My Grandmother Was a Juvenile Delinquent 15 Final [Living Alone]

It has been one year and eight months since Hiro-chan passed away.

After he passed, I moved with my husband's remains from the hospital to a funeral home that had a mortuary on the first floor, where I met up with my daughter's family and my son's family.

After we consulted with the funeral home staff and our family about which portrait and coffin to choose, the budget, and the arrangements for taking the urn home, I returned to the house where I had lived with Hiro-chan, accompanied by my son and his wife.

The crematorium was available two days after he passed, and our family held a final farewell in a room at the funeral hall that held about twenty people.

When the coffin entered the cremation furnace, I felt incredibly sad thinking that the physical entity known as Hiroshi Okamoto would soon be gone.

However, when he came out as bones, my son-in-law said, 'I had heard that people with multiple myeloma don't always leave much bone behind, but Father, you left plenty.'

Hearing those words, I felt a sense of gratitude that Hiro-chan had passed away with almost no suffering.

Since he disliked it, we only had a small life insurance policy, and my pension was practically non-existent, so I found a job cleaning apartments through the public employment office and started working for the first time in forty years.

My daughter's family told my son's family that they should take care of me, but my son, who had just remarried, refused.

I don't think it's because he couldn't afford it, but I feel like my son is trying to watch how I live my life. He has always been a son with more compassion than anyone else. And he is a son I am proud of.

Both my daughter's family and my son's family have established lives above the middle class in society and are working hard.

My six grandchildren are also growing up healthy and strong; my first grandchild is now eighteen and is said to be working hard at the craftsman's job he inherited from Hiro-chan under my son-in-law.

Also, one is a student council president in junior high, two are active in soccer club teams, and each is living their own path.

Now that I am sixty-five, I want to live my life to the fullest every day without relying on my children or grandchildren.

I want to become a good neighbor, a good friend, and a good acquaintance to those around me, and contribute to the happiness and peace of the community.

And while sharing joys and sorrows with fellow believers spread across 192 countries in the world, in order to build a peaceful world without war on this earth, I will first work to establish a firm self and become independent.

My mother lived her life to the fullest and passed away at fifty-nine.

One thousand people came to offer incense.

I heard that when I was in the juvenile reformatory, my mother would cry at every opportunity, saying how pitiful Akemi was.

My mother told me, 'You are kind. And you are proud.'

Now, I deeply feel that she was evaluating me in her own way.

Also, my mother, who never complained or grumbled no matter what happened, and who lived her life betting on her faith—starting with morning newspaper delivery until one week before she died, and engaging in daily three-hour chanting and community friendship activities—is my pride.

Before she collapsed from a subarachnoid hemorrhage, my mother reportedly told neighbors every time she saw them, 'I am so happy, so happy, I could die at any time.'

My mother's life also had various events, such as Reiko-neesan's two suicide attempts, my mother's own severe burns in her later years, and the hardships that accompanied the growth of my father's company.

I have also heard that neighbors criticized her, saying, 'With Mrs. Sugiyama around, because of this faith, even we are looked at badly.'

But my mother was that happy before she died.

Reiko-neesan, who was told by my mother that she would never let her die even if she were in a state where only her head worked, gave up on dying and became an active, capable clerk at Sugiyama Construction, which had grown to have over forty subcontractors.

And my younger brother, the only son I am proud of, whom my physically weak mother gave birth to at the risk of her life at forty, was active in the baseball team at the high school founded by our mentor, appeared in general newspapers many times, graduated at the top of his class, and, at my mother's wish, became a bar exam student aiming to be a lawyer.

My mother died having shown magnificent proof. When I think of that, I have nothing but gratitude for my faith.

After that, my father and Reiko-neesan also fought their illnesses and died with smiles on their faces, watched over by my younger brother.

The only daughter Reiko-neesan gave birth to at forty is now in charge of a department at a foreign-affiliated company, making full use of English, and has been recognized by the company many times.

Thinking about it again, I believe Hiro-chan also won against himself in the end.

He overcame the fear of death and the pain of his fractures, and died with a smile and a sense of satisfaction.

The rest is up to me.

I, too, want to decorate the final chapter of my life in a way that people will say it was truly remarkable.

To repay our mentor who fought, encouraged, and prayed for people more than anyone else, I will live through this and show that I can lead a life that I can say was the happiest, just like my mother.

And now, I am in my room, holding my smartphone, writing this life story.

Toward the final polish of my own life and toward my dreams.

Afterword

Thank you very much for reading this far.

I wrote this story because, while looking back on my life, I felt I absolutely had to leave it behind.

No matter what kind of past one has, a person can live their life over again.

If that message reaches even one person, there is nothing that would make me happier.

Akemi Okamoto🥀

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