My Book Ⅰ
Written by Hiroyuki Ikeda
No.26 Wife’s Birthday Sep/3/2013
Last Tuesday, Sep. 3, it was my wife’s birthday. She was born in 1946 so she is 6 years younger than me. I was born in 1940 before the Pacific War ( 1941〜1945） so she was born after the war. The Pacific War was one of the aspects of World War II, the war between the United States, the British Empire, and the Netherlands mainly against Germany and its allies, such as the Empire of Japan (Japan,). After America's dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Japan drew the curtain on the tragic war. In August 1945, with over 3 million people dead and victims of war, Japan was defeated and devastated. On September 3, 1946, my wife Chieko was born in the wreckage of the war with people losing everything. We all grew up in a very distressed environment. Chieko’s house was in Tenmabashi in Osaka, but she was born in Senriyama, Osaka Prefecture, where her family was evacuated from the war. The daughter who was‘blessed in Senriyama’, named Chieko, grew up as the third of four brothers and sisters in Osaka.
We met and married in Osaka in 1972 but we were never blessed with children. Yet somehow we heve remained a couple until now and we respect each other. Then the other day, Sep. 3, she was able to vigorously greet her birthday as a 67-year-old, although in the rain due to a typhoon, That evening, in the rain, we went to a sushi restaurant and we celebrated her birthday with her favorite present of a peach and flower bouquet. But this day has another reason to be remembered, so we, especially Chieko, have a reason not to rejoice. The anniversary of my mother’s death coincides with Chieko’s birthday. September 3, 2007, my mother died at the age of 92. Even though Chieko had been nursing her mother-in-law, she seems to have thought reproachful somehow forwards my mother, who passed away on September 3.... Chieko’s birthday. Why my birthday,…? She must have felt reproachful indeed. Why did you die on my birthday… ? She must have thought it. Mother suffered in her later years with serious disease, but all of us in the family did various things to help her. It is inevitable for my mother to pass away, but not on the same day of Chieko’s birthday and we quite easily understand her miserable feeling.
The sixth anniversary of my mother's passing has com and gone, as well as Chieko's birthday.
The next day began as any other and the typhoon left.
Pacific War : http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/太平洋戦争
KOBE Biennale : http://kobe-biennale.jp
One Morning...
