[Shelf of Respect] 🗂️ Not Treating Life as Something Special: 'Osono-san' from the School Infirmary

I can no longer remember when Osono-san and I started following each other.
I don't remember who reached out first, either. Before I knew it, we were occasionally leaving words on each other's articles. Not stepping in too far, not drifting too far away. Just the right sense of distance.

It was that Osono-san who wrote an article on the third anniversary of her husband's passing.

The profile of her face as she talked about how looking at maps excited her, the promise to travel in a camper van after retirement, the days they spent visiting the Saigoku Thirty-three Kannon Pilgrimage together.
Reading that made me want to re-read the articles of hers I had read before.
The ones I had left a 'like' on and passed by, the ones where I had occasionally left a comment. Re-reading them, my impression didn't change drastically.
However, there was one thing I noticed that I hadn't realized before.

A person who doesn't try too hard

Osono-san is a nurse who worked for forty years in hospitals, including psychiatric wards. In an article detailing how she became a nurse, she wrote about her father's debt and disappearance, her parents' divorce, and losing touch with a lover she had relied on.
It seems it was less a profession chosen out of a sense of mission, and more an option she arrived at while living her life.
She is the kind of person who can write about these things without putting strange emphasis on them. She doesn't frame them as 'stories of overcoming' hardship; she simply writes about them as things that happened.

When I first read her work, I thought that was just her writing style.

🌹 Flowers, one by one

In an article where she spoke about her origins as a nurse, she detailed her days with a fifteen-year-old girl who had been hospitalized due to school refusal.

That article says that trust cannot be built all at once, but is something that is nurtured over time while gently drawing close to someone.
'As if bundling a bouquet, treating each stem with care.'
In an article looking back on her first anniversary, the same words appeared, saying her way of writing had changed to something 'like gently placing a bouquet for someone.'
It is a beautiful metaphor. However, as I re-read it, what really made me pause wasn't the metaphor itself.

Things lined up on the same shelf

Re-reading Osono-san's articles, I realized something.
The story of seeing her husband off. The story of her breast cancer surgery and radiation therapy. The story of her artificial joint surgery. The story of her husband's care and the time she chose to place him in a facility. The story of a young man who was a youth baseball teammate bringing incense and a watermelon on the third anniversary of his death.
And, right next to that: The story of passing the FP Level 3 exam. The story of receiving her pension notice. How to start end-of-life planning. How to get a breast cancer screening. Warnings about phishing scams. The story of having AI help her with a fantasy trip to Northern Europe.

I feel there is a certain pattern in the articles of writers who have aged.
It is a way of writing that looks back on major events and gives them meaning, saying, 'Because of that experience, I am who I am today.' Of course, that is natural.
Telling the event, drawing a lesson from it, and concluding with, 'So, everyone, you should too.'
I have read such articles many times before.

Osono-san's articles do not have that pattern. She does not write that she 'overcame' her husband's death or her breast cancer. Her articles on long-term care insurance and end-of-life planning do not land on a conclusion like, 'This is what I have come to think, and you should too.'
It is just that what happened and what needs to be done next are placed at the same height, in order.
She does not put only sadness on a pedestal.
She puts it back on the shelf of daily life.
That was Osono-san's way of living.
When I saw that scene, I felt I finally understood why reading Osono-san's articles makes me feel calm.
Because she doesn't offer me a lesson, I think I can read them without bracing myself.

Even sadness, back to the shelf of life

I used to think Osono-san was a person strong against sadness. Re-reading her work, I realized that was slightly different.
I think she is not strong, but rather a person who does not treat sadness as something special. Continuing to live is not about forgetting sadness. Perhaps it is about returning sadness, too, to the shelf of daily life.
The article pinned right below her profile was also not a memorial, but a fantasy trip to Northern Europe she was supposed to take with her husband.

It is an article that quietly lands on the question of 'what I want to do' rather than 'how much it costs.' Behind the scenes of this fantasy trip, it seems she had also experienced breast cancer surgery and radiation therapy.
Even so, she did not treat the sadness as heavy, and the next piece was properly facing tomorrow.

Even while hospitalized, as usual

At the time of writing this article, Osono-san is hospitalized for artificial joint surgery.
In the article detailing her preparations, there was a quiet sentence.

Seven years ago, when she had the same surgery on her left side, her husband came to visit her every day. This time, he is no longer here. Even so, she did not stop writing articles, even if it meant closing the comment section.
The article about the anniversary of his death, and the article written just the other day expressing gratitude for her connections on note, were both published while she was hospitalized.
Reading it, I feel this is also something special. However, being hospitalized and waiting for her turn for surgery were not special events in Osono-san's articles.
Ah, I thought, this too is lined up on that 'same shelf.'
In that article of gratitude, words looking back on the past year were also lined up.
Starting a new magazine because she wanted to cherish her readers' articles, not just broadcast her own.
I think Osono-san's year was in that exchange.
The beginning of our interaction was so natural I don't remember it. Yet now, every time I read Osono-san's articles, I have come to think that there is a way to arrange the events of life.
Do not treat only sadness as special.
Perhaps that is why life can move forward.

May your surgery go well.
And may a new piece be quietly lined up on that shelf once again.

🔔Bell