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.