Mom, read it alone

A picture book that will make you cry

Anna ni Anna ni (So Much, So Much)
by Shinsuke Yoshitake

A picture book I've been curious about for a while

I love Shinsuke Yoshitake's picture books because they are funny and cute

I borrowed every one I could find at the library.
They are popular and often checked out, so it felt like a lucky break whenever I found one there! I'd think, 'I'll borrow this!'

I have also purchased a few of them

Shinsuke Yoshitake's picture books vary; some are fun for children, some are for adults, and some can be enjoyed by both

The books that I thought might be a bit too difficult for my son really hit home for me as an adult

Anna ni Anna ni (So Much, So Much)

is truly a picture book for adults

I want every mother and every father to read it

As you might guess from the title

it's a picture book about how they were once so small, but now they've grown up, but

it makes you cry

It makes you cry!!!!

I was already crying from the beginning, but
on one page in the middle

there is the phrase, 'Even though there were so many painful things,'
along with an illustration that looks like a doctor and a mother talking at a hospital

I burst into tears right there

I don't know what the intention behind what can be read from that is

Perhaps
a child was diagnosed with an illness
a husband was diagnosed with an illness
I was diagnosed with an illness

a miscarriage or stillbirth
or perhaps fertility treatment ended in a sad result

That one illustration allows for so much imagination

I
conceived my son and daughter through fertility treatment, so
it overlapped with my past self
and I burst into tears

I want to write about fertility treatment in more detail someday

I experienced many feelings, such as a battle with no end in sight, despair, and hope

It is a picture book that makes you chuckle at the end, but
it is very moving

Growth that cannot be stopped is
a happy thing, but also very lonely...

Thinking that I can never meet you at that moment again makes me cry

Just as I can no longer meet my son when he was a baby

I can't help but want to see him again

When I was reading it with my sonI ended up crying after all

I burst into tears

Bursting into tears
first thing in the morning before school

Why did I start reading it at such a busy time...

My son was completely taken aback by how much I was crying

Huh??? What???

Mom... you're acting weird...?

Just... don't read it anymore. If you're going to read it, read it by yourself.

That's what I was told by my
3-year-old son

So, that's why

When reading
something like that

let's read it alone

On nights when you want to cry,
or after a fight when you couldn't make up and your child has fallen asleep while still fussy,
or on birthdays, or the night before an entrance or graduation ceremony

Reading while standing in a bookstore
is not recommended

You will be mistaken for a suspicious person