Let's grow old together.
Since it would become a long thread if I posted it on Twitter, I decided to write it here.
I went to Sapporo for three days and two nights from August 3rd to 5th.
The purpose was to visit a friend.
Last year, my friend was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer with metastasis to the brain, and she is currently recuperating at home while repeatedly being admitted to and discharged from the hospital for anticancer drugs and radiation therapy.
Recuperating doesn't mean she is bedridden; she says she goes out as much as her physical condition allows.
When I said, "I'm coming to see you," she replied, "N and S (mutual friends) are coming in August, so why don't you come with them?" so we decided to all get together.
It was my first reunion with my friend in nine years, with N in about 30 years, and with S in about 15 years.
Everyone had aged in their own way, but they hadn't changed at all; it was a strange feeling, nostalgic yet not feeling like it had been that long.
It was a fleeting four hours, including lunch, filled with old stories, "revelations" about who did what or what someone is doing now, or how things actually were back then, mixed with casual small talk about the present.
With it being such a long-awaited reunion, if she were healthy, we would have had dinner together, but my friend gets tired easily due to the side effects of the anticancer drugs, and because of COVID, we couldn't stay too long.
My friend said that if she is feeling well, she has business in Tokyo next February.
I thought about how cancer treatment has really advanced, and that even if it's a matter of coaxing it along, it is possible to live a life close to normal.
Since it is stage 4, remission is extremely difficult, and the treatment is just to maintain the status quo as much as possible with medication and radiation, but my friend says, "I'm not pessimistic, I'm just doing what I can."
She isn't being overly positive, nor is she struggling in vain, nor is she making excuses; she is just calmly facing her treatment.
I think that is just like her, and she hasn't changed since the old days.
But.
The scary thing about cancer is that there is a possibility that her condition could take a sudden turn for the worse at any moment.
She probably knows that too, even if she doesn't say it out loud.
I don't talk about such things at all either.
It's fine as long as she can live a life close to normal right now.
The future is for the future.
But.
Even so.
When I think about the reality that I had unconsciously assumed that I would be able to grow to be 70 or 80 with her, becoming a gray-haired, wrinkled old lady, but that might not be possible, I think, how unreasonable.
When I was returning from Sapporo, tears started streaming down my face on the plane right after takeoff. It was pathetic, I know. But I don't want to think that this will be the last time. I will definitely come again. When I thought that, I couldn't help but cry.
It's obvious, but people always die.
With these friends this time, we also talked about things like "Is that person still alive?" or "I met them at so-and-so's funeral."
Someday, a parting will come.
A day will come when we can no longer meet.
So, let's meet the people we want to see while we can.
Don't just say, "Someday when there's an opportunity."
If you're in your 20s or 30s, that's one thing, but once you're over 50, opportunities won't come to you unless you force them to happen.