the gleaning: we’d spread out and go through the fields looking for fallen grains of rice. At the time, I didn’t think gleaning was worth it, but mother and father would always say, “However little, we don’t want it to go to waste,” and this is exactly how I think of my parents now.

I left home once I finished high school, but every year since, my parent’s rice comes to me by mail. Already, as early as middle school, I got so busy that I couldn’t help with the harvests. When I think that they now go on making rice every year without me, I regret that I didn’t help them more when I had the chance.

Wiping away the sweat that was rolling off me, I would pass the bundles of rice on to my parents. No matter how the sun belted down, the river always chilled my hands when I plunged them its waters. My sister, running around the field chasing after dragon flies. The four of us watching the sunset. These are the family memories I hold dearest.

This year I am going home, home to help with the harvest.

Baby-talk is a language.

In baby-talk, cars are Pu-Pu-, food is Manma―sounds babies use for the correct words they can’t yet say. One word my son uses a lot is Nen-ne. Usually it means “to sleep”, but our son uses it more broadly. For example, should he stumble and knock into something, he might squeal “Nen-ne” when he cries. Or, if he should take ill and have a fever, we often hear  “Nen-ne” come out. So, after all, “Nen-ne” is not so much “sleepy” as “It hurts” or “I don’t feel good.”

I guess it’s obvious, but this particular shade of meaning is for the parents only. Strangers won’t hear more than “sleepy”. When we went to the hospital because he was badly constipated, he yelled “Nen-ne!!” when the doctor pressed down on his lower abdomen. But neither the doctor nor nurse seemed to understand: they just tilted their heads and looked puzzled.

A year or two after that, when he was old enough to go to kindergarten and spend the whole day with other children, the flow of baby-talk ran to a trickle. It was we, the parents, who couldn’t give it up. We went on saying “An-yo”, and he’d bark back “That’s FOOT!”

We’re all happy to see our children grow up, but you can’t help but regret how cute a baby can be. Recently, my wife has been making a glossary of the baby words our son used. “Wanwan” is “dog.” “Bu-chan” is “water.” She notes them down as she remembers them. From the beginning I found this a bit odd for a project, but I can’t help but admire my wife’s motives in starting it.

The other day, we were visiting my parents, and my wife found something interesting in one of my early photo albums. She even brought the album back to our house with us.  The last page of the album was covered in writing under the title “Ka-Chan words.” I was wide-eyed when my wife showed it to me. “Ka-Chan” was my nickname when I was little. So, my mother and my wife were up to exactly the same thing! When I started going through the list I was in for a bigger shock. Right in the middle of it I found, clearly printed, “Nen-ne : ouch ! It hurts.”

As far back as kindergarten, I’ve been bad at sports.

I wasn’t like most kids who went out to play, I preferred staying at home with a picture book. What I hated more than anything were Athletic Meets.

And at those meets, what I disliked the most were races. The kindergarten grounds were small, and races were run across just half of it. Even so, I could never make it to the end and always had to stop along the way. When I was finally at the point of tears, my teacher would come drag me by the hand across the finish line.

With such experiences as these, I became incapable of running. In elementary school, things were no better. I continued to be terrible at sports. In autumn, the Athletic Meet season, I would fall into depression: there was no hiding how bad I was at running foot races. I simply had no idea where to start to get better about running. One year, before the meet season, my father came and said he’d teach me how to run. My father had been a top competitor at short distance running for his athletic club when he was a student. I’m sure it troubled him that his own son couldn’t even compete in a simple Athletic Meet. So I went into special training with my father.

Every morning before school I’d go to the park to learn about running. My father’s basic approach was “Spartan Ardor”, but he also concentrated on things like starts and how to work the curves. Those things were worked intensively. I struggled desperately to come up to my Father’s expectations. Then, it was the day of the Athletic Meet we’d worked so hard for, and soon enough, time for my event.

BANG !!  At the sound of the gun all of us dashed forward. I took off, frantically waving my hands in broad strokes. I came in fourth out of six. My first reaction was to be disappointed, but at lunchtime my father came by to say that I’d done really well and congratulated me with a broad smile. I remember having a feeling of deep relief in my chest.

Time has passed since then, and now my father can’t walk without a cane.

I gently hold has hand when we walk together. Being careful not to fall, we walk slowly, one foot after the other.

23 years ago, I went to a farewell party after my elementary school graduation ceremony. Farewell parties tend to follow a set pattern, and ours wasn’t any different: after a meal and a speech, each of us would say a few words for the occasion. I was moving to a different prefecture, so I was asked to make the last address. I was overly shy, inconspicuous and provincial. Making the final speech was to be my first important role.

Our farewell party was the continuation of a highly emotional graduation ceremony: a tempest of sentiment. People kept saying things like “I’ll never forget you for the rest of my life” and other statements you’re unlikely to hear everyday as the series of melodramatic soliloquies wound on.

Finally it was my turn. I was really nervous: no room for sentiment here. The whole room fell silent. It was time for the climax. As soon as I stood up, I broke out into a cold sweat. I couldn’t move my mouth. In the silent dinner hall, there was only the echo of girls sniffling. My first important role. I was trying to focus my eyes on something. Just when I felt like running away, I heard a loud voice to my side.

“Hello Everyone !!”

When I looked over, I saw my Father holding a microphone.

With everyone screwing up their faces and thinking, “Who’s this guy !?” my Father called out in English, “Thank You !”

His pronunciation had been peculiarly good. Looking very stylish while brandishing his arms in the air, he resembled an old-time Rock Star. Grabbing me, now beet-red, around the shoulders, he cried out a final “Thank You.” Really, exactly like a post-concert singer with his fans.

I was hearing people talking and laughing happily. I was watching my Father, who seemed terribly embarrassed, and yet remained untroubled all the while. He just kept saying, “Thank you, thank you…” He’d repeated it so many time that it had blown away the air of sentimentality and left everyone laughing.

Some 23 years later, I found myself at another farewell party. But this time I was there to keep an eye on my own child. And I finally understood what my Father was doing that day.

Dear Father, Thank you.

My mother is always saying “just a bit.” “Just wait a bit.” …or “Come home just a bit more.” And I really hate that “just a bit”. It makes me feel like a child, so how long is that going to continue?

That’s what I say, but at the age of twenty, I woke up to find myself pregnant. My mother’s face screwed up in a scowl. “You’ve been just a bit quick …usually, the order of things is just a bit different.” She really hurt my feelings. And since she hurt my feelings, I had my child in secret. Even without a mother, I can become one myself. That’s what I thought.

But giving birth is just the beginning. I didn’t know the first thing about bringing up a child and felt as though I’d wandered into a tunnel with no exit. The father’s company had sent him to a far-off province, and we saw each other once a month. Out of the blue, after a half year like this, I found myself crying at night. Every night. I couldn’t sleep and stopped eating. I began to feel that all these tears were the mark of the kind of mother I’d turned out to be.

“You’re just a bit young to be having a child.”

Suddenly my mother’s words came back to me. I began to hate myself. I wanted to die. But once pushed to the extreme, I longed to hear my mother’s voice. I tapped her number into the phone with trembling fingers, and the moment I heard her voice, I burst out crying. “Wait just a bit, are you all right?” “Hold on just a bit, are you eating?” True to form, she was being the same pain she’d always been.

But she came to see me immediately. Her hair was a mess and her face full of wrinkles: I was so relieved to see her. I must have cried for hours. My mother quieted us down: me, who had cried like a child, and my child as well. The first I knew I had fallen asleep, and my mother was no longer there. When I opened the refrigerator, there was a note saying “reheat and eat!” The paper the note was written on was well chilled, but my mother’s words full of warmth.

She’d made her very own beef stew for me. It’d been so long since I’d tasted it: just a bit too much sugar, the potatoes a bit too large. I could feel that bit of love down to the ends of my toes. While I was eating I couldn’t help but think of my Mother. I thought of her diligently cooking up an order of beef stew and then leaving my place without a sound. I could imagine her figure going off into the night and wanted to wish her well. Closing my eyes, I whispered, “Mama, it’s so good. You’ve made just a bit too much though.”

My Father was never any good at cooking. If he made stew, he’d be sure to scorch the bottom of the pot. His Miso soup was always bitter. Nonetheless, his fried noodles were the best in my book. Around the time I thought I was never going to amount to anything, it was his fried noodles that helped me the most. I’d graduated from university and was in my first year of employment when I had to stop due to depression. I could hardly eat and rarely left my room.

My mother was sometimes effective in getting control of me, but my Father tried to operate at a distance, which was not really possible. Since my Father had changed jobs relentlessly from a young age, I think he hoped I would work for a single company throughout my work career, and his desire became a block between us. I knew what his hopes were, but I couldn’t fulfill them. Instead, I began to avoid my Father. But one day when I walked into the kitchen at noon, I found my Father there. I just went over to the farthest seat available, out of his sight, and sat down to wait till he left.

“How ’bout some fried noodles, would you like some?”

This sudden question came out of nowhere, troubling me so much I could barely speak.

“Sure…”

I don’t know how long I’d made him wait for that answer, but once he heard it, he went on to fry his noodles without another word. I wasn’t expecting anything special, just your ordinary batch of Yaki-soba. So I sat and waited.

“Here you go!”

And with those words, he served my noodles. With the first bite, I thought I would cry. It’d been a long time since I’d been eating and drinking normally, but I knew what I was eating was thoroughly delicious.

I don’t think we said anything. But somehow, I felt that my Father had accepted me. That, maybe I hadn’t strayed so far, and even if I had, I was still his daughter. He never told me what he was really thinking that day. Nonetheless, years later, now that I’ve left home and gone on with my life, my favorite dish is my Father’s blundering fried noodles.

Thank you.

It’s just two syllables but there was a time when I couldn’t get them out.

The day of my High School Graduation Ceremony, our teacher said to us,

“This is a special day. Please try to express your thanks to your parents for all they have done to bring you to this day. Say “Thank You,” because if you don’t do it now, you may not get another chance until you get married, or maybe even never.”

At the time, I thought he was overstating his case. But I couldn’t remember when it was I’d last said “Thank You” to my mother. Sometime when she handed me my lunchbox? When she ironed my school clothes? When she was ferrying me to and from school? No, none of those times.

  “Momma….”

  When I tried to say thanks, I would call my mother but then just playfully hug her. A long time a go, I was a spoilt child, used to getting a lot of hugs, to feeling close and burrowing in my mother’s smell and warmth. Still, that’s not quite thanking somebody. In a voice so small my mother could barely hear,

“But Momma, was I really once that small”

There was no way I could have said “Thank you” then.

I just thought that the Mother who was always at my side would naturally be there forever.  But then, that’s not what happened. Before I even knew it, time had gone by and I was taller than my mother. The time we had together was gone in the blink of an eye. What time did I have to thank her in that brief instant, …I don’t know.

On Mother’s Day, I was hiding her present behind my back as I approached her. The salesman had given me a gift card with the carnations. I’d written in foolish pictographs on it to better hide my embarrassment. But I didn’t write “Thank You.” So I must have said it when I handed her the present. “Mamma, thank you for everything,” that’s all I needed to say. Or maybe I’d just murmured it to myself when I passed her the present. No, I just couldn’t say it. I handed over her present with a straight face and nary a word. My mother laughed. “Thank you” she said.

And I just scrunched up my face and muttered, “Please, that’s my line.”

“Well now, that was worth it, wasn’t it?” was my mother’s stock phrase.

My mother always noticed when I did something for somebody and praised me for it. In fact, she led me to believe that it was a good thing to help others. So, it’s because of my mother that I like to help those in need.

My mother taught me when you can do something but can just as easily not do it, that’s when you have to act! And since my mother’s a bit of a pain, I ended up doing a lot things that I might just as easily not have done. Looking back, these were the very things that became my most formative experiences.

Take for example our condominium’s events.

I was one of the older children living in our condominium. Since all my friends in the condo said they weren’t going, I’d decided not to participate. Furthermore, since it was an open event, I didn’t really need to think about it. But my mother insisted I go along with her. I stubbornly refused right up till the end, then finally went anyway.

Since my mother was a member of the committee managing the event, I ended up helping with the organization. Though I’d decided it would all be a big bore, I actually enjoyed myself. The time I spent talking with the people who came as well as with the committee members I’d worked with was particularly fulfilling. Part way through, some of my friends also showed up, and we all had a good time together. I was so glad I came.

Just as My mother always said, “You really need to do the very things you feel ambivalent about.” I’d tasted it’s truth through firsthand experience. From now on, I’ll be trying a lot more things that I might just as easily miss, because now I see they’re precisely the ones you don’t want to miss.

Joining this essay contest was another of my Mother’s ideas.

And I’m sure she’ll say it again, “Well now, that was worth it, wasn’t it”

“Ok, OK, I’m coming…”

My mother is not talking to me, my dad, or even to our pet, or to put it straight: she is not addressing any human or animal. For more than ten years, she’s been answering the kitchen appliances and our microwave oven.

When the microwave, the stove or the kettle goes beep, my mother talks back. “Just wait a second,” she’ll say to the appliance, that or any number of stock phrases. When I was younger, I used to hate seeing my mother like this. She’d do it with my friends there or even when I came home in a fluster over school. Whatever, she was always had a word for her appliances. Even when I got to be a rebellious adolescent, and my ire over it tripled.

Nonetheless, I got through adolescence, and in becoming adult, I began to find my mother and her conversations with her appliances touching, if not just plain cute. Maybe this was a way to get more enjoyment out of cooking daily? Or it was not: what did I know?

Last year I got engaged and finally left home. As a new homemaker, I was forced to think about kitchen appliances, and of course, I felt a natural affinity for the ones equipped with a smart speaker system. There were so many of them… Maybe my Mother would heartily approve such purchases, but it came to me that subconsciously I was somehow drifting back home rather than breaking free to a new life. Maybe I was even thinking “How can I be a Mother if I don’t talk to my appliances.” I chuckled, “After all, that’s what others do, chat with their frig and stuff.”

In the end, my husband and I skipped the smart speakers and just got basic models.

Soon you’ll be six years old ! When you were at the Kindergarten, you got good at drawing and would bring your drawings home. My favorite was one of us holding hands with big smiles on our faces. It’s a comfort to think that we were happy then.

You’re so bright. You probably already know why your Mother and Father don’t live together. We talked about what went on at our house a lot before we left, when you were four and we’d just come back from the shelter. You remembered so much I was surprised. It must have been hard for you, but thank you for coming with me. I promise we’ll be happy.

There are both happy and painful things in life. In happiness, we feel like the sun is shining on us and we’re full of energy. When things are painful, we move into shadow. It’s dark, and we feel weak. Back in our old house, we slipped imperceptibly into the dark and barely ever saw the sun again. I was so ashamed, all I could do was cry. When I did, you would bring me a towel to hearten me or line up your toys to play with me. It was moving to see how adult you acted.

The world is wide and full of wonderful things. I want you to enjoy them, innocently as a child, laughing without guile. That’s why I took you out from the little world without sun where we were trapped.

Up till now, I’ve put you through things no child needs to go through. So from now on, I’d like to think we’re going to enjoy things to the full.

If you look at flowers and insects, you know that even the smallest plants and animals have life and for all we know, a heart. I want you to know that it’s OK to play with those younger than you, and that you should take special care for those who are smaller and weaker than you are. Learn as much as you can and grow up quick and strong. Watching you grow tells me how good it is to have you here.

Let’s be close, enjoy everything that is out there and take on the world, wherever it leads us.

“I’m leaving right now”
From Tōhoku to Kanto, my mother dropped everything and left immediately.

When I became pregnant with my second child, I was struck with such fits of vomiting that I couldn’t manage my daily life. Maybe if I lived alone, I might have been able to, but my first child was there. And my daughter was the image of health, brimming over with energy. I couldn’t very well take care of her with me shutting myself up in the toilet with repetitive attacks of vomiting. Like most small children, her concern over me was patent. She quickly fell quiet and played by herself. Her bravery brought tears to my eyes, but my constantly churning gastric juices left little time for tears. I didn’t see how my daughter and I could get through this, so I called my mother for help.
“I can’t take it any more” I said.

Mom left to join me as soon as she got off the phone. Once she arrived at my house, she started washing clothes, attacked the dirty dishes, ran the vacuum cleaner, and while playing with my daughter, straightened up whatever fell within her reach.

At the time, I was the head of a circle of friends who’d formed a support group for bringing up children. We were in the middle of managing a big event. My mother stepped right in to pinch hit. In one fell swoop, she took away all my cares.

“If you need rest, that’s all you can do: so rest”

Surrounded by the familiar sounds of her Tōhoku dialect, I was able to carry on with my pregnancy.

“I’m sorry to be so much trouble”

“This is no trouble for a parent, so who are you talking about,” my mother answered, as if it was evident. “Your father told me to get here as quick as I could”

My mother stayed by my side until my health stabilized, and then I went to my parent’s house until I had the baby. With all the support I got from my parents, I had an easy delivery.

“I want to do something to show my gratitude,” I said in all honesty to my father. So many things that I would have been embarrassed to say when I was younger, now seemed to come easily. Holding the newly-born child in his arms my father said, “The most wonderful thing you could do for your mother and I would be to do your best to bring up your two children.”

So now I throw all my life into my children. That may sound like an exaggeration, but I hope to be worthy of all the love that I’ve received.

“Mom, I’m going out to buy you some carnations.”
“Really! I can’t wait to see them!”

On Mother’s Day when I was little, I’d always tell my Mother that I was heading out to buy her some carnations as I was leaving the house. But I’d go off and play with my friends till the end of day and completely forget about buying anything.

“Yū-kun, did you get the carnations?” Mom would ask when I got home. And that’s when I’d shudder to remember why’d I’d gone out that day in the first place and have to think up some lie.

“The carnations were all sold out.”

In the face of such a blatant lie, my mother would always just answer with a laugh, “Oh really? Well then, I’ll look forward to seeing them next year.”
Whether next year or the year after next, the same thing would happen. I’d play, forget and tell the same lie.

On the other hand, my mother never forgot my birthday. She also came to all my soccer matches and wore out her vocal chords cheering for the team, a first-line mother. Even after I’d left home and was living by myself, my mother continued to support me. Since I was addicted to the mikan oranges they grew in our region, she’d send me boxes of them. When I protested that I had no way to repay her kindness, she just laughed and shook her head.

Around 23 years old, I became more stable. I finally showed my affection for those 23 years of love by buying her 23 red carnations, one for each year.

“Mom, thank you for these 23 years. I’m sorry the flowers are so late.”
“Oh! This year the carnations weren’t sold out. That’s wonderful isn’t it!” she said to me, laughing all the while. In spite of myself, this brought tears to my eyes. “Yes, it is,” I answered.

My Mom’s the best in the world.

In late June, I suddenly received this mail from my father back in Shizuoka:
“I’ve got something important to talk to you about, so let’s go get a drink together.”

Since I’d left home ten years ago, I saw my parents just a few times each year. When I got this note from my father, I got so anxious that I called my mother to ask if anything had happened to him. But my mother just said, “No. I wonder what it’s all about. I have no idea.” She seemed as much at a loss as I was.

The note worried me. Since there was no reason to beg off, I set a date to meet my father on the 15th of July in front of the Minamiza in Kyoto. As far as I could remember, it would be the first time in my life that the two of us were going out drinking together.

Kyoto was sweltering that evening. I was mopping the sweat away while waiting at the Minamiza. My Father showed up shortly.

“Thanks for waiting. Why don’t we go straight to the bar.”

No sooner said then he was on his way, laughing to himself and saying, “Back in the day, I often used to entertain at this place.” He led me to a small restaurant in Gion.

We were seated and our beer had been poured, so I thought we were going to get to the heart of the matter, but the important subject was not forthcoming. There was talk of my mother being difficult, plans for retirement, …my father kept chuckling away, speaking of this, that and nothing. It used to be that when I had something serious to tell my father, I would beat around the bush speaking of this and that, but down to the bitter end that night, there was no sign of anything important he needed to tell me.

We spent about two hours together. My Father was in high spirits when he left to catch his express train back to Shizuoka. I was half-relieved and half-freaked out, perplexed enough to feel like I needed to call my mother back again.

“Well then, for your father seeing you must have been what was important, don’t you think?” she said.

My father had raised two children and was about to retire. Perhaps talking to his son, who was now a man of the world, about what had been and what was to come, the this and that of it, while getting mildly drunk was not just a pleasure but an important story for my father. I’d gone off from home to take up my life elsewhere. How many more times would I be able to see my father? So for both myself and my father, that time spent together, the time itself, was as precious as it was irreplaceable. This is what our summer’s evening in Kyoto led me to think.

“Your stomach aches again? You know, if you say that every morning, people will stop believing it’s true. Then when it really hurts, no one will help you. Now get up and get ready to go.”

From kindergarten through first grade, for 4 years, it was the same every day. My daughter would complain of stomachaches and refuse to get dressed. Even if I drove her to the kindergarten, she wouldn’t get out of the car. When it came time for us to separate, she’d burst into tears, and I’d be stuck with her at the doorway for twenty or thirty minutes. Back in the car, I’d bemoan my own fate, try not to see my daughter following me and coldly leave her in her tracks. I’d be filled with guilt. “All those happy students; why was it only my daughter…” I’d think over and over again. In elementary school it was the same thing. Every day I’d take her to school, to the doorway or all the way to her classroom, and every day she would make a scene when I left.

When I asked her why she hated school so much, she said, “I don’t hate school. I just don’t want you to leave. I always want to be with you.” When I heard my daughter say this, I was suddenly filled with regret. Until now, she hadn’t said anything like that, just complained of stomach pains. I really felt that I’d failed her, that I should have understood all this much sooner.

Around about that time, my daughter was reading picture book called “Genki-san kara no tegami”. It’s the story of a mother who while in the hospital wrote letters to her daughter in the name of “Genki-san” to keep her spirits bright. I decided to do the same kind of thing. Because she’d liked the book, I thought she’d quickly get in the habit of checking the mailbox each day when she came home from school.

I wrote a short letter to my daughter and put it in the mailbox.

“Dear Yuna, thank you for checking the mailbox everyday. You’re going to school everyday now. And you’ve been helping out a lot around the house. Your mother’s been so happy. From Genki-san”

When my daughter came home, she found the letter and seemed to be crying while she read it. Though it may seem strange, she said she herself didn’t understand why she was crying. I believe it’s because I had finally accepted my daughter’s distress, and it made up a little for all my blindness. After that my daughter gradually adjusted to school and was able to go there by herself. Now she’s a sixth grader, and until this day checking the mailbox is part of her daily routine.

“Girls, your omelette is served!” That’s what I said to my 2 girls 12 years ago.

That year my wife passed away due to illness. And that’s when I really began to take care of my daughters. For a while I was knocking back and forth between work and home problems, talking about home at work & rethinking work at home. It was difficult reconciling the two, and that would irritate me. I got short-tempered and would yell at my girls for any reason, especially when my older daughter was in fifth grade. She’d avoid me and ended up spending a lot of time shut up in her room.

Time went on this way till one day when I was cleaning my room, I happened to find several pages of recipes in my wife’s dresser drawer. Most likely, she intended to make these dishes for the girls when she got back from the hospital.

Looking at the recipes, the only one that seemed to be within my grasp was a rice & cheese omelette. I made it on my next day off. Neither it’s shape nor it’s taste could rival my wife’s cooking, but so be it. “Girls, your omelette is served!” I said, placing my somewhat burnt offering before my two daughters.

My elder girl could barely keep a straight face. It looked like she was laughing.

“How is it? It’s good, isn’t it,” I asked my younger daughter.

“So our father can cook too.” she answered, as if it were a joke. That’s when things started to get better. It was slow going, but spending more time doing simple things together became important to all of us. Now my daughters are both off living on their own.

“What’ll we eat?” It’s my elder daughter’s day off from the local elementary school where she prepares lunches.

“Since we have eggs, how about an omelette?”

The same brusque replies as always. But sitting and eating with my two daughters is now my treasure.

From the day my parents divorced, my mother’s job was to be a father.
My job was to be a little mother.
Our child was my 5 year-old brother.
We lived desperately.
I don’t think I ever had the time to be rebellious.
I made meals for everyone, clutching a recipe book in my other hand.
If you put bean sprouts in water, they’re good for another meal: I practiced home economics.
Since I couldn’t earn any money while I was a student, I studied like my life depended on it.
The year I was first in my class, I secretly cried.
My brother loved soccer and made his mark there. The house filled up with trophies.
When there were Athletic Meets and Culture Day’s at school, my mother had to work. At lunchtime everyone went to sit with their mothers, but it was just the two of us.

“Why?” I always wondered. We were only three people. Why was it so hard to get together as a family?
Sometimes it made me cry.
Look at my brother. When his friends were playing catch and other games with their fathers, he’d be by himself throwing the ball against the wall.
But I couldn’t tell my mother how lonely we were.
My mother never looked unhappy. She’d always be smiling when she came home. And without fail, she would give us both a hearty greeting.

The time the three of us did spend together as a family was such a joy.
Well, we all wanted it to be a joy, but we were really struggling with our situation.
The truth is I wanted my Mom to be there when I was running in the relay and to have her show up at the classroom on Parent’s Day.
My brother was always muttering about how he didn’t have a father and wanted to know why.
I was lonely and wished someone was there when I came home.

Now, it’s 15 years later. And the day finally came when my mother could stop being the father.
That was the day that I stopped being the little mother.
My mother remarried and is so happy now.
My new father is quite old but seems much nicer than my real father.
Since my brother thinks so too, maybe he’s a good person.
So I’ll wait and see, and go back to being a kid again.
Bye-bye “Little Mother”

The little girls’ batteries begin to run down after eight at night. You can measure the younger one’s fatigue by how much she cries. As for her full of energy older sister, she survived today’s kindergarten, but now she’s run out of juice and is sleeping on the sofa. Mom’s the one who’s supposed to get them both upstairs to bed. After a 10 kilo and then a 17 kilo freight transfer to the second floor, Mom’s ready to give it up, but when she comes back to the living room, there’s another child who’s hurriedly taken over the couch and is now lying on it with his eyes shut. “Go to bed !” No surprise there: another 24 kilo load would put quite a strain on Mom’s chassis.

Mama knows how hard you’ve been trying to be a good older brother to your two little sisters.

She knows how hot it was today from the sweat marks when you took off your backpack.

She knows how you let go of my hand and turned away when your younger sister started to cry. And that you were trying to be patient but unintentionally hit your sister when you swung your arm in frustration.

Your mother knows that her right and left arms were commandeered as pillows for your sisters and that’s why you’re sleeping alone with your back turned towards her. And she suspects you’ve got your eyes narrowed to slits to keep track of what Mama is doing.

It’s only when I get busy that it’s difficult to give you the attention you want. With only two arms, Mom can’t hug three kids at the same time. The son on the couch knows this full well.

Of course if he’s “sleeping”, then he has to get carried upstairs, and there’s no way not to hug him in the process… and maybe that’s what he needs.

She’s picked him up. “You’re always trying hard to do your best, aren’t you…”
“No,” he whispers in a small voice.

So, he is awake after all.

Quietly by his ear, “And what face are you making now? I think I know !!”

Halfway up the stairs the 24 kilo boy’s body suddenly goes limp and gets even heavier.

There was a band that debuted in 1988 called the Ulfuls. Dad was a fan. The net result of my childhood up to the age of five spent listening to the Ulfuls in my father’s car was the ability to sing their song, “Guts da ze”.

As father and daughter living through a young girl’s puberty, we avoided the kind of “Don’t wash your underwear with the rest of the laundry” rebellion common to most families, largely by lying, and came through unscathed. However, my second year of high school created so much stress for me that I had trouble keeping the act up. Did my father sense what was going on? He never asked about my problems. If I think back about it now, I can see that by treating me as though everything was OK, he was showing his affection. But at the time, I thought he never asked because he didn’t care, and I openly showed my disgust. As for the Ulful, as much as I’d liked them, I stopped listening to their music.

Years later, after I’d left home, I discovered on the internet that the Ulful were giving a concert. They’d become an unpleasant memory for me, but I invited my father to the concert. My father was happy to go. The day of the show I came early and watched out for him, finally seeing him arrive dressed in a suit. For the first time I realized that coming to a concert with me, despite a day of hard work, was part of my father’s kindness of heart, just like not questioning me during high school.

On the train home, we spoke and laughed more than in the past. I’m not someone who easily thanks people, but words aren’t the only way. If you’re clumsy with words, but cherish another’s kindness, you naturally watch over the other’s feelings. One day when I get married, we’ll fill the hall with the sound of the Ulful. That’s my way of showing my thanks.

I suddenly became the mother of a 10 year-old, American boy.
Not a blood relation, but a foster parent.

He was cute for the first month, but from there on, he plunged into rebellion.
He was difficult and emotionally unstable.
How many times did I think I should to stop being a foster parent?
When I thought of giving over my role to a social worker, the words stuck in my throat and I couldn’t go through with it.
Our mud-slinging went on for a half a year, till that fateful day: Mother’s Day.
He’d never called me mother.
As if that was reserved for the woman who had left him; because they shared the same blood and there was a special love or bond between them.
Who did he think I was, this person who didn’t even look like him?
The hired help who washed his dirty baseball uniforms? A teacher’s aide who tutored him late into the night? Or maybe just some complaining meddler.

The following morning, there were candles by the side of the bed spelling the word “family” that danced before my eyes. My foster son had gathered the candles beforehand and stealthily placed them by my bed while I slept at night.
Knowing nothing of weeping for joy, maybe he sought to escape any confusion.
Days later at his therapy session, he made a drawing. It was a picture of him, my husband and myself walking together. Looking at the letters through eyes blurred by tears I could see that “1, 2, 3: Family” was written on the drawing.

Eight months later, a distant relative took charge of him.
The fourteen months I spent with him were filled with intense up and downs.
What I most remember is finally overcoming his mistrust and the young boy I loved in the hope of restoring his childhood. The therapist told me that I was the only foster mother who had not abandoned him.
And then it was time for us to part. When I couldn’t find any words, he broke the silence by saying, “You’re my favorite.” After continuously refusing my hugs and signs of affection, he clung to me now with tears in his eyes.
We were parent and child.
Trials of emotion and perseverance had led him to look on me as a parent, a bond beyond blood and names.

My father left our home when I was 15.
I wonder if he remembers what happened at the merry-go-round at Takarazuka Familyland, the place we liked to go to so much !?
We joined the long line and just when it was my turn to get in, my father ran in front to grab a big horse for me. Mother yelled to us from outside, “Be careful don’t run!” My father put his arms around me and lifted me onto the tallest horse. Then he sat on a much smaller one beside me. “Hey, looks like these horses are oyako, doesn’t it. Hahahaha….”

My father’s eyes were smiling warmly. The merry-go-round started round, and the music began to play. After going around once or twice, I felt like a hero. While the merry-go-round circled, my mother waited at the exterior waving her hand each time I went by. This was oddly pleasing and maybe a little embarrassing. At the time, I was innocent and docile.

I was a toddler, then a young boy, and now an adult.
My father knows nothing of my life as an adult.
The fact that he has no interest or concern for our family, well, to tell the truth, I find it heartbreaking.

My father liked to drink.
In TV melodramas, whenever there’s a scene where a father and son go out drinking together, it makes me feel so envious. I’d like to go out with that father of mine and enjoy a night drinking together. I’d like to talk to him not just as a father and son. I want to spend time together as 2 adults.
Yes, I’d really like to meet my father.

At the time of the Tanabata Festival, our daughter who’s a third grader brought home some of the strips of paper used to add wishes to the festival’s bamboo decorations. We could read “To be together” written carefully on each one.

Five years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had an operation and chemotherapy, and it was long and hard trial, both physically and spiritually. Luckily, the medicine worked, and thanks to the support I got from my family, I was able to fully recover. The illness has not recurred and I’m living a healthy life.
But then last September at my regular checkup, the doctors had some results that suggested it was back. They did a much more detailed examination. The complete results took a month to return, and I think that month was the worst of everything.

Honestly, I didn’t think I could stand going through therapy again.
I felt that all my emotional resources were spent, and that basically from the start, excluding being a mother, I’ve always been just one more weak person. I was so thankful when the results came back negative. From the very bottom of my heart, I drew a long breath of life. Nonetheless, no one can promise there will be no more tests, nor how they would turn out. I count my days, try to be strong, and have decided to live my life with my feet flat on the ground.

Just at the time of these last tests, my daughter announced that she wanted to be a doctor and help the ill. I felt both love and pride. Yet, her choice certainly came from the experiences of her mother’s illness, and in this I felt sorry for my daughter.
And then at Tanabata, a classmate misread the writing on my daughter’s slip of paper as stonecutter instead of doctor. She was indignant. I laughed and laughed when I heard about it, until my daughter got mad about that too.

Of course, at this point my daughter’s future is a total unknown.
Whatever path she chooses, I want to be there to cheer her on.
Doctor, stonecutter or whatever….

Last spring, I moved far from my hometown to live with my new husband in Miyazaki. After much agonizing, I gave up my teaching job of the last 20 years: a big decision.
“I’ve packed this full of your favorite things,” my father said on my day of departure as he handed me a package of Shizoka mikan. I said good-bye to my parents at the airport. Eating my beloved mikan on the airplane, they were more bitter than sweet.

Fortunately, I found a new teaching job in Miyazaki. But I was unable to adapt to all the tremendous changes, and my heart hurt so much I had to visit the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine at the hospital.

One night, I got an email from my father.
Unlike my mother who never bothers to type in a subject line, my father’s were always there and always precise. Despite being a lazybones, at seventy he led a daily battle against aging eyesight and continued to send me email. I read tonight’s subject and it just said, “Yukari”. It seemed ominous and I already had tears in my eyes when I started reading the letter.
“Today your father took his bicycle for a ride and road for 20 kilometers. As always, I’m feeling fine. How’s my little Yukari doing? I’ll send you some more mikan…”
Wait a minute! This letter has nothing to do with the subject Yukari ! I cried all the harder for that. But having parents far away who think and care so much about me, called me back to myself: “C’mon, Yukari, make more of an effort!”

I replied to my father’s mail asking, “Papa, why did you name me Yukari?”
When I got his return mail he wrote, “Because you’re as beautiful as the actress Hoshino Yukari” …so my father wanted an actress not a teacher for a daughter? This was such a joke it made me laugh.

Some days later, one of my co-workers asked what my favorite thing to eat was.
“I like the little mikans they have in Shizuoka. They’re sweet and small and easy to eat.” The next day when I got to work I was in for a shock.
“What is this!? Looks like a giant mikan!”
Center stage on top of my desk stood a magnificent mikan that was larger than my head. The co-worker I’d spoken with the day before started laughing and explained,
“That’s our local specialty from here in Miyazaki. The world’s biggest mikans. Your mikans from Shizuoka are small, sweet and delicious, but this Miyazaki mikan is big enough to feed everyone. We can all split it up, eat it together and have a good time. We hope you’ll learn to like things Miyazaki style!” My co-worker was so bright and inviting, I could only smile through my tears. Just like breaking bread with my co-workers, we split up the giant mikan and ate it, and I finally felt I was part of my new teaching team. Eating that giant mikan had woken me up, so I’m sending one to my father. The fruit that shows I’ve put down roots here.

Our sons love grilled fish. When there’s grilled fish lined up on the table, the boys are bright and happy. Getting the small bones out so they won’t get caught in anybody’s throat is inevitably mother’s work; though digging around in fish meat isn’t my favorite sport. This said, when I’m clumsy about flaking fish off the bone, I always remember my grandfather.

When I was a child, he was the one who prepared my fish. Unlike me, he was proficient and deft. He’d put the fish he’d prepared in a plate and pass it to me. It was so easy to eat that way. And of course at the time I found all this natural. Now that I have my own children and I’m fixing their fish, I know deep inside me how much my grandfather must have loved me.

When you move from served to server, you finally begin to notice a lot of things you didn’t think about before. I’m who I am because of the generous love of my grandparents and parents. On days with grilled fish, I’m reminded of all I have to be thankful for.

Soon you’ll be six years old ! When you were at the Kindergarten, you got good at drawing and would bring your drawings home. My favorite was one of us holding hands with big smiles on our faces. It’s a comfort to think that we were happy then.

You’re so bright. You probably already know why your Mother and Father don’t live together. We talked about what went on at our house a lot before we left, when you were four and we’d just come back from the shelter. You remembered so much I was surprised. It must have been hard for you, but thank you for coming with me. I promise we’ll be happy.

There are both happy and painful things in life. In happiness, we feel like the sun is shining on us and we’re full of energy. When things are painful, we move into shadow. It’s dark, and we feel weak. Back in our old house, we slipped imperceptibly into the dark and barely ever saw the sun again. I was so ashamed, all I could do was cry. When I did, you would bring me a towel to hearten me or line up your toys to play with me. It was moving to see how adult you acted.

The world is wide and full of wonderful things. I want you to enjoy them, innocently as a child, laughing without guile. That’s why I took you out from the little world without sun where we were trapped.

Up till now, I’ve put you through things no child needs to go through. So from now on, I’d like to think we’re going to enjoy things to the full.

If you look at flowers and insects, you know that even the smallest plants and animals have life and for all we know, a heart. I want you to know that it’s OK to play with those younger than you, and that you should take special care for those who are smaller and weaker than you are. Learn as much as you can and grow up quick and strong. Watching you grow tells me how good it is to have you here.

Let’s be close, enjoy everything that is out there and take on the world, wherever it leads us.

I’ve committed crimes.

I could say that it was just to get by, but it’s still a devastating failure.

And then, I’ve lost so many things. Compared with all the many things I have lost, I’ve gained little. Or maybe I’ve just gained nothing at all. Whichever it is, I can’t recall any single thing that I’ve gotten.

In detention, I massaged backs inscribed with tattoos of Dragons and Thunder Gods, participated in prison athletic meets, drank Cola, and peeled potatoes day after day.

One day, I noticed that my second decade had ended.

And then I knew I was stupid.

But, however dumb I’ve been, my parents didn’t drop me.

No, even in face of what I was, they were still there.

No matter what I’d done, I was still the life they had given birth to, a blessing.

Even before they might even begin to wonder whether I was good or bad, my parent’s premise was that I was everything to them.

My relation with my parents hasn’t changed.

In other words, our relation is much the same as when I was 18 years old. We’re just an ordinary family with the usual kind of relations, not particularly clingy, but we get along.

These days I have a job, live an ordinary life and speak to my parents as an adult. All of this I owe to my parents.

My parents trust me.

My parents forgive all my faults unconditionally.

For them, I am irreplaceable.

This is what I have learned over the last ten years.

This is not about gratitude or apologies.

I may be dumb but I am going to try to live.

I have no desire for death. Not at all.

I still have things I want to do.

But not for my parents. This needs to be for me.

It’s about effort.

Taking the discouragement.

Fighting for something.

Nonetheless, when I get to where I want to be, the very first people whom I’ll tell will be my parents.

I will carry on.

I will carry on with them in mind.

Now, the two of them let me do as I please, something for which I am so grateful.

One day, I hope to fulfill my dreams, stand before them and say “What do you think !!”

I went back home on my winter break and got caught up in year-end cleaning. It was my job to clean up the storeroom. While straightening up the shelves, I discovered an old photo album. The front cover was thick and covered with so much dust I thought the album must have some strange attractive power. Pictures: my Grandmother cradling my mother at the hospital, my mother standing shyly in front of the school’s front entrance in a sailor suit, one from the height of the bubble economy, a shot from abroad when she was traveling after graduation. All the pictures were of my mother, taken long before I was born.

Just as I was closing the album, full of feelings about my secret glimpse into my mother’s past, I was brought up short by the realization that this woman I had always seen uniquely as my Mother had also been a baby, a little girl, a child… I was frozen stock-still by this fundamentally obvious discovery. It wasn’t until the moment I took form in my Mother’s belly that she had become a Mother. Even when you were frustrated because things hadn’t gone well, exhausted from caring for my Grandmother, or wounded by words of sharp criticism, you carried on in your role of mother, always full of tenderness and without missing a beat.

I wondered if I could ever manage the same feat. Suddenly, simply carrying on day after day as a Mother struck me as being an incredible thing. And all at once, I was seized by anxiety, ran from the storage room and burst into the kitchen, which was full of the familiar smell of my mother’s curry.

“Mama. You’ve always been there for me. Someday, I hope I can be as good a mother as you are !”

Standing in front of her, I felt as if I’d shrunken in size. When she gave me a hug, I think I got even smaller.

My mother gave me a puzzled look and said, “You grow into motherhood laughing and crying along with your children. I’m still way behind your Grandmother though !” and laughed wholeheartedly.

“Hey You ! You’re eyes are puffy. Have you been crying !?”

My classmate Terada cried it out loud and clear our senior year of High School, just before our graduation ceremony.

After elementary school, I got into an escalator school, so my mother made my lunch boxes for 6 years running. These were lunch boxes with two levels in them. You could say they hoisted me up with both hands. The lower level was filled with white rice with a single pickled plum right in the middle. The second level was some kind of dish, not leftovers from dinner or breakfast but prepared fresh by my mother every day.

Since there weren’t any microwave ovens for us at school, I ate my lunchbox meals cold everyday. Even cold they were delicious, eve-ry-day. 

They say adolescence can be cruel. On the rare occasions when I had to resort to a bought lunch, I was happy. When my mother slept late, I always had 500 yen to use at the convenience store where I’d buy some bread or a CalorieMate. I was quite satisfied by these rare bought lunches, but it had nothing to do with being tired of my mother’s food.

The day my eyes were swollen with tears was a winter day in my final year of High School. It was the last day I’d be bringing my lunch box to school. At the thought of trading my Mother’s lunches for all the bought lunches to come, however much I liked them, I cried before leaving the house. After all those days of having my Mother’s carefully prepared lunches at my side, today would be the last. My heart sank for all of the times my Mother had handed me my lunch and I had not put my thanks into words, 1566 Thank-You’s. And my Mother cried too.

At school when I looked inside my lunchbox, I thought I was going to cry again. What my Mother had prepared wasn’t especially luxurious. But, I’ll tell you: asparagus wrapped in thin slices of grilled meat and eggs with scallions, my all-out favorites.

Thirteen years later and I still remember the pain I felt in my chest, like someone had given my heart a sharp pinch. These days, my Mother makes a lunch for herself everyday to take to work. When she reaches retirement, I’m thinking it’ll be my turn to make lunches for her.

My Mother started making preparations for her funeral about a year ago. It was just the week after my wedding. Once back from my honeymoon, I was immediately summoned to her house to hear her testament directly. Since I’d finally left home, maybe she thought that things being settled would be a relief to me. My father had already passed away. My mother’s child-bearing was late, and she was now past seventy. She told me she wanted to live as she pleased during her remaining years, and her plans seemed well thought out. Nonetheless, I couldn’t get used to the term, Final Arrangements, and hearing it from my Mother was like a thunderclap. I was speechless. I just stared at my mother’s aged face.

After a month of preparation, my mother went into action. First she sold off her house and property. She moved to a rental apartment with a garage. Between the money from the sale of her property and the pension benefits coming to her, she could put money aside to cover her funeral and still have enough to live a full life. Once she’d finished arranging her personal finances, she traded her car in for a fuel efficient hybrid and started her travels. She’d lived in Kyushu for years and began by visiting each of its prefectures, then made outings throughout the San’in Region and Shikoku. My mother did all the driving. My only contribution to this part of her funeral arrangements was to sometimes tag along.

My Mother, the driver, looked healthier than ever. From the passenger seat, I asked her how her health was, whether she had any complaints. She said, keeping her eyes on the car in front of us, “No, not right now.” Once on the speedway, she got into the fast lane while occasionally weaving from one lane to another to get ahead. From the looks of things, she was healthy. “I’ll be a bedridden invalid soon enough. For the moment, I just want to do as I please.” She stifled a laugh while she said this. Once at our destination, my mother, not to be outdone by the other tourists, proved an avid photographer, shooting multiple photographs while moving with the agility of a child.

My mother’s final arrangements are still ongoing as of this day. Recently, she took a plane from Kagoshima to Okinawa. Since she handed in her driver’s license, I’ve sometimes taken over the wheel. In the long run, I haven’t been able to get used to my mother’s new life. However, when I see my mother’s laughing face go off on another journey, it’s true that I feel in my heart that she’s being rewarded for many years of generosity.

I call my Father “Otō”. It keeps a little of the formality of “Otō-san,” without the familiarity of “Papa.” It seemed to fit our circumstances, and it’s what I’ve called him since I came of age. My Father doesn’t intimidate me. I’ve never sought his advice about my studies or progress nor has he questioned my decisions. He neither approves nor obstructs the things I want to do. When I’m with him, I tend to talk about silly things that I am not even sure my father understands, but he’s there with me, tagging along with nods and sighs, and were at ease together. But basically, what I ended up thinking was that my Father wasn’t particularly interested in what I was doing.

The first time I lived separately from my parents for any length of time was during my third year of college. That was when I left for a year abroad. My whole family went with me to the airport to send me off. It seems that after I went through the boarding gate, my mother and younger sister started to leave but my Father said he was staying until my plane was out of sight and remained to watch my takeoff. My Father’s never talked to me like a parent. This was the first time I knew that he worried about his daughter. Now I’ve left my hometown and live in Tokyo. Whenever I get a long vacation, I go home to visit, and when it’s time to go back to Tokyo, it’s always my father who takes me to the station. For a long time, he would watch from the train crossing until my train disappeared in the distance. These days he accompanies me through the ticket gate and sees me to the platform. We separate at the boarding zone or sometimes in the train. There’ve been no tears. Yet, when he finally says that last “See you soon,” maybe it’s because I’m right next to him, because I seem to hear everything he’s not saying, and I just cant hold back my own tears.

I was never able to know much about my father’s life. Our relation was never a very good one.

Both my parents are well. My Father must have been a little older when he got married than we’d expect these days since he’s 40 years my senior. He was an academic. As an academic, he was extremely logical in his thinking as well as diligent. Further, he was quite proper, to the point that a child’s play was painful for him. Or was it simply a nuisance because it disturbed his research. At any rate, I was scolded and kept away from him. From the time I was very young, I knew only my mother.

Just a few years ago, I had some real trouble, the kind of incident that most people never experience. It was also the first time I saw my father fly into a fury. He wasn’t in a rage about me. It was about the incredible damage being done to me. The way my father looked at the time, his determination and concern, gave me the courage to face the situation I was in.

The details of what happened to me are of little importance. I retain only my Father’s resolve in defending me, which made me wish that I had been more docile earlier, that I had been able to speak with my father from an earlier age. Then, perhaps I would have had a more fulfilling childhood. Later, when I finally dared confess these sentiments to my Father who was already in retirement at the time, his answer surprised me.

 “Your Father thinks the same thing, but also that it is not too late. We can start now. And because we can do it now, we should. There’s nothing late about beginnings. We still have time to talk about many things.”

Perhaps my Father had finally realized just how much I desired his love. Whatever the facts of our past as parent and child had been, they now just looked like moments of brief embarrassment. However much they separated us or brought us together, I understand their true nature now, when I am overwhelmed by their tenderness.

I grew up with only my mother. When I was in ninth grade, I became anorexic. Excessive exercise along with the limits of my food intake made me so skinny that I finally withdrew from school during high school. I was also hospitalized. My mother never reproached me. She continued to prepare elaborate meals for me.

This went on for four years.

Finally, when my body was overwhelmed and I was spending my days lying in my room, my mother confronted me, and for the first time ever, she actually hit me.

She said, “Please open your eyes and see just how we are blessed in our lives. Being alive is not just a matter of course. The fact that there are families. The fact that you have a family. We are here today because our ancestors came before us. They have given us this life, and you should live it.”

As I lay there watching my mother’s recede down the hall, I thought about just how much I had always disparaged myself. That I’d be better off dead, that I was weak: how many times had I said that to myself. How many times did I compare myself to others and find them better, stronger. It’s only normal that I saw everyone around me as stronger. Each and every one of them was filled with confidence and busy with their lives. Since they all looked down on me, I never made an effort. It’s as simple as that.

  “You should live. No matter how weak, no matter how puny. Be confident and live !”

The moment I finally heard that, I felt my heart take wings.

So much for anorexic me: one slap and a mother’s words.

I’ll remember those words for the rest of my life.

They saved me from the morass of anorexia.

And I’d like to say this to any others who suffer from eating disorders like I did, “You should live !”

These days my mother and I laugh about my time as an anorexic, as long as it was.

Yes, it was long, but now I’m living and it’s good.

Because being alive is real happiness.

That day, I was in sixth grade, and it was the first time I’d ever failed a test.

I was on my way home after they’d announced results for the junior-high entrance exams.

“I’d like to walk to a different station,” I said to my Father who was at my side. I’d just said it on the spur of the moment, but it brought home the extremity of my situation. In fact, that station was the quickest way home, so I guess I just didn’t want to get on a train.

We walked for about an hour, got on a train at a station where there’d be no one I knew and went home. When we opened the door, something smelled really good: deep-fried food with curry rice, my favorite. When I got to the dinner table, I saw a selection of batter-fried appetizers crowned with a pork cutlet, all of it laid out across curry rice.

No matter how much I liked all of these things, putting them all together in one plate seemed a little extravagant.

My mother was a good cook who specialized in filling the table with my favorite dishes, one after the other. As usual, sitting at the table and watching my mother prepare things, my nose was seized by a crowd of pungent odors.

I ate as if in a dream.

I used my spoon to scoop up as much curry as I could. I wolfed down the selection of fried foods.

I ate and ate, but there always seemed to be more.

When I looked, my plate was still full of my favorite foods.

When I thought about, I realized that this’d been the way it always was.

When I lied to my friends about being able to do a back hip circle on the horizontal bar, I ended up coming home crying, and just like today, my Mother made heaps of my favorite foods.

“This is the quickest way to feel better !”

That’s what I always think when I dig in, and soon enough, I get taken in by my favorite foods. Even though I know my mother’s secret agenda by heart, I get taken in by the food every time. The night after I failed a test I thought could never fix, I energetically cleaned my plate and went to my room for a deep sleep.

“Whatever happens, you’ll feel better after you eat !”

My mother taught me that. Time-tested, the ultimate strategy.

“It’s not working.” I’ve thought that again and again.

I’ve been fighting illness for almost ten years. There was a time when I could walk by myself, but between the ebb and flow of my strength, I gradually came to be bedridden. Just when I get to the point where I think I can recover, the disease pushes back even stronger. “Two steps back for every one step forward” marks my days.

With both body and spirit in the grip of this disease, it wasn’t the time to be making plans for rehabilitation. The weakness and pain when illness suddenly sweeps in to attack… Somehow my condition had become a barrier: it was back to bed and my fight with pain. When we began rehabilitation again, time had passed mercilessly on, my body was even weaker than before. We’ve fallen into a vicious cycle where each succeeding session of rehabilitation demands less and less of my body.

“Why doesn’t my body respond…”

At night, unconsciously, I give vent to my feelings in soliloquies that only I myself can hear. And hearing myself, I cry, and then go on wrenching tears from my withered eyelids. “This is all too much…” I lose myself in my grief as if in a sea of trees. With the strength gone from my body, I’m trapped in darkness, followed by loss of consciousness.

Suddenly coming back to myself, I can see that the sky beginning to lighten. Looking around me, the morning sun shines around the edges of the curtains. From my bed, I see a photograph of two people.

One is my oldest son, now seven. Forthright and of large build, he’s smiling like Ebisu amongst the Seven Gods of Good Fortune. I can hear his cheers of encouragement in my heart, “Papa, Get strong !” The other person is my funny, little,  four-year-old son. He’s had the same face since he was one, no matter how many times we photograph him, a face like a full-smile emoji. He doesn’t know the least thing about the mess I’m in. He’s posing as a hero in the photo, full power on. I stare at their photos for a moment. “Why?” I blurt out.

Children have a strange power. Soothed by the charming photo of my two sons, a ray of light breaks through my troubled heart, and just as quickly I find myself thinking, “Today. Let’s get on with this fight over my destiny”

The title was “God’s letter.”

I remember the penciled characters written in her unsteady hand.

It was a composition by my nine-year old daughter.

It wasn’t schoolwork. It was about a God who spoke to a little girl. There were no pictures, only characters, a short story of about 10 pages.

When I’d read it I asked my daughter whether she’d seen it on television or got it from a picture book.

“I made it up,” she replied in a small voice.

“Really,” I answered and picked it up to read it again.

We’ve lost the manuscript, but I haven’t forgotten the story.

“God is always looking at you”, “Where is he? On top of the clouds.”, “No, that’s not it. God’s in your heart.”, “In our hearts?”, “When times are hard, happy or when you don’t understand; you think God is there. You believe strongly that I am in your heart.”

Three months before this story was written, my daughter’s mother left our home.

To be more precise, I sent my wife away.

I didn’t explain the reasons for this to my daughters.

My younger daughter was two and a half, and she cried every night.

My elder daughter hasn’t cried since the night before her mother left.

I’ve realized that this was out of consideration for me.

I wondered if her mind was sound or unsound.

I felt sorry for her.

I thought she must be trying to make me understand something.

I tried to decode her intentions but couldn’t.

We hadn’t seen any nights of endless tears for more than five years.

Our situation wasn’t going to change, we could only accept it: no one had the answer to this puzzle. No one had a way out of this maze.

Had she written this story of a God who controls our destiny to fulfill some pressing need? As her father, as the husband who had decided on divorce, as someone who lived with her, I worried over what I should or could do.

After a while though, I stopped thinking about it.

When it comes from a child, guidance, instruction and remonstrations look more like impudence. We may be Father and Daughter, but we’re very different people. It is difficult to blindly accept that your daughter is imbued with a nobility that goes beyond the common lot. And yet, my daughter is blessed with unfailing optimism, the strength to communicate it as well as thoughtfulness towards her family, and I believe my daughter’s strengths are her own. I’ve come to understand that the acceptance of guidance, obedience and support are part of a parent’s role. 

My daughter taught me this, and I’m grateful.

I was a child who liked it when my Mother tucked me in, so much so that I sometimes kicked my covers off just to see if my mother’d come back. I liked the fluffy feel of my quilt round my chin when she said goodnight, and rediscovering the softness of my blankets when I woke from slumber. In addition, when I rolled over and someone fixed my blankets for me, I loved the afterglow of warmth that filled them. Why did I like all that? Not just because of the warmth. But because that warmth carried my mother’s love with it.

Now that I’ve grown up, my mother no longer tucks me in, but when I fall asleep, I always remember her.

“Don’t catch a chill and get a cold”, “Now look how you’ve uncovered yourself again”: the things she said to me when I was little, the words that showed her concern and a parent’s selfless love. I feel a slight tingling and know that if I lower my guard, I will burst out in tears. The heart swells with the memories of all the days gone by, never to come again.

I can’t really remember the feel or warmth of my quilt that precisely now, only the deep peace I felt when my mother tucked me in remains clear. It is the memory of my mother’s love for me.

These emotions were lived long ago. One day, I would like to feel what my mother felt. Because it’s certain to be a different way of looking at the world.

私は下手な短歌を詠むが、自ずと家族のことを詠んだ歌も出来る。そんな中で、全国的に著明な短歌大会で、特選に選んで貰った歌がある。それは、
頼まれもせぬ孫の名をあれこれと日がな一日考えておる
である。長女には、結婚後直ぐに子供（初孫）が生まれたが、長男にはなかなか出来なかった。下手をすれば、我が家の名字「赤松」の継承も終わりかなと思っていた。本人達も随分と苦労したようで、最後は人工授精に頼ることにしたが、その甲斐あって、同い年の夫婦がアラフォーに近付いた時に、やっと男児を授かったのである。
先の短歌は、その孫が生まれる直前に詠んだものである。頼まれてもいないのに、もし自分だったらどう命名するかと、落ち着きのない状態を詠んだ。結局、命名は夫婦二人で、『蓮太郎』となった。本籍のある大分県の偉人、「瀧廉太郎」を意識した命名である。暫く後にお祝いに訪れた際の、私のお祝いの歌は、
命名は蓮太郎なりふるさとの偉人に似たる佳き名と思う
である。
我が赤松家は、男ばかり五人の兄弟がおり、それぞれ二人ずつの子供を設けたが、その内男子は六人いるのに、孫の男児は僅か三人である。一人は養子なので実質二人である。辛うじて二人が、「赤松」の家系を繋いだ。その内の一人が我が家だ。
わが子を詠んだ最初の歌は、
諭吉をば二分の一にしたる程なればいいぞと諭と名付く
である。後に、故郷中津市の賢人、「福沢諭吉」の人物の大きさを知るに付け、二分の一でも誠に恐れ多い命名であったかと、思った次第である。長女に関する思い出深い歌の一つは、
爪摘めと詰め寄り来たる幼子の爪摘むことは危うかりけり
である。二人の子供を同時に詠んだ歌もある。
父の観る銭形平次にチャンネルを合わせて子等は飛び出して来る
毎日8時過ぎに帰宅する私の車の音を聞き分けて、迎えに飛び出して来ていた。そんな健気な時期のあった子供達も、今はもう40代。当時の私の年代を越えてしまった。

When I was in my third year of college, my father suddenly left our home. Since the time that he left, I can only remember one time when we went out and ate dinner together. On our way home, I got off the train first, and he turned to me and said,   

  “Let’s eat together again.”

  “Yea, let’s do that !” I answered, and heartily waved goodbye.

A promise with a reticent and bungling father, and that was the end of it. I didn’t hear from him again, and soon enough I forgot the promise. I just thought I’d meet him some other time. Time went on. I graduated from High School and got a job. Eight years had passed since I’d last seen my father. I was 28.

In 2017, I found out that my father was in the hospital with cancer. It was just after the New Year. We all thought that he would be cured by surgery, but in the end there were complications and my father did not recover. This was not the kind of reunion I had hoped for, so full of tears and regret. The day after my father passed away, I dreamed of him. I saw my father again and again as he was before his death. It was a really good dream. I wish I could have recorded it so I could see it again. I was eating out with my Father. The name of the restaurant was Good Fortune. Maybe it was a place in Heaven? It was Showa-style cozy and elegant. It seemed to me like a place my father liked. The food was family style and all of it good. I was surprised by how my father was wolfing it down. But when I said to my father, “We should come here again !!” I immediately woke up. I think my father must have remembered that old promise. We were eating together just like we had been the time we’d met so long ago. I could no longer meet my Father in this world, but in my dreams, we could meet as often as we liked. This is what my Father showed me. Up until my Father died there was no end of things I was sad about, but when I awoke from my dream, I’d found something to smile over.

“Really, when’s it going to get hot !…” I’d just gotten home and this is what my father had to say. We’d been breaking 30℃ for days on end. My father had a lot of errands outside the house, so I supposed he was talking about the intense heat.

“E—v, ev, ev, every, body—and Ryōji, le-t’s-get-together !!” It was some years ago that my father’s stories had made my four younger sister’s and I gasp. When we’d insist that he read us a bedtime story, it was never a picture book but always his own stories he insisted we listen to. We’d heard glittering tales of his growing up in a valley in Yamanashi and why heat didn’t bother him. How during summer vacations he’d chased cicadas together with a friend of the family named Ryōji. How they’d escape the blazing sun by going off on their bikes to a distant pool. And no hesitation about serving up the same summer stories in winter, they were good all year round.

For my father, the summer vacations during his elementary school years were incomparable. He didn’t just tell us about them. He would take all five of us to the local park on weekends. He led us everywhere, only too happy to run, but he’d get too excited and Mom would get mad.

When I think back on it now, from the time I graduated to the later grades of elementary school till today, I haven’t heard Father’s stories. He mostly talks about school exams or job hunting, things that are happening right before his eyes. When the summer heat’s on, rather than going out to the park or the pool, he mostly just spends his time at home these days. The two of us daughters who are still at home, as well as our father, are all getting older: we all prefer being home with the cooler to being out under the sun.

I’m in my fourth year of college, so next spring I will be leaving home to start a new job. I’m not really at a stage in life where I’m thirsty for tales from “Neverland”. But let’s get Dad to tell us “stories about Summer” next Sunday. I’m sure that he’s still ready to tell about the cicadas he got with ol’ Ryoji. It’d be a pleasure to forget this hot, sticky summer for one that was fun. Though still a bit embarrassing.

“The day you were born, we were eating curry and watching Sazae-san on television.”

My whole life, I’ve had to listen to this portrayal from my mother. Is that why I’ve grown up to love curry and gone on to record succeeding episodes of Sazae-san?

Once on the subject of the day I was born, my mother always ends up with the following:

“So there’s no doubt you were born on a Sunday. Children born on a Sunday are always lucky !!”

Really, I should be thankful for this story, because it made me believe in my own good fortune. When confronting my college entrance exams and later, job interviews, my mother’s story always bolstered my courage. Though, to tell the truth, I failed my entrance exams.

Then one day, when I had time and didn’t know what to do with myself, I checked my smartphone for a calendar of the year I was born and discovered, to my utter surprise, that I was born on a Saturday. That explained my college entrance exams as well as the number of times I’d been turned down for jobs: it was inevitable.

Straightaway, I asked her what was going on. Why hide the truth about my day of birth?

But, as usual, my mother just went on, “We were eating curry and watching Sazae-san.”

Set aside the curry, wasn’t she replacing one memory with another just like Sazae-san herself might? Of course, everybody knows that a really long time ago Sazae-san was programmed on Tuesdays. But the problem here was Saturdays.

I thought of episodes of Sazae-san that I’d gotten relatives to record for me. No one had been that kind of fan before then. Just about the only thing left for me to do now was to question the veracity of my papers. Rather than Sazae-san’s broadcast suddenly shifting to Saturday for a day, it was easier to believe that some busy intern had miswritten his entries. Or perhaps, seeing Sazae-san was just some nightmare inspired by my mother’s labor pains.

As of now, the stories that so inspired my confidence for more than 20 years are nothing but a headache, not even worth talking about.

When I think about this, I get so downcast that I just loose it.

Well, for starters, let’s eat curry for dinner tonight…

I was minding my own business when a stuffed bear flew across the room and hit me in the face. A direct hit ! The culprit was my sister, three years younger. At the time I was a first grader and not about to let things lie. I threw it back at her and we got into quite a fight.

But the real start of it all was a larger, running argument about ice cream. The question that started it was “Which tastes better, chocolate or vanilla?”

“I like strawberry,” said my mother. “My favorite’s melon,” answered my father. “Whatever you all say, Azuki Bean’s the best,” piped up my Grandfather. For Grandma, it was Green Tea. But that wasn’t it, that was just the start, because you could see they were all getting serious about it.

“Strawberry beats them all – No way, gotta be melon – Azuki’s got more flavor than all of them together – Macha’s got real panache.” Just when it seemed the family was caught in an endless dispute, my little sister jumped up and interceded, “That’s enough. Everybody stop! You’re not going to yell about ice cream.!” At which point, everyone burst out laughing. The only one who didn’t get the joke was my sister, but finally, even she had to give in and laugh.

On the following day, my dad came home with a load of ice cream. There was one of each person’s favorite: ice cream for the whole family. And while they were eating a smile played on each person’s lips: Papa, Mama, Grandpa, Grandma, my sister & I. “It’s six headed ice cream,” I blurted out. Then Mother chimed in, “And next year, it’ll be seven,” because she was actually expecting a child.

Someone said, “I’ll bet the baby’ll like chocolate,” and just as quickly, “No vanilla – Got to be strawberry – Melon !! – Azuki ! – Macha !!” and we all burst out laughing again.

I’m sure the little baby was laughing along. Family’s the best !

I like scenes from melodramas.

In the morning when I leave for work, I look back as I walk away. I can see my wife waving good-bye from our veranda. It’s a touching way to keep me moving along, a sweet scene that makes me feel warm inside whenever I think of it. But actually, my wife has trouble getting up in the morning, so she doesn’t do this. I finally made a direct appeal, telling her how much I loved the scene. So the next day, when I turn around with an expectant smile forming on my lips, I see my wife’s not there. So much for scenes from melodramas. They’re overproduced. I should make a complaint. My enthusiasm was “dramatically” dampened.

My own mother was a terrible worrywart. She’d come out of the house with me to send me off to school every day. When I hit adolescence, that really began to bother me. “Just stay in the house and leave me alone !!” I’d scream while trying to ignore her. I was really terrible with her. Now that I’m actually looking for the same service from somebody else, I ‘m a little shocked by how calculating I can be.

I kept thinking these kinds of things until one day there was a turning point. We had a child a year and a half ago. Before, my mornings were so settled you could catch me talking to my plants, but parenting tends to make for busy mornings. Hang out the wash – do the dishes, “Hey there !” toss my son three times into the air, as high as possible. Tuesday, right, garbage day, let’s get it all in the bag – don’t forget that corner strainer. You get in such a rush that it’s easy to forget looking back when starting off to work.

Just as I’m struggling to turn the doorknob with the same hand that’s holding the bag of garbage, I hear someone call from behind me and turn around with all my irritation showing in my face. My child is waving goodbye to me from inside the hallway. Those big liquid eyes, waving his chubby arm after me, up and down, back and forth. He could be there because he wants to go out and play or for me to read him a book, so many possibilities held in emboitement, but I quickly surmised he was just an innocent child regretting his father’s departure.

For a moment I thought I’d skip work but quickly scratched that daydream and headed for the office. On my way, it began to dawn on me just how extraordinary my mother had been. Sending me off every morning was not just about her worries. In the midst of all the busy days, it guaranteed us one brief moment when we could be together. Both she and my father worked, so she was rarely at home. For a short moment every morning, she could see herself as the mother she was, with me at her side.

So I’ll be ready to take on a rebellious adolescent, no matter how packed his schedule is, and keep sending off my son when he heads for school. In the long run, it means everything. And hopefully my efforts will inspire my wife to make an appearance on our veranda someday.

My father and I never talked much, and then one day he was gone. That’s why when my own son was born, I promised myself we’d go out for drinks and talk when he got to the age of 20.

Growing up he was more about fun than studies. When he joined the local baseball team I followed him from afar. Truth was I was a little lonely, but he seemed to be fitting into society really well. Then it was time for his coming-of-age ceremony. He’d become an adult, and I was happy.

As soon as he’d had his birthday, I invited him out to go drinking. “Sure,” he promptly agreed, and that made me even happier. We got together at evening and went to a bar that served wine. My son had said that if he was going to drink, he’d like to drink wine. He’d taken off early from his part time job to come to our rendezvous. The place we went to was in the basement of a building just in front of the train station. It was a tidy little shop set in a wall the color of wine.

In the end, I don’t much remember what we talked about.

My son turned out to be a stronger drinker than he’d thought he’d be. He drank his way through the entire stock of the wine he’d chosen while we ate hors d’oeuvres. We had a wonderful time. I was so happy about fulfilling my long-cherished dream that I ended up getting thoroughly drunk myself. We spent something like five hours at this wine bar. We paid the bill and went out in the evening air. I got in a taxi with my son, and we went home. That’s as far as I can remember.

Next I knew it was morning. I went to the toilet. When I came back to my room, I noticed my clothes were lying where I’d thrown them off, and my satchel tossed in a corner. Seeing my son I said “Last night I drank too much, but how was it for you?” “Fine, I had a really good time. You were totally smashed.”

It seemed my son had already surpassed me: one more reason to be happy.
So what is Oyako Day?
It’s another chance for me to go drinking with my son.

“I’m leaving right now”
From Tōhoku to Kanto, my mother dropped everything and left immediately.

When I became pregnant with my second child, I was struck with such fits of vomiting that I couldn’t manage my daily life. Maybe if I lived alone, I might have been able to, but my first child was there. And my daughter was the image of health, brimming over with energy. I couldn’t very well take care of her with me shutting myself up in the toilet with repetitive attacks of vomiting. Like most small children, her concern over me was patent. She quickly fell quiet and played by herself. Her bravery brought tears to my eyes, but my constantly churning gastric juices left little time for tears. I didn’t see how my daughter and I could get through this, so I called my mother for help.
“I can’t take it any more” I said.

Mom left to join me as soon as she got off the phone. Once she arrived at my house, she started washing clothes, attacked the dirty dishes, ran the vacuum cleaner, and while playing with my daughter, straightened up whatever fell within her reach.

At the time, I was the head of a circle of friends who’d formed a support group for bringing up children. We were in the middle of managing a big event. My mother stepped right in to pinch hit. In one fell swoop, she took away all my cares.

“If you need rest, that’s all you can do: so rest”

Surrounded by the familiar sounds of her Tōhoku dialect, I was able to carry on with my pregnancy.

“I’m sorry to be so much trouble”

“This is no trouble for a parent, so who are you talking about,” my mother answered, as if it was evident. “Your father told me to get here as quick as I could”

My mother stayed by my side until my health stabilized, and then I went to my parent’s house until I had the baby. With all the support I got from my parents, I had an easy delivery.

“I want to do something to show my gratitude,” I said in all honesty to my father. So many things that I would have been embarrassed to say when I was younger, now seemed to come easily. Holding the newly-born child in his arms my father said, “The most wonderful thing you could do for your mother and I would be to do your best to bring up your two children.”

So now I throw all my life into my children. That may sound like an exaggeration, but I hope to be worthy of all the love that I’ve received.

“Mom, I’m going out to buy you some carnations.”
“Really! I can’t wait to see them!”

On Mother’s Day when I was little, I’d always tell my Mother that I was heading out to buy her some carnations as I was leaving the house. But I’d go off and play with my friends till the end of day and completely forget about buying anything.

“Yū-kun, did you get the carnations?” Mom would ask when I got home. And that’s when I’d shudder to remember why’d I’d gone out that day in the first place and have to think up some lie.

“The carnations were all sold out.”

In the face of such a blatant lie, my mother would always just answer with a laugh, “Oh really? Well then, I’ll look forward to seeing them next year.”
Whether next year or the year after next, the same thing would happen. I’d play, forget and tell the same lie.

On the other hand, my mother never forgot my birthday. She also came to all my soccer matches and wore out her vocal chords cheering for the team, a first-line mother. Even after I’d left home and was living by myself, my mother continued to support me. Since I was addicted to the mikan oranges they grew in our region, she’d send me boxes of them. When I protested that I had no way to repay her kindness, she just laughed and shook her head.

Around 23 years old, I became more stable. I finally showed my affection for those 23 years of love by buying her 23 red carnations, one for each year.

“Mom, thank you for these 23 years. I’m sorry the flowers are so late.”
“Oh! This year the carnations weren’t sold out. That’s wonderful isn’t it!” she said to me, laughing all the while. In spite of myself, this brought tears to my eyes. “Yes, it is,” I answered.

My Mom’s the best in the world.

In late June, I suddenly received this mail from my father back in Shizuoka:
“I’ve got something important to talk to you about, so let’s go get a drink together.”

Since I’d left home ten years ago, I saw my parents just a few times each year. When I got this note from my father, I got so anxious that I called my mother to ask if anything had happened to him. But my mother just said, “No. I wonder what it’s all about. I have no idea.” She seemed as much at a loss as I was.

The note worried me. Since there was no reason to beg off, I set a date to meet my father on the 15th of July in front of the Minamiza in Kyoto. As far as I could remember, it would be the first time in my life that the two of us were going out drinking together.

Kyoto was sweltering that evening. I was mopping the sweat away while waiting at the Minamiza. My Father showed up shortly.

“Thanks for waiting. Why don’t we go straight to the bar.”

No sooner said then he was on his way, laughing to himself and saying, “Back in the day, I often used to entertain at this place.” He led me to a small restaurant in Gion.

We were seated and our beer had been poured, so I thought we were going to get to the heart of the matter, but the important subject was not forthcoming. There was talk of my mother being difficult, plans for retirement, …my father kept chuckling away, speaking of this, that and nothing. It used to be that when I had something serious to tell my father, I would beat around the bush speaking of this and that, but down to the bitter end that night, there was no sign of anything important he needed to tell me.

We spent about two hours together. My Father was in high spirits when he left to catch his express train back to Shizuoka. I was half-relieved and half-freaked out, perplexed enough to feel like I needed to call my mother back again.

“Well then, for your father seeing you must have been what was important, don’t you think?” she said.

My father had raised two children and was about to retire. Perhaps talking to his son, who was now a man of the world, about what had been and what was to come, the this and that of it, while getting mildly drunk was not just a pleasure but an important story for my father. I’d gone off from home to take up my life elsewhere. How many more times would I be able to see my father? So for both myself and my father, that time spent together, the time itself, was as precious as it was irreplaceable. This is what our summer’s evening in Kyoto led me to think.

“Your stomach aches again? You know, if you say that every morning, people will stop believing it’s true. Then when it really hurts, no one will help you. Now get up and get ready to go.”

From kindergarten through first grade, for 4 years, it was the same every day. My daughter would complain of stomachaches and refuse to get dressed. Even if I drove her to the kindergarten, she wouldn’t get out of the car. When it came time for us to separate, she’d burst into tears, and I’d be stuck with her at the doorway for twenty or thirty minutes. Back in the car, I’d bemoan my own fate, try not to see my daughter following me and coldly leave her in her tracks. I’d be filled with guilt. “All those happy students; why was it only my daughter…” I’d think over and over again. In elementary school it was the same thing. Every day I’d take her to school, to the doorway or all the way to her classroom, and every day she would make a scene when I left.

When I asked her why she hated school so much, she said, “I don’t hate school. I just don’t want you to leave. I always want to be with you.” When I heard my daughter say this, I was suddenly filled with regret. Until now, she hadn’t said anything like that, just complained of stomach pains. I really felt that I’d failed her, that I should have understood all this much sooner.

Around about that time, my daughter was reading picture book called “Genki-san kara no tegami”. It’s the story of a mother who while in the hospital wrote letters to her daughter in the name of “Genki-san” to keep her spirits bright. I decided to do the same kind of thing. Because she’d liked the book, I thought she’d quickly get in the habit of checking the mailbox each day when she came home from school.

I wrote a short letter to my daughter and put it in the mailbox.

“Dear Yuna, thank you for checking the mailbox everyday. You’re going to school everyday now. And you’ve been helping out a lot around the house. Your mother’s been so happy. From Genki-san”

When my daughter came home, she found the letter and seemed to be crying while she read it. Though it may seem strange, she said she herself didn’t understand why she was crying. I believe it’s because I had finally accepted my daughter’s distress, and it made up a little for all my blindness. After that my daughter gradually adjusted to school and was able to go there by herself. Now she’s a sixth grader, and until this day checking the mailbox is part of her daily routine.

“Girls, your omelette is served!” That’s what I said to my 2 girls 12 years ago.

That year my wife passed away due to illness. And that’s when I really began to take care of my daughters. For a while I was knocking back and forth between work and home problems, talking about home at work & rethinking work at home. It was difficult reconciling the two, and that would irritate me. I got short-tempered and would yell at my girls for any reason, especially when my older daughter was in fifth grade. She’d avoid me and ended up spending a lot of time shut up in her room.

Time went on this way till one day when I was cleaning my room, I happened to find several pages of recipes in my wife’s dresser drawer. Most likely, she intended to make these dishes for the girls when she got back from the hospital.

Looking at the recipes, the only one that seemed to be within my grasp was a rice & cheese omelette. I made it on my next day off. Neither it’s shape nor it’s taste could rival my wife’s cooking, but so be it. “Girls, your omelette is served!” I said, placing my somewhat burnt offering before my two daughters.

My elder girl could barely keep a straight face. It looked like she was laughing.

“How is it? It’s good, isn’t it,” I asked my younger daughter.

“So our father can cook too.” she answered, as if it were a joke. That’s when things started to get better. It was slow going, but spending more time doing simple things together became important to all of us. Now my daughters are both off living on their own.

“What’ll we eat?” It’s my elder daughter’s day off from the local elementary school where she prepares lunches.

“Since we have eggs, how about an omelette?”

The same brusque replies as always. But sitting and eating with my two daughters is now my treasure.

From the day my parents divorced, my mother’s job was to be a father.
My job was to be a little mother.
Our child was my 5 year-old brother.
We lived desperately.
I don’t think I ever had the time to be rebellious.
I made meals for everyone, clutching a recipe book in my other hand.
If you put bean sprouts in water, they’re good for another meal: I practiced home economics.
Since I couldn’t earn any money while I was a student, I studied like my life depended on it.
The year I was first in my class, I secretly cried.
My brother loved soccer and made his mark there. The house filled up with trophies.
When there were Athletic Meets and Culture Day’s at school, my mother had to work. At lunchtime everyone went to sit with their mothers, but it was just the two of us.

“Why?” I always wondered. We were only three people. Why was it so hard to get together as a family?
Sometimes it made me cry.
Look at my brother. When his friends were playing catch and other games with their fathers, he’d be by himself throwing the ball against the wall.
But I couldn’t tell my mother how lonely we were.
My mother never looked unhappy. She’d always be smiling when she came home. And without fail, she would give us both a hearty greeting.

The time the three of us did spend together as a family was such a joy.
Well, we all wanted it to be a joy, but we were really struggling with our situation.
The truth is I wanted my Mom to be there when I was running in the relay and to have her show up at the classroom on Parent’s Day.
My brother was always muttering about how he didn’t have a father and wanted to know why.
I was lonely and wished someone was there when I came home.

Now, it’s 15 years later. And the day finally came when my mother could stop being the father.
That was the day that I stopped being the little mother.
My mother remarried and is so happy now.
My new father is quite old but seems much nicer than my real father.
Since my brother thinks so too, maybe he’s a good person.
So I’ll wait and see, and go back to being a kid again.
Bye-bye “Little Mother”

The little girls’ batteries begin to run down after eight at night. You can measure the younger one’s fatigue by how much she cries. As for her full of energy older sister, she survived today’s kindergarten, but now she’s run out of juice and is sleeping on the sofa. Mom’s the one who’s supposed to get them both upstairs to bed. After a 10 kilo and then a 17 kilo freight transfer to the second floor, Mom’s ready to give it up, but when she comes back to the living room, there’s another child who’s hurriedly taken over the couch and is now lying on it with his eyes shut. “Go to bed !” No surprise there: another 24 kilo load would put quite a strain on Mom’s chassis.

Mama knows how hard you’ve been trying to be a good older brother to your two little sisters.

She knows how hot it was today from the sweat marks when you took off your backpack.

She knows how you let go of my hand and turned away when your younger sister started to cry. And that you were trying to be patient but unintentionally hit your sister when you swung your arm in frustration.

Your mother knows that her right and left arms were commandeered as pillows for your sisters and that’s why you’re sleeping alone with your back turned towards her. And she suspects you’ve got your eyes narrowed to slits to keep track of what Mama is doing.

It’s only when I get busy that it’s difficult to give you the attention you want. With only two arms, Mom can’t hug three kids at the same time. The son on the couch knows this full well.

Of course if he’s “sleeping”, then he has to get carried upstairs, and there’s no way not to hug him in the process… and maybe that’s what he needs.

She’s picked him up. “You’re always trying hard to do your best, aren’t you…”
“No,” he whispers in a small voice.

So, he is awake after all.

Quietly by his ear, “And what face are you making now? I think I know !!”

Halfway up the stairs the 24 kilo boy’s body suddenly goes limp and gets even heavier.

There was a band that debuted in 1988 called the Ulfuls. Dad was a fan. The net result of my childhood up to the age of five spent listening to the Ulfuls in my father’s car was the ability to sing their song, “Guts da ze”.

As father and daughter living through a young girl’s puberty, we avoided the kind of “Don’t wash your underwear with the rest of the laundry” rebellion common to most families, largely by lying, and came through unscathed. However, my second year of high school created so much stress for me that I had trouble keeping the act up. Did my father sense what was going on? He never asked about my problems. If I think back about it now, I can see that by treating me as though everything was OK, he was showing his affection. But at the time, I thought he never asked because he didn’t care, and I openly showed my disgust. As for the Ulful, as much as I’d liked them, I stopped listening to their music.

Years later, after I’d left home, I discovered on the internet that the Ulful were giving a concert. They’d become an unpleasant memory for me, but I invited my father to the concert. My father was happy to go. The day of the show I came early and watched out for him, finally seeing him arrive dressed in a suit. For the first time I realized that coming to a concert with me, despite a day of hard work, was part of my father’s kindness of heart, just like not questioning me during high school.

On the train home, we spoke and laughed more than in the past. I’m not someone who easily thanks people, but words aren’t the only way. If you’re clumsy with words, but cherish another’s kindness, you naturally watch over the other’s feelings. One day when I get married, we’ll fill the hall with the sound of the Ulful. That’s my way of showing my thanks.

I suddenly became the mother of a 10 year-old, American boy.
Not a blood relation, but a foster parent.

He was cute for the first month, but from there on, he plunged into rebellion.
He was difficult and emotionally unstable.
How many times did I think I should to stop being a foster parent?
When I thought of giving over my role to a social worker, the words stuck in my throat and I couldn’t go through with it.
Our mud-slinging went on for a half a year, till that fateful day: Mother’s Day.
He’d never called me mother.
As if that was reserved for the woman who had left him; because they shared the same blood and there was a special love or bond between them.
Who did he think I was, this person who didn’t even look like him?
The hired help who washed his dirty baseball uniforms? A teacher’s aide who tutored him late into the night? Or maybe just some complaining meddler.

The following morning, there were candles by the side of the bed spelling the word “family” that danced before my eyes. My foster son had gathered the candles beforehand and stealthily placed them by my bed while I slept at night.
Knowing nothing of weeping for joy, maybe he sought to escape any confusion.
Days later at his therapy session, he made a drawing. It was a picture of him, my husband and myself walking together. Looking at the letters through eyes blurred by tears I could see that “1, 2, 3: Family” was written on the drawing.

Eight months later, a distant relative took charge of him.
The fourteen months I spent with him were filled with intense up and downs.
What I most remember is finally overcoming his mistrust and the young boy I loved in the hope of restoring his childhood. The therapist told me that I was the only foster mother who had not abandoned him.
And then it was time for us to part. When I couldn’t find any words, he broke the silence by saying, “You’re my favorite.” After continuously refusing my hugs and signs of affection, he clung to me now with tears in his eyes.
We were parent and child.
Trials of emotion and perseverance had led him to look on me as a parent, a bond beyond blood and names.

My father left our home when I was 15.
I wonder if he remembers what happened at the merry-go-round at Takarazuka Familyland, the place we liked to go to so much !?
We joined the long line and just when it was my turn to get in, my father ran in front to grab a big horse for me. Mother yelled to us from outside, “Be careful don’t run!” My father put his arms around me and lifted me onto the tallest horse. Then he sat on a much smaller one beside me. “Hey, looks like these horses are oyako, doesn’t it. Hahahaha….”

My father’s eyes were smiling warmly. The merry-go-round started round, and the music began to play. After going around once or twice, I felt like a hero. While the merry-go-round circled, my mother waited at the exterior waving her hand each time I went by. This was oddly pleasing and maybe a little embarrassing. At the time, I was innocent and docile.

I was a toddler, then a young boy, and now an adult.
My father knows nothing of my life as an adult.
The fact that he has no interest or concern for our family, well, to tell the truth, I find it heartbreaking.

My father liked to drink.
In TV melodramas, whenever there’s a scene where a father and son go out drinking together, it makes me feel so envious. I’d like to go out with that father of mine and enjoy a night drinking together. I’d like to talk to him not just as a father and son. I want to spend time together as 2 adults.
Yes, I’d really like to meet my father.

At the time of the Tanabata Festival, our daughter who’s a third grader brought home some of the strips of paper used to add wishes to the festival’s bamboo decorations. We could read “To be together” written carefully on each one.

Five years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had an operation and chemotherapy, and it was long and hard trial, both physically and spiritually. Luckily, the medicine worked, and thanks to the support I got from my family, I was able to fully recover. The illness has not recurred and I’m living a healthy life.
But then last September at my regular checkup, the doctors had some results that suggested it was back. They did a much more detailed examination. The complete results took a month to return, and I think that month was the worst of everything.

Honestly, I didn’t think I could stand going through therapy again.
I felt that all my emotional resources were spent, and that basically from the start, excluding being a mother, I’ve always been just one more weak person. I was so thankful when the results came back negative. From the very bottom of my heart, I drew a long breath of life. Nonetheless, no one can promise there will be no more tests, nor how they would turn out. I count my days, try to be strong, and have decided to live my life with my feet flat on the ground.

Just at the time of these last tests, my daughter announced that she wanted to be a doctor and help the ill. I felt both love and pride. Yet, her choice certainly came from the experiences of her mother’s illness, and in this I felt sorry for my daughter.
And then at Tanabata, a classmate misread the writing on my daughter’s slip of paper as stonecutter instead of doctor. She was indignant. I laughed and laughed when I heard about it, until my daughter got mad about that too.

Of course, at this point my daughter’s future is a total unknown.
Whatever path she chooses, I want to be there to cheer her on.
Doctor, stonecutter or whatever….

Last spring, I moved far from my hometown to live with my new husband in Miyazaki. After much agonizing, I gave up my teaching job of the last 20 years: a big decision.
“I’ve packed this full of your favorite things,” my father said on my day of departure as he handed me a package of Shizoka mikan. I said good-bye to my parents at the airport. Eating my beloved mikan on the airplane, they were more bitter than sweet.

Fortunately, I found a new teaching job in Miyazaki. But I was unable to adapt to all the tremendous changes, and my heart hurt so much I had to visit the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine at the hospital.

One night, I got an email from my father.
Unlike my mother who never bothers to type in a subject line, my father’s were always there and always precise. Despite being a lazybones, at seventy he led a daily battle against aging eyesight and continued to send me email. I read tonight’s subject and it just said, “Yukari”. It seemed ominous and I already had tears in my eyes when I started reading the letter.
“Today your father took his bicycle for a ride and road for 20 kilometers. As always, I’m feeling fine. How’s my little Yukari doing? I’ll send you some more mikan…”
Wait a minute! This letter has nothing to do with the subject Yukari ! I cried all the harder for that. But having parents far away who think and care so much about me, called me back to myself: “C’mon, Yukari, make more of an effort!”

I replied to my father’s mail asking, “Papa, why did you name me Yukari?”
When I got his return mail he wrote, “Because you’re as beautiful as the actress Hoshino Yukari” …so my father wanted an actress not a teacher for a daughter? This was such a joke it made me laugh.

Some days later, one of my co-workers asked what my favorite thing to eat was.
“I like the little mikans they have in Shizuoka. They’re sweet and small and easy to eat.” The next day when I got to work I was in for a shock.
“What is this!? Looks like a giant mikan!”
Center stage on top of my desk stood a magnificent mikan that was larger than my head. The co-worker I’d spoken with the day before started laughing and explained,
“That’s our local specialty from here in Miyazaki. The world’s biggest mikans. Your mikans from Shizuoka are small, sweet and delicious, but this Miyazaki mikan is big enough to feed everyone. We can all split it up, eat it together and have a good time. We hope you’ll learn to like things Miyazaki style!” My co-worker was so bright and inviting, I could only smile through my tears. Just like breaking bread with my co-workers, we split up the giant mikan and ate it, and I finally felt I was part of my new teaching team. Eating that giant mikan had woken me up, so I’m sending one to my father. The fruit that shows I’ve put down roots here.

Our sons love grilled fish. When there’s grilled fish lined up on the table, the boys are bright and happy. Getting the small bones out so they won’t get caught in anybody’s throat is inevitably mother’s work; though digging around in fish meat isn’t my favorite sport. This said, when I’m clumsy about flaking fish off the bone, I always remember my grandfather.

When I was a child, he was the one who prepared my fish. Unlike me, he was proficient and deft. He’d put the fish he’d prepared in a plate and pass it to me. It was so easy to eat that way. And of course at the time I found all this natural. Now that I have my own children and I’m fixing their fish, I know deep inside me how much my grandfather must have loved me.

When you move from served to server, you finally begin to notice a lot of things you didn’t think about before. I’m who I am because of the generous love of my grandparents and parents. On days with grilled fish, I’m reminded of all I have to be thankful for.