I always eat sushi every year on the 31st of May

A collection of stories about my brother who was told he would not live to be 20 years old. A compilation of all the serialized novels beginning from his childhood. Epilogue included.

Vol.1 Osushi

My brother’s favorite food, sushi. I always eat sushi every year on the 31st of May.

The seizures subsided and a brief moment of calm began to pass again. My mother took a breath and laid down on the couch. I sat in the pipe chair and absentmindedly watched my brother. No matter how many times I was told that he was in critical condition, I didn't feel it. It's not that I'm sad and couldn't accept the reality of his condition. I never doubted that this moment would become one of those funny stories. The soft early summer sunshine that poured into the lukewarm private rooms of the hospital reminded me of the peaceful daily life. Even the outside was so refreshing...

My brother, who should be lying on his back on the bed, slowly reached his hand up to the ceiling with his eyes closed and tried to hold the air. When he thought he was able to do so, he then brought his hand to his mouth and chewed. One time, then another one.

“Mom, look! He seemed to be eating something.... Look, again!”

“You're right. Sushi...? Because your brother likes it.”

He was savoring the imagined sushi with a satisfied look. Probably his favorite scallops, and then several battleship roll sushi will be next. A happy hallucination. My mother and I looked at each other and chuckled.

A week after our overnight stay, we had been growing tired and nervous, but my brother was still smiling as usual.

He was afflicted with illness when he was three years old. After a year, when I was born in Ibaraki, my grandmother attended to him and started to stay in the hospital. Over the next 24 years, my brother had been in and out of the hospital several times. With his friendly smile and teasing personality, he was a familiar figure in the hospital that it was best to describe him as a “hospital resident” rather than being called a patient.

He played the role of pushing the nurse call button if newly admitted patients were having trouble, and he also encouraged newly hired nurses who were not yet familiar with the work.

"What kind of illness does your brother have?", a question that was repeatedly asked over and over. When I was young, I was told that it was a disease with an unknown cause. So far, my brother travelled to three hospitals and has been involved with countless doctors. Even with modern and advanced healthcare, I had no choice but to accept that no one could help him.

However, the facts that I heard from my mother when I became an adult were quite different.
"When he was an infant, he was just fine. Then there was a time when an outbreak of measles occurred, and your brother was brought to a nearby pediatrician. I wonder if the treatment at that time was adverse. They gave him a strong medicine to stop the rashes. After it, his mouth and esophagus became terrible due to stomatitis. It seemed that the virus couldn't get out of his body and remained inside, and his condition continued to worsen. I was even told that it might be cancer, but I really don't know what it is."

There were times when I got frustrated over doctors that wouldn’t see it as a medical malpractice. And since the incident was over 20 years ago, it became a thing of the past. Actually, I didn’t ask for the name of the place, all that was ever said was “the nearest pediatrician”. Whether it was the popular pediatrician near our house or the pediatrician near my mother’s family’s place, I felt a little bit fearful in identifying which one. My parents didn’t sue the pediatrician. They were probably more desperate in saving my brother’s life rather than spending their energies in filing a case in court. Of course, my pacifistic father who disliked arguments probably wouldn’t do so anyway.

Then my mother’s life changed altogether with my brother. Our family revolved around him.

After the onset of the disease at the age of three, his body had a series of unexplained symptoms each year. Nevertheless, I could still recall that until he was about five years old, he would run at the back of my anxious mother. Then after, as expected, he could no longer walk. His hip joint was deformed, and he was bound on a wheelchair. Then one by one, replacement implants were attached to his body. There’s a device implanted on his chest that served as a port for inserting IV tubes, and he became like the Terminator of some sort. There’s also a tube inserted in his navel that drained green gastric juices into an outer pack. And soon, there would be a surgery to drill a hole in this throat to suck out phlegm every time whirring sounds occurred.

The patient himself and the doctors were confronting symptoms that appeared one after the another. It seemed like a never-ending game of cat and mouse. His head, eyes, and ears might be the only parts that remained untouched. While I couldn’t say that the series of tests were a complete one, his body became the result of countless medical procedures.

And his mind was always positive to live. I’ve seen him cringed and endured the pain on many occasions. But his trademark was his wide open, crooked smile. Not once I have heard him say “it’s burdensome”.

During the time when he was staying at home and in a healthy state, my mother always took care of the equipment everyday: assembling, cleaning, and replacing all of it. Even if blood oozed out sometimes, she would handle it well. Her composure was like that of a veteran nurse. When I started going to primary school, I was gradually able to assist in things like changing IVs and operating the sputum suction machine, just like a newbie nurse.

Because I grew up in such an environment, when I see a bleeding and crying child or a friend that wanted to see a doctor, I get worried and I would say “Are you okay?”, but somewhere at the back of my mind my cold self knew that it’s not that worse and they “will not die”.

The most menacing thing according to my brother was when the sputum hardened and blocked his airways. Even if it got slightly dry, we would insert a humidifier in his throat and suck out the phlegm. We could hear a whirring sound when the sputum hardened inside. When a large chunk was removed, he would give us a satisfied thumbs up gesture. No matter how careful we were, the horror when his face turned pale due to lack of oxygen struck us numerous times. Especially when my mother was out of the house for quite some time, my sister and I would be the suction attendants. When I was able to remove a lump, I would proudly say “Oh, it’s this big!”, but more often than not, I would call my mother for SOS.

(Took a deep breath and exhaled) “Hmmph! It’s not good! It’s clogged...”

It’s a struggle to remove the lump when using both the humidifier and the suction machine. I had to match with the rhythm of his breathing, and his constant vigorous exhaling. We were just watching television a while ago, and to think that he’s always on the brink of life and death was mortifying.

“Mom, how long will it be until you arrive back home? It’s clogged. I couldn’t remove it.”

Although it would not make a difference whether it was me or my mother who would do it, both me and my brother would be relieved and felt like everything was solved simply because our mother came back.

“I’m home! Eh, why do you look like that? It’s okay. Look at me, take a slow deep breath and exhale. One more time.”

Whether if we’re in or out of the hospital, a slight blockage in his breathing was a big deal. How unfortunate it would be if one would lose one’s life due to a booger-like plump despite administering great medical efforts.

He couldn’t ingest nutrients through his mouth, so he was left dependent on IV drips most of his life. Except on infrequent times, he was constantly connected to the IV tube. Even on times when he could walk, his mobility was restricted by the tube. He often asked me “try getting this” or “try getting that”. He was careful of not saying “get it”, and his manner of saying of ““try” getting it” irked me sometimes.

At a young age, it looked like an experiment where humans lived all throughout their lives on liquids alone. Of course, he had been proving it for more than 20 years. During the early years of my elementary, I used to mix nutritional powders with hot water that I warmed to a temperature same of that of the human skin on a specific time each day before pouring it on a special IV pack. It’s just like making a milk for an infant. The liquid was cloudy white, smelled like boiled potatoes, and didn’t seem to look bad. And when I was in the middle half of my elementary years, the IV pack became somewhat more stylish. Probably the pharmaceutical company changed it. It’s colorless, transparent, and odorless. But I’m not sure if it was tasteless or not. First, the seal was opened and then a syringe was used to extract a small amount of liquid inside. Then a white medicine was placed inside a glass vial in order to dissolve it together with the liquid. Then a syringe was used again to put all of it back into the pack, and then my brother’s meal was ready.

The IV pack provided the necessary nutrients, but his “appetite” could only be satisfied by his tongue. “Hey, brother. Why don’t you just pretend you made a mistake, and try to swallow it?”
“If you do so, it might come out from the hole in your throat anyway haha”.
No matter how much fun I poked at him, he could skillfully bite a mouthful of food and enjoyed tasting it without swallowing, even his saliva, and then spit it out afterwards in a special pot. We were able to enjoy our meals together that way. Among the family he was the biggest eater and oftentimes ate grandma’s favorite shrimp tempura.

Vol.2 Dual Life

Even after I was born, my brother had already been in and out of the hospital and back into our home in Ibaraki for quite some time. There was no word for such a situation at that time, but when I think about it now, it can be said to be the forerunner of a dual life. Family photos of birthdays, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Shichigosan festivals, etc. show flowing happiness, but my brother would be alternately in and out of it.

While my brother was in the hospital, my mother and my maternal grandmother who was living in Ishizuka took turns in attending to him. When I was 3 years old, I was left together with my elder sister either in Dump truck grandpa’s house or in the custody of a close family friend. And there were also times when mother wasn’t around and either our grandmother from Ishizuka or Dump truck grandma would stay with us.

Our paternal grandparents had a large dump truck in their farm. My four cousins called them Dump truck grandpa and Dump truck grandma, so me and my sister called them that way too. Dump truck grandpa, who always go by his own pace, would say “Ha, here they come” with that same baldish, smiling face like my father. Dump truck grandma was getting older and was starting to mellow down. She used to be a teacher and was difficult to deal with back then. I felt more comfortable with my grandmother from Ishizuka, just like if I was with my mother. But no matter how kind Dump truck grandma was, it’s quite different and I felt a little uncomfortable. Maybe the personal conflict between my mother and Dump truck grandma made me feel that way.

“I want to stay in Tomo chan’s house!”

However, I couldn’t stay with my closest friend in the neighborhood due to some circumstances.

It was a blessing to be surrounded by adults who I could always consider to be my second and third mothers. There were days when my sister and I, still very young, would imagine our mother's face in the big sunset. There was also that moment when Dump truck grandma accidentally dropped a pickle stone on my foot. I remember the day my second mother got really angry with me because I was having too much fun with my sister even though I had a fever, but it became one of my good memories now. I think my ability to be able to sleep and live any anywhere was formed during this time.

My father was in his thirties at that time and was a very hard worker. We were still pre-schoolers and I didn't think he had time to take care of us on weekdays. I could no longer remember, but my sister told me that father once gave me a haircut and it was a disaster, and she laughed at it. I'm sure he was taking care of us in a way that he wasn't used to, but he was taking care of us as much as he could. I vaguely remember him tying my hair with lots of love. If my childhood friends were to say, my father was a man amorously in love with me. I didn’t detest it though. My father was always joking around so much that I didn't think he could talk about anything serious, and he would try to make our family laugh.

One of the favorite things I look forward to during weekends was the drive with father to the hospital where my brother and mother were. My father loved cars. He even did the painting and repairing by himself, and he didn't mind driving for long periods of time. Every summer and winter, when we travelled together with close friends, father would always volunteer to drive us anywhere.

On our way to Tokyo on weekends, father would always say "You may sleep”. But even as a child, I was worried that my tired father would eventually doze off while driving.

“Dad, aren’t you sleepy?”

I was watching my father's figure from the backseat as the orange lights of the capital’s highway lit up his face. There were times that if I was able to sense and detect even the slightest sign of fatigue, I would put my hands behind the driver's seat and give him a shoulder massage. But probably it would have been easier for him if I would just sleep. Even now, every time I drive along Tokyo’s highway at night, I can still remember the atmosphere.

Occasionally, my father, sister, and I stayed at a hotel in Tokyo. I could still vividly remember the time when the carpet was drenched with water because I didn’t know how to operate the unit bath, and the time when I was jumping with my sister on a fluffy bed. However, I could no longer recall where that hotel was. All I could remember was that there was a roller coaster near the location.

When I saw my mother again at the hospital that weekend, we enjoyed a momentary family reunion inside the car with the back seat folded.

“Have you been behaving nicely?”

I was reporting on the trivial things that had happened in Ibaraki while my mother was retying my hair which my father tied awkwardly. My brother was oftentimes not allowed to visit us, but he had made many friends in the hospital. I decided to give my mother a shoulder massage. The only thing I could do for my mother and father at that time was to massage their shoulders vigorously.

The dual life in Tokyo and Ibaraki lasted until the time I entered kindergarten.

Vol.3 Another Me

About half a year after I entered kindergarten, my brother was able to transfer to a children's hospital near our home. It was a big event that will make a huge impact in our family. We could meet him any time within 20 to 30 minutes from home while he was being treated. However, the rules were strict. Even parents had limited visitation time, and siblings were not allowed to enter the hospital room.

The room was located on the second floor of the hospital, and the entrance was in front of a hallway that extended sideways. Like a typical children’s hospital, the glass door of the entrance was always full of pictures of round elephants and round lions that looked like the sun. There was a unit at the left and on the right, and my brother was usually in the right side. During visits, hands should be washed in the changing room next to the entrance, special gowns should be worn, and shoes changed into slippers. My mother, who’s wearing a gown, appeared at the entrance from a door, waving lightly at us looking from the outside, opened another door and walked inside the unit. In between the two doors, I could see through inside a child walking while holding an IV stand, a child pushing his mother on a wheelchair, and cheerful nurses walking.

My mother spent time with my brother every day, and my father tried to visit also as much as he could. Occasionally, she would take him out of the door, and me and my sister would be able to catch a glimpse of him from the outside as we spent hours on a bench in the hallway. I already had enough of picture and coloring books. Two straight lines were drawn in the floor of the hallway connecting the left and right units, and it looked like balance beams, so we tried to walk back and forth there many times while playing rock, paper, and scissor game.

Another big event continued after the transfer, and my brother had to undergo bone marrow transplant. According to Wikipedia, bone marrow transplant is "a treatment for complicated blood diseases such as leukemia, aplastic anemia, etc. in which a normal bone marrow cells of a donor are injected intravenously and transplanted into a patient”. It doesn’t chip away the bone but instead sucks the bone marrow from the lumbar area with a syringe. Every time I heard such an explanation, I remember the gelatin-like thing inside the hard bone of a tail soup. Successful operations have been performed in the Children’s hospital and my brother was a given an opportunity to try it too. There were few cases at that time and if ever it would be successful, my brother would be able to live longer. On the other hand, there was also the possibly that his body would not respond accordingly. I wondered if the operation was really for the sake of my brother, or just for medical research. I had to show my trust and confidence. My head was spinning around. A glimmer of hope called “bone marrow transplant” arose in the complex problem that we were facing.

It's hard to decide whether to do it or not, but the first thing that matter most was finding a donor with a perfectly compatible white blood type. It has been said that there are hundreds to thousands of types of white blood cells. There’s no bone marrow bank in Japan yet, and in addition to our family, relatives and many friends gathered to cooperate with the blood collection test.

A few days later, I was surprised to learn that my white blood cells were a perfect match among dozens of potential donors. As a kindergartener who knew not a thing about bone marrow transplants, I suddenly took the brunt of being the "savior". The doctor explained the operation in detail to me and my mother, that it would be easy for an adult to do it but difficult for a child. Since I was too small, I needed to have a needle inserted all the way around my waist. As for the scars, it would eventually disappear in the future according to the doctor. I didn't know much about the other complicated stuff, but I was kind of proud to have been given the role of helping my brother. When my mother asked me if I wanted to be a donor, there was not a single reason for me to say no. Looking back on it now, maybe it was because I was so young that I didn't feel any unnecessary fear. Or maybe I subconsciously convinced myself that it was no big deal. To this day, I have always been in excellent health, but it was the only time in my life that I have ever been confined.

On my first day in the hospital, a nurse took me into a room. I was with my brother for the first time. It also smelled differently from the waiting room and the hallway. The temperature was also different and warm. I hesitantly stared around the hospital room, which I could only imagine when I was outside. There were patients of the same age undergoing a variety of treatments inside the children's hospital. Some of the children were losing their hair from medications, others had large swollen heads, and others had no idea what they were sick with in the first place. What was normal for my brother was a new world for me. I was happy to see the world he was living in.

It's kind of embarrassing to talk to my brother alone. I could hear the voice of my mother talking to the nurse outside the room.

“It's been a while since they've seen each other, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It's been three months since he last spoke to his younger sister.”

They talked about themselves through the glass and I didn't know where to look.
After saying “Long time no see!”, I was too shy to continue my conversation with my brother. But he was looking forward to my arrival and had prepared a letter on a colored paper with origami pasted on it. I was even more embarrassed by the message " Thank you, let’s do our best together”, but it was very reassuring to hear such words especially from my brother.

The next few days were spent preparing for the operations and a series of blood sample tests were conducted in which I already became accustomed. Since it was a children's hospital, the nurses were like the kindest sisters in the neighborhood. They always wore a popular character pen and was very good at drawing children's attention.

Every evening when my mother came to visit, we would look forward to playing a tennis video game in the large playroom. As a newcomer, if someone was using the game, I couldn't ask to borrow it, and I would just watch from a distance. Of course, there was a time set for visiting at night, and when my mother tried to leave behind our back, I cried and said, “Do not go home yet!” but it was only once. I wondered if my brother had ever cried like it too.

I only made one friend at the hospital, the boy who often played the tennis game before me in the playroom. I was very reserved inside the hospital, so my mother took over for me and said to him, "Please be good to each other”. After that, we saw each other back and forth in our beds several times. I didn't know what kind of sickness he had, because he was not even on a wheelchair or using an IV. He never even said goodbye and was gone from the ward few days after. Whether he was discharged or transferred, I felt like not asking about him after that. It was quite a sensitive matter.

Then the day of operation came. I changed into the clothes I was given and laid down on a stretcher near the operating room.
“I’ll be back.”
My father and mother looked at me with concern. I evaded the strong gazes and tensions they were giving at me, and I pretended to be calm and proceeded. But my face was obviously nervous.

However, when I finally approached the entrance of the operating room, my curiosity in entering an unknown area outweighed my fear. I wondered what was inside the operating room. But contrary to my expectations, I couldn't see anything because the white lights were too bright. I was asked by the nurse, "Which flavor do you want?”, and I said the chocolate flavored anesthesia that I requested beforehand. And I didn't remember anything after I counted about three sheep as I was told. In addition to chocolate, there were also strawberry and banana scented anesthesia as well. I didn't even know if it actually smelled like chocolate, but the operation went well.

When the anesthesia subsided, I woke up and the first thing I said was “103”. When I opened my eyes, I saw my mother beside the bed with a relieved smile.
“Good job. I thought you were still counting sheep”

Even now, I can still recall the image vividly. One by one, a cartoon-like sheep appeared and flew off like a light toy. And then the next sheep appeared and did the same. I kept on counting sheep in my head.

Fortunately, the transplant operation was also a success. The only problem was that my hip was bent at 90 degrees for a while after the operation. It took me a month to get back to normal, but the nurses laughed at me when they saw me running around in that style. I looked like an old man, but inside I was an energetic kindergartener. I walked around the hospital every day until I was discharged, and I often visited my brother in his sterilized room, which I could only see through the plastic wall. I was a little jealous of my brother, who was lying down and playing Pac-Man and Mario in a family computer.

                                       *
After leaving the hospital, I underwent home treatment for a few weeks then I went back to school for the first time after a while. The jumping rope competition which I was eagerly waiting for was being held. The principal and my homeroom teacher were worried and recommended that I just watch it, but I won the championship with a lot of energy. My health was not different from what it used to be.

With a healthy bone marrow transplant, my brother's condition stabilized. A part of me is now a part of him also. We were more than a family, more than brother and sister. We are one and the same. From then on, it was strange to note that whenever I caught a cold, my brother would always catch a fever too. When I was away from home, my brother, who had been in great shape, would often end up back in the hospital. My brother and I were connected by something intangible.

Vol.4 Kindness and Prejudice

While he was at home, my brother attended the city kindergarten, the adjacent city elementary school, and the city junior high school instead of the school for the disabled, even though he’s a year late. I’ve met and made good friends, and for me they are like my second and third mothers. I had nothing but gratitude to the school principal for allowing my brother to enter kindergarten there. My brother had no intellectual disabilities, so he must go to a regular class rather than going to a special class. It goes without saying that my mother struggled to get the “yes” of the school officials.

As it was only for one year, the relationship of kindergarten students with each other’s siblings were not that profound, other than their relationship with the teacher. On the other hand, elementary lasted up to six years. So, when I entered the school, my brother was already gaining popularity and he’ s somewhat like a little celebrity. I went to the same school together with my siblings, and there were times when people usually say, “Oh, you’re Ma’s sister, right?”

“Oh, so your brother is in a vegetative state?”
Suddenly, the curious Yuta asked frankly without any pun intended. He was notably known within the school as a problem child after his parents divorced. He had been engaged in fights and shoplifting on several occasions. When he was in a good mood, he was the peacemaker of the class. But when troubles ensued, he also spearheaded it. I didn’t know why I chatted with him frequently. He’s charming, always smiling and laughing, and I thought I preferred him to remain that way. I was never offended by his direct questions. It was much better than the other adults who just scrutinizingly stared at me.

“No, he’s not. He can walk (at that time he still could), he can talk (although he’s got no vocal cord, one could hear a faint voice if one gets used to it), his head is also normal (he could study). It’s just an unknown disease.”

“Hmmm. It must be hard for you also then.” “Well, something like that.”

It would be a lie if I said that it wasn’t hard to have a brother who needed much care. But it was already natural to me that I was already numb of the idea on how hard it was. There are probably around 50,000 older brothers in the world who get into big fights, bully their younger sisters, and taking care of them in a different way. My brother’s case was different compared to it. For me, before the onset of the disease, there was no change in his existence and he was still an elder brother, nevertheless.

Even so, there were moments when I hated society for looking at my brother who was riddled with disabilities in this world. There were times I felt that people would step back and stared at my brother as if they were observing a rare creature. I had seen such faces many times as if they had an encounter with an alien.

It was when I was in the third grade of elementary school that I fully realized that my brother was a so- called person with disabilities. I wasn’t aware that he was regarded as something special in society because he existed too naturally for me until then. When I interacted with the special students for the disabled class, it made me think that my brother was undoubtedly one of them.

There were lots of barriers during school admissions, but once my brother was admitted, fortunately he was happily accepted by his teachers. The kindergarten teacher, who was still unmarried, even went on together with our close family friends during annual trips. My first, second, and third mothers all called her "Shou-chan, Shou-chan," and they were even privy to her blind date and match making activities. The principal of the school was small in stature, but she looked like a big mama to us because she’s got a bulk and heavy stomach. She always spoke slowly in a high-pitched voice, and her love for children was evident. My mother still goes out with her for meals from time to time.

My brother was in the first half of elementary school when a veteran female teacher took in charge of him. She seemed to have a dignified personality and an aura of drawing children. It was a new task for her in the elementary school, and I think it required a great amount of courage for her. At first, my mother would accompany my brother, then after a while she entrusted everything to the teacher except during field trips and fetching him after school. She was one of the teachers I looked up to with all my heart. I could still remember her laughing as she visited us at home.

“Well, I was not that frantic as compared before. There was a time when I noticed that Ma’s lid in the throat was missing, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I was wondering what I would do. Would he get sick? or should I call his mother right away? I was desperately looking for the lid, but when I looked at Ma, he calmy said, “It’s okay, teacher. I know very well what’s bad and good for me.” I was relieved after hearing it. And then I found that the lid was stuck in his clothes. We both laughed together.”

The equipment we were using at that time already had a lid on it. It was used usually when my brother would go out, except on times when we had to suck sputum out. The purpose of the lid was to prevent possible infection, and to prevent air from escaping when he spoke. More often than not, my brother took it off when he’s inside the house, and I could hear his voice when he placed his own finger in the hole to cover it. It did not affect my brother’s health in anyway just by doing it so. Moreover, the teacher took good care of every piece of it.

Speaking of elementary schools, the sports day was the main event of the year. My father woke up early and spread out a blue tarp in the schoolyard, and my mother packed a huge lunch. In addition to the usual close family friends, a sushi chef from my brother's class joined the circle with a huge sushi bucket. Sometimes, our neighbors and acquaintances would join in as well. While each family ate their lunch in a small tatami mat, ours was as crowded as if we were watching fireworks.

My brother went back and forth in school, depending whether if he was in or out of the hospital, for there were times we had to deal with unexpected visits and check-ups in. There were times when I came home and opened the door, the house was very serene. The air was cold and still, as if I was in a sea. When my brother and mother, who were supposed to be home before me, weren't there, I wondered if they were just taking a long time to see their doctor or if my brother was suddenly admitted to the hospital again. The opposite was also true. Sometimes, when I arrived home, my brother was discharged already and was home as if nothing happened.
When he was in sixth grade, he was able to experience for the first-time attending class for a full month, a tremendous sense of accomplishment. All of his classmates waited in the classroom for him to arrive with my mother and said, "Congratulations!” and they celebrated in a big way. Everyone prepared illustrated letters on the chalkboard and decorations in the classroom.

“Congratulations, Ma! You did it!”
“Congratulations! Super cool!”
“Congratulations! Take care of your health from now on.”
“When you’re here, it becomes brighter. Please be here every day from now on.” “Continue making new records! We’re rooting for you!”

He was blessed not only with his teachers but also with his classmates.

Vol.5 Origami

My brother, despite his thick fingers, was very skillful with his hands. His "games" included making Gundam plastic models and mini 4WD race cars. He had over 300 of them in his toy box, and he would line up his favorites and enjoy playing with them. The mini 4WDs were modified with equipment and tools to make them as light as possible and to balance out the chassis. If it was too light, it would blow up during a race. And if it was too heavy, it would not be as fast as he wanted it to be. He had to change the tires and motor to create the one and only super car in the world. On weekends, we would go to the mini race track area with our father and eagerly tried out his prized car. We often played together with Gundam and Mini 4WD vehicles until I was drawn to Rika-chan dolls.

There was that incident regarding a super glue when my brother was assembling a 4WD mini car. When he was holding and looking at the tip of the glue because almost nothing was coming out, it suddenly squirted into his eyes. He cried out, “I can’t open my eyes!” causing a commotion. My grandmother from Ishizuka appeared tactfully with a syringe full of water. She hurriedly applied water in his eyes over and over again with the syringe, until finally his eyelids snapped open. If it hadn’t been for my grandmother, my brother would have had one more disability that we could hardly explain to others.

“I will never look at the tip of a super glue again.”
The whole family burst out laughing.

And there was also another incident when he suddenly disappeared. One summer day, my brother was sitting on the tatami mat with his back to the window, curled up as usual, and absorbed in making his mini 4 wheel. My mother and I were sitting at the table a little further away from him, drinking tea and trying to finish a summer homework while thinking "He's at it again.” And the next time I looked at my brother again, he was already gone. There was no way he could move in an instant as he was not very agile. Startled, I ran up together with my mother to where he was and realized he fell out the window and rolled in the yard, and he was laughing hysterically. He didn't notice the window behind him was open and tried to lean on it. I pulled him back to his room and laughed out loud again.

My brother was genius in making situations that would elicit laughter.

He was very skillful with his hands and somehow loved to build things, and after graduating from Gundam and mini 4WD, he spent much of his time at home making origami. Ever since our grandmother, who accompanied him in the hospital when he was a child, taught him how to make origami, he's been very good at it. Some of which were hundred cranes connected by a single sheet of paper, a lively lion dance, and the journey of Kaguya. In no time, he was improving his skills, and had already mastered making them that it could be placed in a folk art shop. He increasingly went out with mother to buy rare washi papers and colored papers to affix his artwork.

On weekends, we loaded our father’s wagon car with lots of medical equipment, food, IVs, and went to places. During summer and winter vacations, we had annual trips with our close family friends together. We had an outing in the Tohoku region, and it was there where my brother had a big smile on his face as he ate a sumptuous bowl of scallop rice at the fishing port in Kesennuma, and at night we enjoyed a large boat meal at an old-established inn in Minamisanriku that stood on the edge of a cliff. In Nasu, we visited Rindoko lake and Fureai farm many times and stayed at a lovely pension house each time.

When we were deciding where to go next, my mother happened to see on television "Origami Kaikan", a place in Ochanomizu that was said to be the mecca of origami. The entire building was filled with creative works and washi paper designs that I had never seen before. Needless to say, my heart was in a frenzy from start to finish, and we purchased a large quantity of washi papers. We also met the famous director of the museum, who was interviewed on TV. He gazed at my brother’s work for a while, smiled with satisfaction, and then started talking.

"I can feel the soul from your work. If you change this seal to a name, it will have a more professional look. Keep on making origamis”

My brother's work was stamped with the mark of his charming face in the lower right area. It's friendly, but from a professional's perspective, it made his work looked childish. The director's advice escalated his work out of the realm of hobbies and specialties and gave us hope, not only for my brother, but for our family as well. He was very satisfied with his visit to Origami Kaikan, which was probably more exciting to him than Disneyland.

All origami works were done in a joint effort by my brother and mother. The two of them discussed the combination and design of the washi, then my mother would measure and prepare it. The quality of the items also changed depending on the place where the same washi was cut. I’m not good with the details, and I couldn't help but think that the measuring part was troublesome.

Once my brother cried out, “You’re not listening to me lately, and you haven’t cut anything.”, venting his accumulated disappointments. Of course, when my mother didn’t have much time, the work couldn’t continue. Due to that reason, the relationship of the two of them would not go on smoothly sometimes.

“Why don’t you hold an exhibition?”

Soon after receiving advice from the director, the idea to have an exhibition of my brother's work became a reality. With the help of my father’s acquaintance, the exhibition was decided to be held for several days at a local exhibition space. Once everything was wrapped up, various things began to happen by word of mouth. Newspapers and radio stations started to interview my brother at home and at the exhibition site, and he became a star in our hometown for a while. The towns people made a big banner with the words "Do your best, Masayuki-kun!” in the exhibition hall. My brother said with a wry smile, "I'm already doing my best.” It was an exhibition that conveyed the enthusiastic support of many people. Thanks to it, he and his works were seen by many people. After that, the number of people who wanted to buy his works increased, and he often received orders to be used and given as gifts.

He earned his title as an origami creator.

Speaking of titles, my brother once became the president of a company. When I was in high school, my mother suddenly opened a tailoring shop. She rented a vacant space from a friend, then my father, who was a good do-it-yourself person, painted the walls white and transformed the space into something you wouldn't expect from a previously dimly lit bar. My mother spent some time gaining experience at a friend's shop and steadily prepared for the opening day.

“Mother will be opening a store! I’ll place your brother's special seat right here!”
It was his first job as president of a business. My mother had created another avenue for my brother, as it was difficult for him to go to college or find a job. She could see through all the conflicts and anxieties that my brother could not tell me and my sister. Although there were times when the president could only literally work within his capability, the store continued to do well and flourished.

Vol.6 Strange Experiences

The first time I experienced the death of a relative was that of my favorite grandma from Ishizuka. Like a three-legged race participant, she’s either with me, my brother, or my mother. She always filled the gap in our family in the absence of another member. Despite her age, my grandmother was quite modern in her tastes, and was a huge fan of Sorimachi Takashi and Toyokawa Etsushi. She would proudly say to the neighbors, “Generally, grandmothers are disliked by their grandchildren, and are thought to be stinky and dirty. But I’m glad my grandchildren are affectionate”. And she was a steadfast grandmother, always dutifully staying together with my grandfather.

My grandfather was a calligraphy teacher, and about 30 children and adults gathered in a large tatami mat at his house in Ishizuka every weekend. I also continued learning there until the first half of my elementary years until he closed his calligraphy class. It was grandpa who said to me "It would be difficult to hold a brush from the left hand" and taught me how to write using my right hand. The works of the students were always corrected with a red brush, and the example character that he wrote looked cool and grand. Every weekend, when I arrived just before the practice time, he was always sitting on a special chair in the tatami room. He was either reading with his glasses off or taking his blood pressure many times and writing it down in a notebook. He had high blood pressure and was very careful about the salt intake in his diet.

On the other hand, he’s a heavy drinker. When he was drunk during his younger years, everyone in the household seemed to be cautious upon seeing him coming home even 300 meters away. The traces of such atmosphere still remain today, when everyone felt that no one wanted to provoke him when he’s drunk. When grandpa was in the hall, grandma and my mother would engage in some small talk in the living room. And when grandpa came to the living room, grandma would eventually retreat in the kitchen before he could realize it. The two of them didn’t sit together and talk much.

There was a chair in the living room where grandpa always sat. On the shelf, there were always two-liter bottles of Takara shochu, red and blue, within reach from that chair. There were also tea cups lined up with faces of successive prime ministers of Japan printed on it. He would say “Fill it up with water until that level” while pointing to a cup with the face of Yasuhiro Nakasone. I would put water in it, and he would mix it with shochu in the afternoon and drink it.

When he was on a good mood, he would then say “The ship I was on was bombed, and my comrades were trying to swim in the open sea. But you know, most of those who were desperately swimming died. I was able to survive by conserving my energy and stayed afloat” and began talking about the Pacific war. “Here we go again”, my mother would loathingly say. She had heard this story a thousand times since she was a child. It took my sister and me a long time to become interested in war stories. But when we found military records and notebooks with pages already turned yellow in a closet after my grandfather passed away, we regretted that we hadn't listened to the stories in more detail.

“I've been having a lot of trouble with constipation lately. My stomach is so bloated and painful. I don't have much of an appetite too.”
“You'd better get yourself checked out. I hope it turns out well.”
My mother was also worried, and when my grandma was finally examined after putting it off for a long time, her colon cancer had already progressed. My mother kept her illness a secret until her funeral.

Perhaps out of concern for my brother, I think my mother has been very careful about her view of life and death. I'm sure the reason we never had a pet in our family was not just because she was concerned about my brother's hygiene. She never even told my brother when a friend who was with us sometimes in the hospital passed away.

Maybe because she was already too old that the cancer was progressing slowly, but none of my siblings and I noticed it. We casually drove to see the cherry blossoms at night and went to the hot springs together from time to time. She even came to stay with us until she was hospitalized in her last days.

My grandmother, who was a chaperon to my brother and who also was knowledgeable about medicine, also said that she never wanted to use morphine because it would potentially destroy her sanity. The last time I went to visit her in the hospital, I was shocked to see that my skinny grandmother had gotten even smaller.

Soon after, my grandmother, who was sometimes closer to my brother than my mother, when to heaven.

Not long before I heard the news of her death, I had a strange dream in which my grandmother was stepping up to the sky with her legs stretching like Luffy, and I wondered if it was an omen.

Our whole family went to Ishizuka and my brother, sister and I literally cried hysterically. We all loved grandma very much. My grandfather, as usual, was completely depressed.

“I wanted to be with grandma longer”
“I still wanted to do something for her”

Did grandma ever thought that she would die before my brother? She was my grandmother, and that was the way of the world. I wondered how my brother was taking it all in. I wondered how my mother, who tried to keep "death" away from my brother as much as possible, was feeling. The thoughts occurred to me as I wiped the tears from my eyes.

Losing my grandmother's strong support made the burden on my mother even greater. Nevertheless, by the time I was in the latter half of my elementary years, my brother was gaining strength, and the cycle of spending time at home and at the hospital became every three months or so. My mother began to enjoy spending a little more time with my brother and had more opportunities to go out with my sister and me. Considering all the hardships my mother had gone through, it wouldn't be a surprise if she would enjoy a normal life for a while.

However, God gave us another trial.

“Stop fooling around and get dressed!”

My mother was upset with my brother for not being able to change into his pajamas. She said that he couldn’t even button it. There's no way that it would be like that. Something must be wrong. It was as if I couldn't imagine what was happening to him at that time. We went out for a while at the weekend as a family and just hoped that he would get back to normal.

Two weeks later, he had no choice but to go back to the hospital. He was allowed limited visits again, and my sister and I went back to our lives as latchkey children. Every day when we came home from school, there was dinner on the table and my mother came home after eight o'clock in the evening.

According to my mother, my brother's memory loss was getting worse, and he even forgot my name. I didn't even know if he could still recognize my face. He had no control over his emotions, and there were days when he cried all day long like a baby when I visited him. Once again, something mysterious happened that I could not see a way out.

Then one day, over a year later, his brain suddenly came back to life miraculously. He couldn't remember what happened during the time he lost his memory, but he was able to describe in detail the moment his memory returned. He said a thick desktop computer screen suddenly appeared in his mind, and it slowly typed the word “Shinobu” on it. And the next moment “Shinobu chan!” sparked in his head and again he was back in the real world.

Shinobu was his first love. Ever since they met in kindergarten, she was very concerned about him even until their elementary and junior high school days. She was always courteous, and kindness oozed from her face as she smiled with her eyes. And also, she was trained by her policeman father in Judo since she was a child, and she looked more manly and stockier than my brother. He was always in a good mood when Shinobu was around.

Such a faint infatuation had brought him back from a mysterious amnesia that had lasted for over a year. He was surprised that her first love had been more of a cure than anything else, but he was relieved to be back to his former self.

My brother had many other strange experiences. He experienced dying several times and came back from the Sanzu River. He also told me that when he lost consciousness, he was plunged into a dark, bottomless pit, and someone pulled him out and said, "It’s not your time to come here yet.” At first glance when I heard it from my brother, it was a horrifying and bizarre story, but it was strangely warm and comforting.

Vol.7 My Dream House

No matter how small and hobbit-like our family looked like, the two-bedroom apartment where we continuously lived during my elementary and high school days was getting narrower for us. Then, just in the right moment, a neighbor offered to sell their second-hand house. The place was just a 3-minute walk from our apartment. When my parents checked the two-storey, 4 bedroom-house, they found that the kitchen floor was damaged to the point that it was falling out, but it looked like it could be a lot easier to live in with some minor repairs, even though the inside had little exposure to sunlight.

My mother's cousin ran a lumberyard in Ishizuka and when we asked him for help, he replied immediately and agreed to renovate the house. Once it was decided, my uncle came over right away with a team of carpenters and knocked out the walls of the second floor's four-and-a-half-mat room and six-mat room. It was the first room for me and my sister to be alone. Even though it wasn't an individual room, we were elated to have our own space. The two beds were lined up on the left side of the room, and two study desks were lined up against the wall on the right side of the room. My uncle had the idea to add three long bookshelves on the right wall as well.

On the ground floor, they fixed the damaged floor and removed as many room dividers as possible. The kitchen and the living room were separated by a large cupboard brought in from the previous apartment where we lived in. The only drawback of the house was that the bathroom was too small. The toilet had a sliding door entrance under the stairs in the left part of the kitchen. We made a little space in front of the sliding door and built a wall with a large refrigerator to keep people from entering from the kitchen. I spent about five years of my life in that second-hand house, which was not perfect by any means, by the time I was in the latter years of elementary school. During that time, my brother reached the age where he was no longer considered a "child" and was transferred to the general hospital just next to the children's hospital.

By the time I was in the second year of my junior high school, my brother suddenly developed a pain in his leg that made it difficult for him to walk and go to the bathroom. He held onto the back of the cupboard and tried to walk several times, but the sight of him holding his right leg and grimacing in pain was so torturing that I couldn't bear to watch him.

The following day, we went to the hospital for an x-ray.
“I didn’t see any abnormalities. But you must have some kind of inflammation. Let’s just see how it goes.” The doctor explained and immediately went back to the examination room, walking straight past us. Unlike the doctors at the Children's Hospital and the soft-spoken doctor who was always there for us, I didn't like this particular doctor.

“This is really weird. What's going on here?”

My brother, mother and I were left out in the hallway and there was nothing we could do. I'm sure with this kind of frustration, more children would probably say "I want to be a doctor in the future!”

A few days passed and my brother was still in pain, so we went back to the hospital for another checkup. That time, my brother was given an injection in the hips that looked more painful, but they still couldn't find the cause of the pain.

However, much later, signs of fractures in his hips were observed. Thanks to it, his right leg was bent and hardened.

Then he was bound in a wheelchair. He could only move around the house, which was filled with tatami mats, by dragging his buttocks.

My parents decided to move from their house in Mito to build a barrier-free new house in the ranch of my paternal grandfather. Until then, when we visited residential exhibition halls on weekends, I have dreamed many times about our future home and said, "this floor plan is wonderful" and "that kind of kitchen is good". The time had come for such a brilliant dream to come true. There seemed to be a real timing in life.

And soon after, my uncle started coming over to our house very often, patiently listening to our requests for a plan. We had many family meetings about this and that, and uncle was always quick to make corrections and finished the plans in no time. Truly, once you've made up your mind, even a dream that you thought was far off will take shape in an instant.

“'This new house is huge! As you enter the front door, immediately to the left of the hallway is Ma's room. There's a ramp outside to allow the wheelchair to enter. Next to this is a Japanese-style room, separated by a sliding door. We can make this into a bedroom for Mom and Dad, so Ma can call them up at night without worrying about it.”

“To the right of the entrance is the living and dining room. We made it large enough without dividing it, as we wanted. However, we put in a fusuma sliding door in the living room, so we can use it to partition the living room from the dining room.

We're going to put in a system kitchen style and install all the cupboards, so we won't need our current one. The plumbing will be done here. The bathroom will be twice as big compared to the current one. It will be spacious enough for a wheelchair. We will also install handrails inside the toilet and bathrooms.

Upstairs is a separate room for the sisters. There's a walk-in closet, so you can change your clothes as much as you want! Hahahaha!”

Everyone in the family gazed at the finished drawings. Even uncle was satisfied.

Uncle was quick to work, and he began to cut the lumber according to the plan. Then one day, just as he was about to start the foundation work, something unexpected hindered him.

It was about the division of land by Dump truck grandpa. He had lots of fields around their house in the province. So, my father, the second eldest son, intended to make a new house at the adjacent lot of the main house.

“You cannot just make a new house ahead of your elder brother!”

Everyone was furious, and the family simply couldn’t back down quietly on it and protested to Dump truck grandpa over the weekend. My mother kept on challenging him, while my pacifist father just stood small between them.

“But you once said that we are free to use the land anytime!”

When my mother reasoned out, my grandmother replied, “How dare you talk back to your father-in-law!”, and a war between the in-laws ensued.

After the debate that lasted not more than two to three sets of replies, my agitated sister took a side glance to my brother and burst out, “We have to build it quickly! It’s intended for brother, he might probably die before it will be even finished!”, and then she started to cry.

Mother laughed bitterly and said, “Your brother will not die”

The discussion continued for several hours, but in the end, Grandpa Dump and Grandma Dump's decision prevailed. The dream home went back to ground zero.

However, the fast-working man from the lumber shop insisted.
"We've already cut the wood, so we can't go back.”, he said. After repeated attempts to persuade father and his close friends to join him, they finally decided to find a plot of land that would accommodate the plans they had made and make a new plan for their home.

Then my mother and I went to look at various potential sites when we had time. "All the dust is will enter the house from here.”
“The sun light isn’t good.”
“It seems that the ground here is not good.”

Finally, they found the destined lot to live in a quiet residential area about 10 minutes away from the Ishizuka's house, a plot of land of about 600 square meters. The plans for a south-facing building were already completed, with a parking lot and enough space for a vegetable garden.

Although there were many unexpected obstacles before realizing the dream, the end result was a house that was perfect for the entire family. The scent of wood enveloped in negative ions, the refreshing spice of igusa grass, the radiant sunlight shining into every corner of the living room, the massive pillars and manly beams, and the neatly arranged system kitchen. Every room has a sense of spaciousness.

It was a little farther going to Mito, but my father drove me to school in the morning when he went to work, and I began to take the bus home. I also started using the local care service, and an aide helped me bathe my brother twice a week.

Vol.8 My Brother’s Room

After graduating from junior high school, I followed my sister to a high school in Mito. It was a traditional girls' school, and the uniform was old-fashioned but popular. In fact, I secretly longed for it. The skirt, when pulled up until the waist to fasten the belt, was just enough not to reveal the underwear. Then an oversized Ralph Lauren sweatshirt would be worn on top, and the skirt’s pleats were adjusted. Loafer shoes were used together with a super loose socks that would be adjusted according to one’s liking to make the legs look thin, then a sock touch would be used to maintain its form. Loose socks were said to have originated in Mito, and there were lots of varieties that differ in length, material, and volume. During my three years in high school, I wore loose socks, then changed into super loose socks, and before I graduated, I wore navy blue high socks. It was popular to walk around in high school with a Boston bag slung over one’s shoulder. And since everyone was typically dressed too much the same, I wore Lacoste instead of Ralphs, leather shoes with laces instead of loafers, and a punchy backpack to complete things up.

Inside a school building without boys was a woman's paradise itself. When it got hot, shirts could be unbuttoned until the bra was slightly visible, and when it got cold, half-pants could be worn under mini- skirts together with a zippered jersey. The teacher criticized that it looked like a Haniwa style, but I knew it was one of the best parts of being a high school girl.

The school festival was the only chance for boys to be allowed entry into the school in a non-biased manner. A large number of boys from nearby schools came in.

“Isn’t that guy good looking?” 

“Yeah, he’s definitely my type!"

“That one over there seems to be Kay’s brother”
“Really? Does she have such a handsome brother? I’m envious!”
“That’s not the case”, Kay approached us and said in a shy manner but a little bit proud at the same time. Honestly, I’m more jealous to it rather than being introduced to a handsome boyfriend.

Almost no one in school knew that I had an elder brother. If he hadn’t been ill, I wondered how tall he would be. And if he had lived a different life, I wondered how his face would look like. But being from a hobbit family, it was not expected for him to be tall. But having our grandfather’s trait and characteristics, he could have been manly-looking and popular with the opposite sex. The treatment and medications he underwent and took kept him away from his true form. Truly, I still believe that “he was the coolest brother than anyone else” until now.

I joined the volleyball club in senior high just like I did in junior high. But there was this tradition among seniors that continued over the years that no one even knew who started it at all. Underclassmen were not allowed to touch or use a particular bench; one should greet a senior in a particular way if you met one; and if one noticed a senior took of his or her jersey, it should be folded right away. And the folding method even had its own style and details.

The third-year senior students never criticized us freshman students. There were many good-looking seniors that we admired, seniors who were always kind, and seniors who made us feel at home. However, the second-year students were always watching us and if something happened, they would immediately give us a lecture.

Our male coach, who had no volleyball experience, came from the supokon generation. Shorthand for “sports konjo” (fighting spirit), it was a period where athletes were subject to corporal punishments to make them practice harder. For example, during ball receiving practice, he would extend his hand to signify that he wanted the ball to be given to him, but when the ball wasn’t given to him properly with both hands, or wasn’t quick enough to do so, or without saying “here it is, sir”, he would throw it back to the face of the one assisting him. And also, one had to hit the ball correctly a thousand times, and mistakes were not included in the count. I looked like someone who didn’t have the enthusiasm because of my calm disposition, that’s why I was always being targeted by him. At present, that kind of style was already prohibited, but during our time everyone turned a blind eye to it.

But I think the reason I have been able to continue the club for three years was because of my 12 classmates. Together we resisted our seniors and advisor in a minor way. And as we let off steam at the karaoke bar and filled our stomachs at McDonald's, a new tomorrow would come. We got through hell together even while saying we hate it. When we became seniors ourselves, we discontinued those weird traditions and the relationship between the seniors and lower classmen became franker. The 13 of us made it through without quitting.

If there was another reason in which I was able to make it through, it was because of my brother's room. It’s located immediately on the left as I enter the hallway. It's a splendid idea to have a good time with him. Sometimes he was lying in bed with his legs crossed and reading his favorite Colo-Colo comics, and at times he was sitting in his wheelchair watching baseball game. As a Yomiuri Giants fan, he would hold a megaphone and cheer on the TV whenever there was a night game. The lineup, led by team manager Nagashima, with Matsui at No. 3, Kiyohara at No. 4, and Takahashi at No. 5, was gorgeous no matter who was watching. Hitoshi and Kawaso, the aggressive Motoki, the reassuring Murata, and Shimizu, who could be counted on to be a force to be reckoned with, provided a solid supporting cast. The pitchers were the golden members of the team, like import player Galvez, veteran pitchers Kuwata and Saito, and rookie pitcher Uehara. There were times when I would join in and cheer for the team, and other times I would hear from him about the world-record live performance of GLAY or a murder in Ikebukuro, or some other news that was making rounds on the daytime news shows.
There was a time when I asked him “What did you do today?”, and when he replied back “Nothing.”, I would then tease him by saying “Oh, nice dandruff!”. He would then rub and shake his dandruff-filled head to me. In that ordinary room, there was an air that cleansed up the stress caused by intense club activities and trouble with terrifying seniors. Any trouble was made to look tiny, and there was a sense of security separated from the outside world. It made my worries look insignificant, and there was a sense of security that separated me from the outside word.

In the middle of the night, after my family had gone to bed, I could hear his breathing below from my room upstairs. I would listen carefully for a while to see how he was doing, and it was typical for me to run downstairs to operate the suction machine. Sometimes he would open his eyes and say, "Thank you," and other times he'd give me a reassuring smile after doing the suction in his sleep. For him, the hardening of the phlegm was the biggest threat. I regretted every time I saw his relieved face and wished that I had come downstairs earlier. After, I felt like I accomplished something in my checklist and then proceeded back upstairs.

Even after such peaceful days had been going on for a while, my brother was rushed back to the hospital after a series of slight fevers. The temperature continued to rise even after he was admitted, reaching as high as 42 degrees for two weeks. Of course, we didn’t know what caused it, as usual.

“Don't be surprised.”
My mother had me and my sister mentally prepared before visiting.

I hadn't seen my brother for a while, and it was painful for me to see his vacant eyes and he was breathing so fast. It was equally painful as well to imagine that he had been alive for two weeks in this condition. I couldn't help but burst into tears as I turned away from him in a hurry.

At 6 o'clock in the evening, a trolley cart serving dinner arrived in front of the hospital room. Menus customized to the patients were lined up on a tray. Rice, miso soup, fish sauce, spinach with sesame sauce, fruit salad, etc. It didn't look bad, but the plastic container really emphasized how food were served at the hospital. I didn't think that my brother could eat with his empty eyes, so for the meantime, I just took his ration from the light green tray with his name on it and placed it on the bed.

With all his strength, he got up and sat on the edge of the bed. I sat next to him for support to keep him from falling down. His hands were shaking, and he didn't seem to be able to eat on his own. I was trying to get him to eat a spoonful of rice when I heard him, "I'm going to do this! If I can no longer eat, then, it's over!”, and I was overpowered by an unbelievable strength.

His strength, however, was paralyzed, and I didn't know if he really tried to push me down or just shoved me away a little. His eyes were hollowed so I didn't know whether he was angry or crying. I was shocked by his reaction knowing that what I did was for his own good. My mother looked surprised, but she said he's using his own eating capacity as a measurement to check his own lifespan. He could barely eat, and with that kind of appearance, I could say that the word “implacable” best described him.

When my brother was satisfied with his dinner, my mother called me out into the hallway. 

“The doctor asked me if I want to try a second bone marrow transplant.”

My mother seemed to be concerned about my reaction to being a donor again. Of course, I said yes, and if my bone marrow was going to cure him, I wanted to make him feel better as soon as possible.

On the next day, when I went back to school, I proceeded to the captain of the varsity team.

"Well, do you remember that I told you before that I have a sick brother? He’s very weak right now... and it seems that he needs to have another bone marrow transplant.”

“I don’t understand what a bone transplant exactly means...”

“To put it simply, I will become a donor and I will have to transplant the cerebrospinal fluid from my spinal cord to my brother. I did it once when I was in kindergarten, but I might have to do it again. Therefore, I might not be able to do club activities any longer.”

I ought to be happy to have an excuse to take a break from club activities with impunity, but I was surprised to see myself suddenly starting to cry. Even the captain, who was suddenly told about it, seemed to be unable to find the words on what to say about was going on.

But in the end, the second bone marrow transplant did not push through. Even if it continued, in no way it could it be known that it would be successful again that time. I didn't even know if it was really necessary....

After that he gradually recovered and we went back home and had a normal life again in his room.

Vol.9 Hanabi

My sister found the path she wanted to take, left home for college, and started living on her own. The following year, I took a university entrance exam. After some hesitation, I decided to study community welfare in a university where I could comfortably commute from home. Many of my friends went to Tokyo with dreams of a spirited university life, but I couldn't imagine leaving my mother alone who was sometimes under the stress of caregiving.

However, college life was much more fun than I had imagined. It had everything, from the supokon club activities I had in high school where I had no romantic experience, and other club circles where I had lots of fun.

After graduating from volleyball, which I had been doing for a while, I wanted to try a different sport. A club where I could just sweat just the same. If I took tennis, there were tennis clubs, tennis enthusiasts, tennis associations, etc., which had its own colors in terms of the level of seriousness in its commitment to tennis. Some of them were just tennis clubs in name only, but they were almost all just drinking clubs.

I observed several clubs like the lacrosse and basketball clubs, and the one I liked for some reason was the basketball club, which was known as Basudou club. We practiced basketball twice a week, and there was a drinking party after practice, so it was a generally fun circle. Practice sessions were always next to the volleyball club. I had a bit of admiration for the coolness of basketball, which was in contrast to the stale ballet club, that's why I decided to join it.

When I joined the practice session, I wanted the first-year students to cultivate an initiative in mopping, but it went futile. The seniors who had cars would pick up the first-year students and take them to and from during practice sessions, and sometimes they would take and treat us out for a drink after. The fourth- year students who would occasionally show up after doing their job search looked far more mature. My brother could had been in the same grade as them.

After interacting with them for a few times, I became close to a male and a female senior.

“My birthday is on May 30. It’s Go (5) Mi (3) Zero (0) (Zero trash), it is easy to remember.” “Go Mi Zero. I'll remember that.”

When the long summer vacation of the university started, a certain "Helper Level 3 course" flyer on the table caught my attention. The university where I was undertaking community welfare didn’t offer professional certification even after graduation.
"Mom, I think I'll take this.”
The course didn’t have any test which prompted me to take the Helper Level 3 course.

On the first day of the class, there were about 20 students gathered, and most of them were like from my mother’s generation or older.
"I wanted to learn the basics properly because I needed to take care of my parents.” “I'm going to work in a nursing home soon, so I'm here to get a qualification.”
The bunch of housewives shared their reasons.
The only male student was in his early 40’s, and I was the only 19-year-old student in the class.

During our practical application on meal assistance, changing of clothes, movement assistance, and hair washing, I was always paired with my male classmate. Maybe he was nervous, and when he tried to make me eat pudding, he was too quick to put the spoon in my mouth, and when he practiced washing my hair on bed, he soaked my back as well. It seemed that we were not suitable for nursing care at all, but everyone passed the helper level 3 class smoothly.

Without being able to fully utilize the helper level 3 training, I was so busy with dates, circle activities, drinking parties, part-time jobs, meeting members of seminars and professors, and completely neglected the time I had envisioned with my brother. When I got home and asked my brother, "What did you do today?", he would still usually say, "Nothing in particular". There’s a limit in spending all day at home. It must have been a complicated feeling for him about the gap between his classmates' job-finding activities, and with his sisters who were engrossed playing outside. Though I cared about his life, I was completely drawn to the new world outside. If there were only YouTube, Netflix and zoom at that time, his daily life could have been busy.

Even though my brother's room was a place where I could talk to him about all kinds of things, just like the "Shinjuku no haha" (fortune teller), I didn't talk much about what was going on with my boyfriend. That's because I didn't know how to deal with my brother's love life and sexuality. Our old-fashioned family was very reluctant to talk about sex education, so kissing and sex never came up even in jokes. I wondered if my brother, who was a bit distant from the general public, had the same agony as any other average man in the world. Sometimes my father would secretly buy him a playboy magazine, despite my mother's disgusted expression. My mother never allowed me to help him with his toileting. I would like to practice the caregiving technics that I'd learned, but his self-esteem wouldn't allow it.

There was a day during the summer holidays when my boyfriend and his friends came to our house to have a meal and watch fireworks in the garden. My boyfriend was three years older than me and was the same age as my brother who was a year behind in school. I had told my boyfriend about my brother and there was no doubt he and his friends accepted and were open about it.

But I've acted in a way that I couldn’t believe. I closed the curtains in my brother's room so that he wouldn't be seen from outside. I was taken aback that my honest feelings made me do it.

The garden was ready for the fireworks. I was waiting for the right moment to introduce my brother to everyone. There was that part of me that wanted to hide it, and yet at the same time there’s that feeling that I wanted them to know.

“Can I invite my brother to join us for the fireworks?”

Their answer, of course, was “Yes”. However, I wondered how they would actually look my brother in person. Even though I'm a bullheaded person when it comes to the reactions of others, I wasn't sure if I could take a rejection from my peers.

I didn't know if they knew how I felt or not, but my brother, who was always in a jersey outfit, wore a pair of jeans at home. It looked normal, and my mother had arranged the zippers so that they were easy to put on and take off.

Good! And with a small resolve, I took my brother out into the garden in his wheelchair and then worries were over. His friendly smile and his contagious charm blended into everyone's circle before I knew it. Everyone was laughing as the fireworks were lit one after the another. My eyes teared up as I looked up at the huge fireworks, and it wasn't because of the smoke that spread across the yard, but because of the fact that my brother hadn't seen fireworks in years. My brother looked happy to see fireworks for the first time after a long time.

Then I went back to my room with my brother and tried to apply the body transfer method I had just learned in my helper training. I moved him from the wheelchair to the bed, both of us working together. Unlike the male classmate I was practicing with before, I wasn't able to support my brother well due to his bent hip joint. The principle of leverage didn't work at all.

“One, two, and three!”

In the end, it ended up being a forceful transfer with no technique or anything. In the heat of the moment, I threw my brother on the bed and in doing so I also fell on the bed with him. We both looked up at the ceiling and couldn't stop laughing for a while. What a fun night.

Vol.10 India

Although I majored in community service in college, my interest in foreign countries had been growing ever since I was hooked on Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic in high school. I participated in every overseas program I could find, and was allowed to go to Australia, Canada, and Bangladesh. Then, in a seminar, I met a professor who was renowned for his work in developing countries and got the chance to go to India as part of a UNESCO mission.

Ten unique university students from all over Japan gathered to visit literacy education sites in India for three weeks, stayed under a homestay program in a rural area, and interacted with local university students. There were lots of travels from north to south India, and the days were hard but exciting.

With about a week left in the program, the group stayed in one of the most suburban rural villages in India. After living in The Asia for a while, it was finally time to start looking forward to a few days of sightseeing in Agra and interact with college students in the city of Bangalore.

When I returned to the inn where I was staying after the day's program, the front desk told me that my mother had called. It must had been very urgent for her to call me all the way overseas. Someone in the family might have been involved in a traffic accident, or my father might have had a myocardial infarction, or something happened to my brother. I couldn't stop shaking when I thought about it, but I was determined to make a collect call.

“Sorry to disturb you there. Your father and I were at loss as to whether to tell you or not. We didn’t want you to regret it that’s why we decided to call you.”

“Yes. Is there something wrong?”

“The day after tomorrow, in the afternoon, your brother will have an emergency surgery. It's a difficult operation, and there is a possibility that we may not be able to see him again. The doctor said it would be better for the family to gather first...”

Those words were like sharp fangs that slipped through my ears and plunged into my chest. I held the phone in my hand and broke down in tears.

“Ah... eh... how long is brother...going to live?”

"It depends on this operation. If you can come back by noon the day after the tomorrow, I think you'll be able to see him before he will be given anesthesia. "

"Okay. I'll definitely go home right away.”

There were no signs or whatsoever that he’s weakening before I left, but I couldn't believe that the day I thought would happen inevitably would come too soon. My body’s condition would still turn bad when I'm far away from home.

I couldn't stop crying for a while as unexpected things, sadness, anxiety, and frustration swirled around me.

But it’s not possible to be there right away. How shall I get home from such a remote place until the day after tomorrow? So, I had a quick strategy meeting with the leader of the group, the professor, and the Indian guide. This time, the local guide seemed to be adequate and reliable.

Calculating how long it would take, I had no choice but to leave right away. I straight forwardly told the members of the group who were eating the same pot of rice that I was backing out from the trip and packed my bags as soon as possible.

First, the plan for the return trip was to drive through the night to the nearest airport. Then in the early morning, I would take a domestic flight to a major city and then an international flight to Japan in the evening. The flight would take about nine hours and I would arrive at Narita in the early morning of the next day. From Narita, it was a last-minute bet that I would be able to reach the hospital in Ibaraki by noon.

A local young man offered me a ride. He looked unreliable, but I had to trust that he would get me there safely. The professor left the responsibility of the seminar to the vice-chair and rode with me. Normally, I would feel sorry for causing so much trouble to everyone, but I didn't have time to reflect on the trouble.

The car kept moving forward, raising a cloud of dust on the dark country road. We couldn't even tell where we were driving. If only we had a smart phone and Google Maps in those days.

After a while, something was going wrong. The driver, who couldn’t speak English, kept making U-turns and was clearly lost. It was too heavy a task for a rookie driver, after all. The great adventure in the middle of the night was unexpected, whether we would reach our destination or not, and whether we would be able to make the scheduled flight.

But the young man was a good guy despite his appearance. In the middle of the night, he would find local people along the way, opened the window, and incessantly asked for directions.

Thanks to his diligent work, we arrived before the airport opened. We left him and the professor and I waited on a bench outside for the door to open. When I saw the staff relaxing inside, I wished they would open it a little earlier. I couldn't resist and went inside just to use the bathroom, but I was sent back outside eventually.

When the airport finally started to operate, I had a lot of difficulty checking in because the ticket information I booked yesterday wasn't reflected. I had heard that India is an IT powerhouse, but I couldn't help but look at the professor for such an analog response.

Once we arrived safely at the international airport, we had plenty of time to kill before check-in. The professor brought me to a nearby hotel and filled up the bath with hot water so that I could spend some time relaxing until my departure and said that he would be waiting for me in the lobby. The bathtub, which I hadn't had in weeks, seemed to melt away all the stiffness in my body and mind. The professor's smart arrangement allowed me to reset everything for my return to Japan.

The major factor in my selection for the India mission was my "health points". The last time we were sent to Bangladesh, all the members of the team, except me and the professor, were hospitalized at least once. No matter how good you were, it would be difficult to learn anything in India unless you were healthy. My super-healthy body was noticed, and I received a ticket at that time.

But who could have predicted that I would be returning home because of my family's health problems? Even myself never imagined that my brother's predicament would become a reality.

I could not say that I slept well on the plane to Narita. After returning home, I took the shortest train from the airport, pestering the station staff for directions. I would have boarded the crowded commuter train with my big suitcase if I arrived earlier.

I arrived at the station closest to the hospital, and from there I took a cab to the hospital. The clock was just before noon, and a strange tension was building up and cold sweat was running down my back.

When I arrived at the front of the operating room running out of breath, my brother was lying on a stretcher and was just about to enter the battlefield. I made it on time!

Even though we knew his condition was serious enough to require surgery, his seemingly healthy look was puzzling.

Midway, the surgery was eventually decided not to be continued because of the high risk. His appearance remained the same after, although it was not a full operation that was administered.

The countdown to his life began.

Vol.11 Sunshine

About two years after the surgery, my brother's condition suddenly changed. When doubts about whether the operation was really necessary had disappeared. My brother's condition took a sudden turn. Nevertheless, he had survived so many crises that I believed it would naturally become another one of his past sagas.

Ten days have already passed since my mother and I began taking care of him overnight.

It’s Go-Mi-Zero (5-3-0). It was my boyfriend's birthday, and we were supposed to be going to a show together with all our friends to see our favorite indie band.

“Happy Birthday!”
“Thank you! How are things there?
“Well, not so good... Sorry, I couldn't celebrate with you. But enjoy the show. And say hello to everyone.” “I see. Are you still in the hospital?”
“Yes, we'll stay here again today.”
“Can I see you for a bit? I'm going to the parking lot.”
"It’s okay, you can go to the concert without me.”

“I'll call you back when I get there. I'll be waiting at the parking lot.” “Uhm, okay. See you later.”

That night my boyfriend came to see me from Yokohama where he was working, and my sister, who was living in Chiba, also showed up at the hospital room.

"I'm back!”
My sister's voice was completely disproportionate to the quiet private room. Her dazzling smile and energy blew the seriousness out of the air at once.

Even though I had told her about it only in an email, she finally seemed to realize the gravity of the situation when she arrived. If I had been living apart, it would be normal for me to say, "it's just any other day".

In contrast to me, my sister was the type of person who went headlong into whatever she wanted to do. She had a lot of guts and determination to make it to college despite her 152 cm frame in which normal people of similar stature would give up on sports. While in school, she found herself going to the United States, and at one point, she even went to Canada to study snowboarding. After finding a job, she became fascinated with lacrosse and held small monthly classes. Even our family didn't know what she's aiming for, but she always pushed forward to the path she wanted to take without thinking twice. Recently, she was inspired by father's vegetable garden when she returned home after giving birth, and suddenly left the family business to become a strawberry farmer. I sometimes envied my sister's character.

My sister seemed to be a free-spirited person, but she had taken care of me more than anyone else since I was a child.

The story goes back to when I was still in the first grade. It was a stormy night that I still could remember. My mother went to visit my brother, and my sister and I were left alone at home. The light and sound of thunder in the distance were getting closer and closer. When I looked outside, I could clearly see a picture- perfect zigzag lightning bolt in the lumberyard in front of me. The blinding light and the sound of thunder were almost simultaneous. Our room, which had been hiding in total darkness, was completely surrounded by lightning that threatened to drop at any moment.

Rumbling, rumbling, zap! Finally, with a never been heard thunderclap, our house was struck by lightning. I couldn't take it anymore. I was sobbing and wanted to run away to somewhere safe as soon as possible. There was no cell phone or pager, and my voice could not reach my mother in the hospital. My sister started to dial our second mother's number on the black phone.

“Auntie, help us! Come and get us!”

I just sobbed in support through the receiver.

"Auntie would like to go and pick you up there immediately, but unfortunately I don't have a car today... But just wait for a while, I will surely come!”

Eventually, after a while, through the coordinated efforts of my second and third mothers, we were safely rescued. My sister, who had been soothing me until then, cried even harder than I did when she saw my aunt's face. It was as if all the tears she had pent up in her pockets were bursting out of her eyes.

Until I was in the upper grades of elementary school, lightning was the most terrifying thing in the world to me. I learned the art of falling asleep before it struck when I spot a shiny sky in the distance. I would survive the attack if I was comfortably asleep.

After I started living on my own in Tokyo after I got a job, my sister started staying at home with me, and eventually we began to share the house. Sometimes she would even let me bring her a nice girl-like lunch in the morning. Every Wednesday or Friday, we would have a good-night party together. On the way home from work, we would meet at a cheap yakitori restaurant near the station. We loved it because it was inexpensive but tasty, and the shochu was poured right alongside of it. We had a lot of drinks there, and on the way home we bought sweets and drinks in a convenience store for the continuation of the drinking session. Invariably, at the end of the night, both of us would fall asleep, only to regret it the next morning when we saw the mess in the table that we didn't remember.

Despite being such a caring sister, she enjoyed her time in college even more than I did. She was drawn back again to the reality of our family’s situation after a long time, and she seemed to be feeling more than a little guilty.

“I'm sorry I wasn't home for a while.”

There’s no such thing. My sister, who appeared so cheerful because she’s been missing for a while, looked like a dazzling sun to us. She pushed the reset button on the air and made us feel like we could do our best again.

My sister was like a sunshine and played such a role in our family.

Vol.12 Departure

After my sister arrived, we took turns watching over my brother's condition. Even if we took over, my mother would never leave my brother's side.

From time to time, my brother would have seizures, causing him to violently shake his body from side to side and banging his head against the bed fence. During seizures, we would hold his shoulders against the bed as hard as we could. We were wondering how he managed to store up all the strength when he was trying to resist us.

In the middle of one of his attacks, a doctor came into the room and called my mother. He didn't even bother to look at the rickety bed. That time, our resident doctor was out of town, and the substitute doctor happened to be the one I had always disliked. I didn't like the fact that he wasn’t able to diagnose the hip fracture of my brother before, and he always had an arrogant attitude. Still, I had to rely on him now.

A few moments later, my mother came back from the hallway. According to the doctor, blood started to accumulate in my brother’s brain, and it would not be long before he would succumb to it. No matter how herculean it sounded like, I still didn't feel anything. I believed that I would be able to live back home again together with my brother, who had overcome lots of obstacles many times before.

“Doctor! Doctor! Help!”

My brother was suffering from seizures and was screaming for the doctor. He was desperately trying to live with all his might. This was how my brother struggled to survive behind all the laughter and brave stories told.

After a while when the seizures subsided, a brief moment of calm began to pass again.

“There's an elephant.... A girl is coming....” He was hallucinating even more.

I stroked his forehead and muttered to myself.
"You've already worked hard enough. It's okay to relax."

"I still want to live...."
I thought I heard his reply.

"I get it. Live without regrets. I'll be there for you." I held his hand.

During the time when my brother was being cared, there were other things that surprised me about him that I hadn't known before. The day when the head nurse checked on him, he was in a lot of pain until then, but he purposely changed his faced into a calm countenance. "You always look after my welfare properly”, he got up and smiled, patted her shoulder, and said to her. “You can lay back down", she answered back.

I was very surprised to see that side of him, even though I thought he was socially inept and naive. And I admired him for his strength and kindness.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, and I drove home to pick up the laundry. I hadn’t been to the shower for quite some time and I would like to be refreshed

"Drive carefully!"

It would be a disaster for me if I had an accident, but despite my mother's advice, I felt like quickly hitting the country roads.

I took a quick shower and felt refreshed, but I didn’t know why, I felt an overwhelming uneasiness that my brother would soon succumb that’s why I wanted to quickly return to him.

When I returned to the hospital and parked the car, my second mother, who had come to visit, saw me and yelled, "Hurry up and go to your brother!

“Quick, go to your brother!” 

I had a bad feeling about it.

When I ran up the stairs, leaving the laundry I had brought from home, I found my mother and sister in the hospital room calling out to my brother hard. My father, who always made us laugh, had already slumped his shoulders. The private room was crowded with doctors and nurses, not just family members. I rushed over his side and kept calling out over and over again for him not to leave us.

"Brother, don’t leave us yet!” 

“Brother, come back!” 

“Brother, live!!”

He should know the way to the Sanzu River and back. I kept calling out to him, believing that if I kept on doing it, he would come back. While we were desperate for the reality of what was happening in front of us, it seemed so unreal that we were in a delusion.

My brother had finally passed away. The day that I had been thinking about since I was a child occurred on that day, May 31, 2003.

The nurses who took care of him had tears in their eyes as they cleaned up his lifeless body.

When we had regained our composure for a moment, my aunt came over to help. She broke down in tears just like what we had just done, but by that time, rather than sadness, I wanted to honor him for his hard work until the end of his life. As he passed away, I also felt his kindness in a way that I wouldn't have to continue taking care for him any longer. Maybe the one who pulled him out of the darkness when he was dying recognized that it was time for him to go.

As we readied to bring home the body of my brother, my father remained prone with his forehead on the steering wheel of the car. My father's wagon was filled with lots of memories of my brother. While the body was still warm, my mother held on to it on its last drive going home.

As we were about to leave, the attending physician rushed to our door. 

“I'm sorry we couldn't help you.”, the doctor said and bowed his head.

“My brother was lucky to have you all throughout. We believed in you with all our sincerity. Thank you so much for everything you've done for us.”

I quickly ran out of breath and bowed deeply to the doctor, and I felt like my brother was also thanking him, who had been with him through many rough patches in his life.

As I saw my father's car where my brother was loaded into, I went inside my car and just wanted to be surrounded by silence for a while. I still couldn't believe what happened in the past few hours. I recalled the memories one by one starting from where I parked my car not long ago. I hoped it's all a dream.

Slowly, a wave of reality and sorrow washed over me and became like a huge tsunami. I started the engine and shook it off before it would swallow me up in darkness. The song Monochrome by HY band was playing on the stereo.

"I found you again today, and I'm so fascinated that I can't even see. I'll keep this thought in my heart and feel you by my side."

Even the lyrics of a romantic song, translated into feelings for my brother, got stuck inside of me.

“Stay with me! Let me be around you more!”

I drove on in the country road that I was used to seeing many times back and forth, as the song’s loud volume drowned my cries. The trees on the road were clad in fresh green and their trunks stretched sturdy toward the blue sky. The rice fields where the seedlings were lined up in a straight line looked fresh and the water was dazzlingly bright. It was such a beautiful sunny day outside.

It was a Saturday, and a group of friends were practicing in a gymnasium near my house. I had reserved the gym a few weeks earlier because it was near my place. I was able to get it opened for me without being there, despite of being the person who had made the reservation. Some kind of feeling drove me to go there. If I met someone, I would just probably burst into tears, but I didn't want them to worry or feel sorry for me. I just suddenly wanted to see someone other than my family and feel the ordinary, everyday life.

When I returned home after escaping reality for a while, my brother was brought home ahead of me and was lying straight in bed. When he stretched his bent hip joint, it didn't hurt anymore. His face was calm, but he no longer opened his eyes or allowed me to hear the whirring sound of his breath again. I hugged him tightly and kissed his forehead, without him being angry.

Thank you for all the hard work you've done.

Vol.13 Farewell

While my mother and father were talking about the wake and funeral in the living room, I was stroking my brother's head and rubbing his face. He was continuously sleeping peacefully.

After a little while, my boyfriend and a good friend from the school club came to our house to check on him. At that time, rather than crying out of sadness, I felt empty inside and was able to smile without any emotion.

The funeral service director appeared out of nowhere and said, "Let's get right to it”. And then they were spreading out the plans for the wake and funeral. There were so many decisions to be made about coffins and flowers that they didn't even give the family time to mourn. If I could, I would have said “Please leave us alone for now and come back in ten days”, but the preparations went on as we were told, and they were preparing steadily for the wake in the living room.

To continue, the head of the neighborhood association came together with other members. In Ishizuka, it was an old custom that funerals would be organized by the neighborhood association. Once a decision was made, the bereaved family should not meddle with it. From early in the morning until night, various people would come into the house in turns to help with things like serving tea and setting up the venue.

The neighborhood association was composed of elderly members, and we were the youngest family when we transferred in the area. To be honest, I didn’t feel at home with idle people just staying in the house. When members of the household were asked, “Where are the teacups?”, “Are there any more snacks?”, they could only do as much by answering. I’m thankful for it, but on the other hand, I felt uncomfortable that elder people were doing it for us. Preparing every meal was tedious for them. The customs and traditions were such like that.

As such exasperating preparations were being done, I could understand my father's reaction when he said that it would be better to have a closed family funeral. However, I knew that my brother would be more than happy to be sent off by many people.

The portrait used was a two-shot photo of my brother and his classmate who was the son of sushi chef. His classmate, who’s got the same name “Ma kun”, always visited my brother every time he’s got a chance since kindergarten. It’s strange to see the inseparable friendship of a man who wasn’t always there, but it continued until they graduated from school. The photo showed my brother smiling casually, and the two of them were dressed nicely in a dignified manner.

On the funeral day, the monk who read the sutra (scripture) was a classmate of my father. Relatives, our second and third mothers, my brother’s first love Shinobu, the principal, the school teachers, the sushi chef’s family, my brother’s origami fans, people from the place where we used to live, and many others came to witness his departure.

As soon as the school principal met my mother, she couldn’t hold back her tears and hugged her.
“I was just casually looking at Ma’s origamis in the house again after a long time when I received at the exact moment news of his demise. It was as if Ma’s sent me the news himself.

The living room and dining room on the first floor were occupied by relatives and people from the neighborhood, and our family used my sister's room on the second floor. My father would occasionally come in for a smoke in between.

"Dad, are you okay? Why don't you drink some water and get some rest?” 
“Oh, I'm fine.”
“Are you done with the greetings being the chief mourner?”
“Oh, yes, I'd better think about it for a minute.”

He had just replaced his cigarette with a pen and was about to put the words together when someone called him from downstairs. After that, my father came upstairs several times, but the greetings were never completed.

“Dad, let me write the greetings for you.”, my sister couldn’t help but to volunteer.
“Really? I'm relieved to know that you're willing to do so.”

My father, the banquet captain, was always good at public speaking, but for once he needed to clear his mind.

“I thank you very much for coming together for Masayuki today. I'm sure the departed is happy to be sent off by everyone. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who took care of him during his life. At the age of 3, he was afflicted with an unknown disease, and was told that he wouldn’t live to be 20. But he.... was able to live his 24 years of life... to the fullest! Please don’t forget that Masayuki lived in this world.”

My father bowed deeply with a wrinkled, tearful face. Many of the attendees held their heads up in anticipation of his actor-like speech. My father looked better than he was after a long time.

                                        *
As the funeral came to close, a space began to open up in the living room, which had been filled to its capacity. Those who remained until the end were my second and third mothers, who had been surrounding my mother.

As I accompanied them out at the hallway as they left, each of them said to me, "Take care of your mother."
“Yes, I understand.”

I couldn't say "It's hard for me too", I just wanted to cry by myself rather than have my supportive boyfriend and friends listen to me.

Vol.14 Life Without My Brother

After graduating from university, I decided to leave my parents' house for the first time and move to Tokyo. I dreamed of escaping out of the medical and nursing care environment where I was completely immersed, and I wanted to spread my wings and become a sparkling office worker.
But in the end, as if I was guided by fate, I found myself on the path of caregiving. I wanted to create a world where anyone with a disability like my brother doesn't give up going out. The further I went in my job search, the more that desire grew.

When I started working, I was drowning in the rough waters of society, but struggling to rise to the surface every day. Then a major role finally came around in my third year of employment, and I realized that hard work and perseverance prevailed. I became in charge of the "Kagayaki Plan," a project aiming to make the dreams of the elderly home’s residents come true. When I think about it now, it would be embarrassing to note that there were other preferable names for it, but at that time I was proud that it was the perfect name. Everyone has a dream, even if they are old and bedridden. It was a project that would hit three birds with one stone, by making their dreams come true, their families’ dreams as well, and even the staff who supported them.

When a 95-year-old gentleman got up from his wheelchair during a long-cherished dance party, he showed me that dreams can be a better way to live than any treatment or rehabilitation. I wondered what’s my brother’s power to live... Since then, many dreams have come true: climbing Mt. Takao with an 83 year old with dementia, traveling to Kamakura with a 92 year old with his family, attending a concert where a 100 year old played as the main event on stage. It seemed like a true calling for me, or maybe I was just compensating someone else for the many things I could not do for my brother.

When the project was on track across 32 facilities in the country, I met a lovely 90-year-old couple. 

“Can you tell us about your dream that you want to make come true again?”
“That's right. I want to travel abroad again.”

The gentleman, who had traveled the world in his youth, looked at the lady in the wheelchair and replied, "Even if you can go on a trip with the help of everyone, you can't go crazy with this body. You should go on a trip a lot when you are young and can do anything."

"What people with money, status and honor want to do in the last chapter of their lives.... I can do it now!"

The gentleman's words encouraged me to take a look around the world. I decided to take a year to explore the wide world I had always wanted to see, the outside world that my brother would have wanted to visit.

Since I was born into this world, I had been living in the care giving world, and this may be the first time I have found true freedom. Although not imposed by anyone, I was freed from the burden of the cross that I had carried. With this round-the-world trip, the scenario of my life has been rewritten into a whole new story.

Seven death anniversaries later, an unprecedented earthquake and tsunami hit the Tohoku region in 2011. Even now, I am still working to help children affected by the disaster to become self-reliant. Many of the children I met there had told me about their various experiences during the disaster. Many cried and said, “It was the first time I told people about my experience” and “How could I say that I had a hard time when everyone else was also suffering?”
I haven't cried in front of my family since the funeral. The children’s experiences were not easy to accept, but their feelings were something we could all understand.

                                       *
For the first five years after I lost my brother, I cried every night, not knowing the boundary between dream and reality. And for the first five years after that, I was more afraid of forgetting him. He’s my alter ego, and we are still connected in some way, and he always appears in my dreams whenever I am sick.

Now, seventeen years later, the days I spent with him have definitely left a warm glow in my heart. I can still clearly remember his wry smile, his face as he struggled to live, his face as he slept peacefully, and the days I spent with him. On how his voice sounded like, it’s already obscure now.

I always eat sushi every year on the 31st of May. 

The end.

Epilogue

This is based on the actual story of my brother, me, and our family. I've tried many times since that day to write down different stories about him. During the first five years after he was gone, I was too emotional to write. And the next five years after, the memories were too vivid for me to organize where to start writing. Now, on the seventeenth anniversary of his death, I wanted to write down the fading memories of him, retracing the faintest details.

The unexpected global pandemic in May led me to stay at home, and it seemed to give me room to write. My daily walks in the glorious sunshine while thinking about the next chapter of the book became a daily routine in the middle of the lockdown in Cebu.

With the encouragement of many people, I was finally able to present the last chapter of the book to the public. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Noel-san for your professional translation work and Isoo-san in particular for his advice and great visuals.

Looking back on each memorable story, I can see that each family member played their part. Everybody complemented each other, it’s a give and take for everyone. And I've realized that each experience now became a part of my personality.

Since the book is based on real events, it is a little embarrassing for it to be read by many people. As I wrote the book step by step, I had the opportunity to talk with childhood friends, former classmates in elementary, high school, college, and workmates. I was happy to receive a lot of messages from them.

I felt that those who have read the book were like relatives watching over me since my childhood. It's a strange and indescribable feeling of warmth and security. I can't help but feel that the next time we meet face-to-face, we will be getting closer to each other, and I am looking forward to it.
The thing I am grateful for came from the many messages telling me how people saw me at that time. I also realized that the people around me actually had similar experiences. Without writing this novel, I don't think I would have the opportunity to find out.

I also received valuable comments from parents with sick children and from people in the medical welfare. I would be happy if the book encourages people to continue fighting on to live.

I've had several conversations with readers about different themes covered in this book.

It was also a pleasant surprise to hear from people who I haven’t heard for a long time. Everyone's life has a wonderful story to tell. I love listening to their stories. I feel like I can connect with many people again through the book, from updates to counseling.

The challenge of getting the book published and eventually made into a movie has just started. I will continue to enjoy meeting people and moving forward step by step.

And I'd like to continue writing "The World Classroom," a novel about trips around the world, as well as other themes in the future.

                                     *
My brother, who had been told that he wouldn’t live until 20 years old, lived his life to the fullest until he was 24 years old, and was loved by many. But even so, I think he wanted to live much longer.

Even with today's medical technology, millions of people are still suffering from unexplained diseases. As long as you have life, live it to the fullest, one day at a time, with hope. I want them to be strong and challenge themselves, no matter how short their life is. And I would like to express my deepest respect for the dedication and support shown by their families.

I hope that many of those who wish to continue to live in this world will be saved. 

Sato