ESSAYS

08/ Sunset on the 28th July, 2019 - To Share

About the World

The last day of July. It was in the hospital where my wife was. Me and her sister was called to a different room as the doctor had something to say about my wife’s symptom…

The doctor told us that my wife did not have so long to live. Her illness was said to be incurable and she had two years longest as usually for few months.

It was all of a sudden, and nothing could happen for few minutes or even longer… Soon the lump of air pushed up, and I was plopped down on the table.

She is not going to be here…Would the world be grey as people often say…

I went outside and looked at the street, cars, trees and clouds. They were beamed through by the strong sunlight.

They had their colours. More importantly…

Streets were not streets. Cars were not cars nor the trees or clouds were not what they usually were.

What is this?

I knew that from the moment when the doctor told me about my wife, the world had changed into the world without her… these streets are the streets without her, and the cars, trees and clouds are of the world without her.

In the distant world I have met for the first time, I could not use any kinds of predicative words in front of them…

It was terrifying… in the world without those words, I was terrified and just stood still.

About Predicative Words

My wife started to lose capabilities to do things around her.

First thing she lost was that of her speech.

She could no longer use chopsticks.

And she could not walk…

From the day she was admitted to the hospital she was on a liquid diet, and when she left therem, her life was bedridden…She could no longer speak nor change her clothes by herself.

All kinds of predicative words relating to her began to disappear…her speaking…her eating…her walking…my wife who liked handbags and going out somewhere was not there anymore.

…after losing all the predicative words one used to own, what actually remain for that person…

Even water has drained, and something that is way too far from any usefulness… is this what would be remained there?

…Suddenly one feeling was pushed up… strangely it had a shape of words. I thought it was what only I could feel and was very private. So I kept it in my heart and warmed it up…

However, in the end of August the doctor who had come in for medical treatment suddenly said that…he said so without any connection to whatsoever…

‘Isn’t she lovely? Mikio’

‘…’

I was startled from bottom of my heart. Because that ‘lovely’ was the word I was actually carrying in my heart.

A strong-looking man as he was, smiled softly and said,

‘everyone says so’

After one lost all the predicative words around her/him… for something that is still remained there… how can one feel anything about that?...particularly ‘loveliness’…how is this possible…

And ‘everyone’ seems to have this feeling which does not make any sense…

I thought about it in my heart for a while…

I usually do not like being ‘same as everyone’ but this time I could accept it without any frustration.

To Share

Before my wife was going into the hospital, we both thought that her stiff body movements were caused by her anxiety. To overcome this, we decided to go for a walk every day.

28th of July… It was summer so that we went for a walk in the early evening. We walked besides the river Hikiji… She could not move her body as she wanted, so that the hand and foot on the same side came out at the same time, which made her walk with difficulty.

…The heat of the daytime has eased, and the cool wind came across the river surface. I was walking 2 or 3 metres ahead of her.

…I looked back at her as I noticed she was not following me… she stood still gazing… As I walked towards her, she said still gazing,

‘…sunset…’

Surely in front of us was the sunset, which made a few clouds dyed pale pink in the sky across the Hikiji.

At that time, not only walking but also speaking was difficult for her. Yet she still did her best with strain, which people could notice just by looking at her, to tell me about the sunset…

…sunset…

She went into hospital two days later, and past away in 1 year and 9 months. During this period, I kept remembering this scene repeatedly. And it tells me two questions. And probably I will keep questioning these all my life.

One is that even something unknowing is progressing…and the body becomes more and more incapable…can the feeling as ‘beautiful’ still get into that person’s mind under such terrifying circumstances.

The other question is that why she needed to share that feeling with me? Why did she not keep it to herself, the feeling that came to her in that magical moment striking all the difficulties she was facing… What does ‘to share’ means?

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