5/31の早朝に母親が永眠しました。
今年の3月から入退院を繰り返し闘病中でした。
5/11には80歳の誕生日を迎え、実家で一緒に過ごしました。
一昨日、家族だけで葬儀を行いました。
何一つ親孝行らしき事をしてあげれなかったなぁと思いながら東京に帰って来ました。
訃報を聞いた朝、車を飛ばして実家に向かう最中に不思議と25年前くらいの感覚が戻って来ました。
急に目が覚めた感じでしたが、見たり聞いたりいろんな情報に対する当時の鋭い感覚です。
当時家族とは二度と会えないかもしれないという覚悟でアメリカに渡っていたので、母を亡くした事でその時の感覚が蘇ったのかもしれません。
子供の頃は大変厳しく育てられましたが、お陰で己を律する事ができる人間になれたのかなと思います。
音楽に関しも母親がエレクトーンを演奏していたり、レコードを沢山持っていたのでそれが影響していると思います。
目立ちたがり屋で感情的で喜怒哀楽が激しく自由でお人好しで芯が強く働き者の母親でした。
自分が小学1年までは浜松で母親と2人きりでした。
当時父親とは離婚していて（その後また再婚しますが）、母はパンダというスナックを営んでました。
一階が店で二階が住居、でもお風呂がないので毎日銭湯通いでした。
当時自分は保育園児なので母親と女風呂に入らなくてはならなく、いつも恥ずかしかったのを覚えてます。
女手一つだったので大変だったと思いますが、店は繁盛していました。
自分もうっすらですが楽しい記憶があります。すでにこの頃からお客さんのビールの泡を箸で救って舐めてました笑
自分が小学一年の時に母が父親と再婚したのを機に、我々は豊橋に引っ越しました。
母は豊橋でカルディという喫茶店を営むことになります。
当時名豊ビルの地下のバスターミナルにあった喫茶店です。
目玉メニーの鉄板焼きスパゲティが大当たりで店は繁盛していました。
週に一度の休日もミートソースの仕込みで働き詰めでした。
しかし良く働き良く遊ぶ人でした。
母は知人と行ったアメリカ旅行に感激し、是非自分にもアメリカを見せたいという事で自分が中学二年の時にペンシルバニアへホームステイに行かせてくれました。
母はその後50代で働き過ぎで体を壊し店を畳みました。
その後母は父親と悠々自適に過ごしていましたが、C型肝炎が発症しその治療に専念するようになりその治療薬の副作用で間質性肺炎が発症と長年闘病生活を送っていました。そんな中でも自分の趣味に全うし、10年ほど前には豊橋美術館で写真展を開催しました。
2019年に母と一緒にニューヨークに行けたのは、本当に良い思い出です。
コロナ禍に間質性肺炎の症状が悪化して在宅酸素療法になり、今年になって入退院を繰り返すようになっていました。
母には色々な言葉をもらいましたが、一つだけもの凄く覚えている言葉があります。
「人を信じなさい、騙されたら騙されたでいい」
お人好しな母らしい言葉ですが、芯が強くないとそんなことはなかなかできません。
しかし心の何処かにこの言葉がいつも残っていて、自分は何となくその通りにしているのかもしれません。
幼少期はずっと一緒だったので、自分にとって母は非常に影響力のある人でした。
病院通いの日々は悲しい気持ちでいっぱいでした。
お見舞いに行く度に小さくなっていく母を見るのがとても辛かったです。
しかし一昨日無事母を送る事ができて、今は気持ちも落ち着きました。
このブログも毎日のように読んでくれていたみたいです。
天国でも母にまた読んでもらえるように、これからも書いていこうと思います。
そして叶わなかった親孝行の代わりに、これからの自分の人生をしっかりと生きていこうと思います。
My mother passed away in the early morning of May 31st.
She had been in and out of the hospital since March of this year, battling her illness.
On May 11th, she celebrated her 80th birthday, and I spent the time with her at her parents’ house.
The day before yesterday, we held the funeral with just our family.
I returned to Tokyo thinking that I had not done anything to show my gratitude to my mother.
On the morning I heard the news of her passing, while I was driving to my parents’ house, I strangely had a feeling from about 25 years ago come back to me.
It felt like I had suddenly woken up, but it was the sharp sense I had at the time for seeing, hearing, and receiving various information.
At the time, I had gone to America with the understanding that I might never see my family again, so perhaps losing my mother brought back the feelings I had at that time.
I was raised very strictly as a child, but I think that thanks to that, I was able to become a person who could discipline myself.
As for music, I think that my mother played the electric organ and had a lot of records, so I think that influenced me.
My mother was an attention-seeking, emotional person with strong emotions, a free-spirited, kind-hearted, strong-willed, and hardworking person.
I was living alone with my mother in Hamamatsu until I was in the first grade of elementary school.
At the time, my father and I were divorced (she later remarried), and my mother ran a snack bar called Panda.
The bar was on the first floor and the house was on the second floor, but there was no bath, so I went to the public bath every day.
I was a kindergartener at the time, so I had to go into the women’s bath with my mother, and I remember being always embarrassed.
I’m sure it was hard being a single mother, but the bar was thriving.
I have vague, but happy memories. I was already using my chopsticks to save the foam from customers’ beers and licking it lol
When I was in the first grade of elementary school, my mother remarried my father, and we moved to Toyohashi.
My mother ran a coffee shop called Kaldi in Toyohashi.
At the time, it was a coffee shop located in the basement bus terminal of the Meiho Building.
The teppanyaki spaghetti with eyeballs was a big hit, and the bar was thriving.
Even on her one day off a week, she was busy preparing meat sauce.
But she was a hard worker and a hard player.
My mother was so impressed by a trip to America she took with an acquaintance that she wanted to show it to me, so she sent me to Pennsylvania for a homestay when I was in the second year of junior high school.
After that, in her 50s, my mother worked too hard and her health deteriorated, and she closed her store.
After that, my mother lived a leisurely life with my father, but she developed hepatitis C and focused on treatment, but as a side effect of the treatment, she developed interstitial pneumonia and fought the disease for many years. Even in such circumstances, she devoted herself to her hobbies, and about 10 years ago, she held a photo exhibition at the Toyohashi Museum of Art.
I have really fond memories of going to New York with my mother in 2019.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, her symptoms of interstitial pneumonia worsened, and she began home oxygen therapy, and this year she has been in and out of the hospital repeatedly.
My mother has told me many things, but there is one thing I remember the most.
“Trust people, and if you get fooled, it’s okay to be fooled.”
It’s a typical thing a kind-hearted mother would say, but it’s hard to do something like that unless you have a strong core.
However, these words have always remained somewhere in my heart, and perhaps I am doing what they say without really thinking.
Since we were together throughout my childhood, my mother was a very influential person to me.
Every day I went to the hospital was filled with sadness.
It was very painful to see my mother getting smaller every time I went to visit her.
However, I was able to say my mother off safely the day before yesterday, and now I feel at peace.
It seems she read this blog almost every day.
I will continue to write so that my mother can read it again in heaven.
And in place of my never-ending filial piety, I will live my life to the fullest from now on.
夕焼けに細長い雲が印象的でした
