The Toxic Parent and the Raspy-Voiced Cat: Until I Realized the Love That Was There #CreativeAward2026 #EssayCategory Entry

Marriage and Disownment

In Yuko's parents' home, there is a cat with a raspy voice. Its name is "Kin-chan." It is her mother's beloved cat.

It is difficult to put its meow into words. That is because it does not meow like a normal cat.

If I had to force an expression for it, it would be something like "Nugya, nugya."

Its fur is brown tabby. Its tail is curled in the middle, and its coat is shaggy. It is by no means a cat that would be loved at first sight. It is said to be eleven years old this year.

Her mother dotes on this cat, which Yuko finds impossible to call "cute."

Her mother had apparently thought, "I won't keep any more cats." However, she found a kitten so young its eyes hadn't even opened yet, abandoned in a cardboard box, and she couldn't just leave it there.

When her mother calls Kin-chan, her voice goes up an octave.

"Kin-chaaan, Kin-chaaan."

When she calls it like that, Kin-chan comes over, replying with "Nugya, nugya."


The other day, I returned to my parents' home alone for the first time in a while.

Since the big fight I had with my mother over the phone last March, when she told me, "Never come back again," something had been accumulating in my heart like sediment, and it had finally cleared up.

At that time, I also wanted to say, "I'll never come back again."

But I swallowed those words. I felt that if I said them, there would truly be no turning back.

Instead, I sent this in an email:

"Your tongue is very sharp, Mother, so make sure you don't get abandoned by my brother."

I had heard from my mother that she had nagged my brother about something, and he had told her, "I'm not coming back anymore."

That email was the last time I was able to reach out to her.

Ever since I became an adult, things had never gone well with my mother.

My mother would forbid or order me around at every opportunity.

It was the same when she strongly opposed my marriage.

"This is my life, so I will take responsibility for it. I don't want to be told what to do by my mother."

Thinking that, I registered my marriage in silence.

As a result, I was disowned.

I wasn't even invited to my younger sister's wedding.

When my child was born, my father persuaded my mother, saying, "It's not good for the child's education," and I was finally allowed to visit my parents' home again.

Since then, my mother would say at every opportunity,

"To think you married a man like that."

Every time, it would turn into an argument.
Neither my mother nor I would take a single step back.

Gradually, I began to think that my mother and I were just fundamentally incompatible.
Even in astrology, the suns of my mother and me were at a perfect ninety-degree square, which is not a very good angle. That, too, made that thought stronger.

On the other hand, I was very close with my own child.

I often wondered why I could get along with my child, but not with my mother.

However, in recent years, I stopped looking for the reason why things didn't go well with my mother, and comforted myself by thinking, "It can't be helped because we are incompatible."

The Burden of Tuition

There is a reason why I pushed through my mother's strong opposition to get married.

When I had just started working, I bought an expensive set of study materials that bore the name "Thinking Becomes Reality." I had been swayed by the smooth sales pitch.

When my mother found out, she was furious.

In the end, those materials were shelved, but a resolution was born within me at that time.

"I will get married at twenty-eight."

There must have been other things I decided, but that is the only one I still remember.

And when I actually met my husband at twenty-eight, what moved me toward marriage was that "decided future."

I had given up on marriage once when I was twenty-five. We had even finished the engagement ceremony, but it didn't come to fruition.

Actually, I had once told my mother that I wanted to get married as soon as I graduated from university. But my mother immediately rejected it, saying, "You don't have the money yet."

My mother had put her three children through university and junior college without any scholarships.

That was because of her own experience of struggling to repay my father's student loans when they first married. She was determined not to let her children go through the same thing.

My brother spent a year as a ronin before entering a national university, I went straight to a private pharmacy department, and my sister went to junior college. Because of that, for two years, the tuition for all three of us overlapped.

In particular, the tuition for the pharmacy department was huge. Including the two million yen per year, plus entrance fees and living allowances, it amounted to a considerable sum.

My mother supported our tuition while dipping into her savings. My mother often brought up the subject of tuition.

I can easily imagine the magnitude of that burden now.

Of course, I was grateful that my mother had spent so much money on me.

But that was a separate matter.

At that time, I simply could not forgive my mother.

The Loss of Mother

Both my father and mother were huge cat lovers, and there were always cats in the seaside house where I lived until I was in the third grade of elementary school.

Back then, the cats would change every three or four years. Some ate poisoned bait, and some stole my grandmother's fish, were told to "get out," and never came back.

It wasn't that there was any cat that was particularly doted on. Even so, living daily with cats, I naturally grew up to be a cat lover.

I thought it was largely due to the environment, but regarding my children's love for cats, my mother would reminisce about my father, saying, "It's genetic."

When my father passed away five years ago, my mother was deeply saddened.

My mother, who was good at cooking, always carefully prepared meals for the family.
After it was just my father and mother, they went everywhere together.

The sadness of losing a partner you have been with for many years was beyond imagination.

We siblings, hoping to ease my mother's sadness even a little, took turns showing our faces at our parents' home.
At the time, I was still working, but I adjusted my schedule to return to my parents' home once a month and slept on a futon laid out next to my mother's bed.

Whenever one of the children returned, my mother would enthusiastically cook, and she would let us take home whatever we couldn't finish.
When we were young, the table would sometimes be filled with tempura. Seeing that, my sister would laugh and say, "It's a tempura festival."

Every time my mother offered food to my father, she would tear up and say, "Father..."

Even back then, Kin-chan must have been my mother's emotional support.
Kin-chan would run away as soon as it saw me when I returned home occasionally. To me, it was just a dirty, raspy-voiced cat that wouldn't even get close to me.

Yet, when my mother called it, it would come lumbering over, meowing "Nugya, nugya."

My mother would change her voice even more and talk to Kin-chan.

That figure looked as if she were maintaining her heart by pouring affection into a being that didn't return words, amidst the sadness of losing my father.

A Pitch-Black Room

When my father passed away, the only one among the siblings who was crying was my sister.

Even when we were told that my father didn't have long to live, my sister was crying. Seeing that, my heart felt complicated.

That was because I couldn't think of any "memories with my father that would make me cry."

Even when I tried to look back on memories with my father, for some reason, rather than warm memories, what came to mind was the loneliness of my childhood.

My father's lap was reserved for my sister. I have no memory of sitting on my father's lap.

When I thought that, the feeling of pitying myself overflowed more strongly than the death of my father itself.

After we moved from the seaside town to a new house, we siblings were each given our own rooms.

At night, my sister would crawl into our parents' futon while crying. That was when she was still in the first grade of elementary school. Thinking about it now, it might have been a natural thing.

Even so, I, at the time, was always told, "Because you're the big sister," and was expected to endure, and it became natural for me to give up what I wanted to my sister.

There was no way good memories could have piled up.

When I was in the upper grades of elementary school, for reasons I didn't even know, I started waking up crying every morning.

My mother scolded me for that, saying, "Don't cry from the morning every single day!" I wasn't even allowed to cry freely. From then on, I held back my tears.

I still don't know clearly why I was crying. But if my mother had treated me even a little more kindly back then, perhaps my later rebellious feelings might have taken a slightly different form.

There is also one unforgettable incident from my elementary school field trip.

Many families had come to pick up the children who had returned. My mother was not among them.

When I told my mother about that after I became an adult, she brushed it off, saying, "No one ever went to pick anyone up."

But that wasn't what made me sad.

I had thought that when I got home, my mother would be waiting with a feast prepared.
However, that expectation was betrayed. The house was pitch black and no one was there.

I was disappointed by the simple meal prepared on the table, but what remained in my heart more than that was a different scene.

After I turned on the lights in the pitch-black house and waited alone, my mother and sister came home from walking the dog we had at the time, laughing happily.

If they were going for a walk, they could have come to pick me up.
If they couldn't do that, at least I wanted them to be waiting at home.

This feeling remained as a wound in my heart even after I became an adult.

Definite "Poison"

When I had a fight with my mother, it was always my father who mediated.

He would soothe my furious mother and change the words "Don't come back again" to "Come back again."

But this time it was different.

My father had already passed away, and there was no one left to reconnect my mother and me.

"Don't come back" was my mother's stock phrase, but this time the words "ever again" were added.

Furthermore, I could not forgive her for saying, "Since I have your brother and sister, I don't need you."

That was because I felt it was not something a parent should say to their child.

Triggered by those words, the feeling that "my mother is a bad parent who bullies her children" grew stronger within me.

Eventually, I began to distance myself from my mother, using the word "toxic parent" as if to name that feeling. My mother is a little different from the typical image of a so-called "toxic parent." But the words directed at me from my mother were, for me,

That was definite "poison."

Until now, opposition, prohibition, commands. And words like "If you don't obey, don't come back," "I won't give you any more money," and "You're the only one like that" had been repeated.

I married the person I loved, raised children, and was blessed with grandchildren. Now, I am satisfied with that life and living happily.

Despite that, I could no longer bear being constantly blamed, saying, "To think you married a man like that."

For my mother, perhaps she could not accept that the daughter she raised at great sacrifice had made a choice she did not want.

It's not that I can't understand my mother's feelings.

Even so, now that I am nearing sixty and a grandchild is about to be born, I felt I had reached my limit.

It felt as if the very life I had chosen was being denied, and I just couldn't accept it.

"How old do you think I am? I'm already living my own life enough, so how long are you going to keep blaming me?"

The Death of My Beloved Cat

A few years ago, I lost my beloved cats one after another. The sense of loss when Nya-kun, who was the last one left, departed, lingered as an unforgettable pain.

When there were three of them, my affection was also dispersed. The cats also snuggled up to each other and lived peacefully.

However, when it became the last one, the situation changed.

Nya-kun suddenly became affectionate and waited for my return. When I climbed the stairs of the apartment and stood in front of the entrance, I would always hear a loud meow from the other side of the door. If I ever stayed out overnight, immediately after I got home, he would jump onto the table and meow as if he were talking, saying "Mumya mumya," complaining of his loneliness.

Come to think of it, Nya-kun also had a slightly raspy voice.

It wasn't as much as Kin-chan, but he would meow "Mubya mubya." I can't imitate it well, but it wasn't an affectionate "meow."

Nya-kun was a mackerel tabby. He was a large cat who was a glutton and once weighed eight kilograms. Our meeting was when I rescued him after he had crawled into the hood of a superior's car at work.

Small body with round eyes. I fell in love with him at first sight.

At that time, I also decided to take in a kitten that was being protected at the animal hospital. I named that kitten Q-chan, and he was a gray American Shorthair pattern, a very friendly boy.

The first cat, Mya-chan, was a girl with a cute, affectionate meow. She was a slim mackerel tabby with a small face, long limbs, and a tail that stood straight up. When she was young, she sometimes troubled me by bringing back prey. It took time for her to get used to the kittens, but eventually, they lived together harmoniously.

That sight was also a comfort to the family.

The first to pass away was Q-chan. He was sickly from birth, and when his symptoms worsened, he suddenly started wanting to go outside.

I had no choice but to let him out, and after that, his whereabouts became unknown. A few months later, he was rescued in a weakened state, but he breathed his last the next morning. I went to pick up Q-chan, who was sleeping in the freezer.

"We gave him IVs and eye drops, too. He had feline AIDS, didn't he? He must have wanted to go home."

The staff member was very kind to me as I sobbed.

When Mya-chan was fifteen, she gradually weakened with similar symptoms. When she returned in a very weakened state, having spent less time coming home, she went outside immediately as soon as she saw my face.

It must have been her final farewell.

When Nya-kun was over fifteen, he suddenly wanted to go outside. It crossed my mind that his time might be coming, but this time I didn't let him out. And one week later, I watched him pass away at home.

Before he passed away, I held the weakened Nya-kun and composed a waka poem while crying.

Mackerel tabby's
round, round eyes
love at first sight
from the hood
you were rescued

It is a style more like mere wordplay than a waka poem.
But there was nowhere else I could entrust my feelings except by searching for words that fit the 5-7-5 structure.

There is one thing I thought clearly.

Just as my affection was dispersed among the three cats, my mother's affection must have also been divided among her three children.

Perhaps my mother was desperately raising her children in her own way of loving.

That realization slightly loosened the heart of me, who had felt unloved by my mother.

I, who could not cry at my father's death, could not stop my tears at the death of my beloved cat. When I think about that difference, I felt that sadness changes its shape not by the "amount loved," but by the "density of time spent together."

The reason my sister, who knew the warmth of my father, cried must surely be the same.

I remember that when my grandmother passed away, only the grandchildren who had lived with her when they were young cried loudly.

The fact that tears come after a loss means that there was certainly love there.

When I thought that, I pitied myself for not being able to cry at my father's death.

And then, to my mother, who was grieving my father's death, I said,

"Being able to cry is a happy thing, isn't it?"

My Mother's Anguish

Thinking about it now, every time I was blamed by my mother, my father was always on my side. Whenever I had an argument with my mother, he would always step in and stop the two of us.

It almost seems like it was a relationship that could only exist because there was a buffer like my father. Perhaps I was able to maintain myself because my father existed.

One time, I complained to my mother, "I have no memory of being loved by my father."

Then my mother, with a very disappointed expression, said, "But Father loved Yuko very much."

And she showed me a photo that my father always kept in his wallet.

It was a photo of my father when he was young, in front of a motorcycle, holding a small child carefully. She said that child was me.

There was no way I could have memories from before I was old enough to know better, and neither those words nor the photo led to a real feeling.

Even so, while facing my mother, there were several times I thought, "My mother might have also been struggling."

"My sister was always sleeping between our parents, wasn't she?" I said, and some time later, my mother suggested we sleep together.

That was still before I got married. It looked as if she was trying to fill in the past in her own way.

After I told her that I was lonely during the field trip, every time I returned home, she would come to pick me up at the nearest station or come to see me off.

Perhaps she was trying to bridge the distance with her rebellious daughter in her own way.

However, those efforts were always canceled out by my mother's sharp tongue.

Words sometimes hurt people like a blade.
My mother's words were always deeply piercing my heart.

A Lighter Heart

When I had cut off contact with my mother, I held feelings of resentment toward her in my heart.

Therefore, not reaching out to her felt like a form of revenge against the mother who had directed verbal blades at me.

I would never set foot in my hometown again.

I had even resolved myself to that.

However, my child would always say this to me whenever I spoke ill of my mother as a 'toxic parent'.

'Grandma is a little different, isn't she? She also did a lot of good things for us.'

I could not immediately accept those words.
I did not want to admit it.

But as I repeated similar exchanges with my child,

'That's true. Perhaps you're right.'

I began to be able to think that way.

Around that time, I happened to find on YouTube the words I had heard at a live event the autumn before last.
To summarize the content, it was this:

It is okay to put off things you do not understand.
However, it is better to face the problems you have now without putting them off.

Those words remained strangely in my heart.

I had told myself that by thinking of my mother as a 'toxic parent' and keeping my distance, the problem was over.

But in reality, it was not over.
That is likely why I had continued to suffer.

I will stop putting off problems.

Having decided that, I began to study psychology and re-examine my own thoughts and words.

And then, I arrived at one answer.

Perhaps the loneliness and sulky heart I held before I knew better were being reflected onto my mother like a mirror.

And perhaps, for my mother, I was the same way.

One day, I received a LINE message from my child who lives far away.

'Grandma was so happy that you and she were able to make up.'

I was a little surprised by those words.

Because my mother is a strong person, I thought she didn't care that much.
But it seems that was not the case.

The wounds hidden deep in the heart that had been carried for a long time might have been causing suffering not only for me but also for my mother.
Could it be that my mother was also carrying wounds from her childhood?

By washing away my own wounds, was I able to wash away my mother's wounds as well?
If that were the case, perhaps by cleaning myself, I could heal the wounds of the people who appear before me. I hope that is true.

Was this the learning I needed?
I still don't really know yet.

The only thing I know for sure is that by reconciling with my mother, I was finally able to put down the heavy burden I had been carrying for so many years.

Memory Lapse

When talking with my mother, there were times when our memories would conflict.

At such times, I remember things.

The time I felt the width of the bridge I crossed every day had suddenly widened one day.
The time the river I should have seen before buying a new field was nowhere to be found when I went back later.

The river that should have been there had appeared in a slightly distant place as a waterway I had never seen before.

If you call it a memory lapse, that is the end of it.

But I cannot explain it at all.

I experienced that intense memory lapse about two months ago. It was when I had decided to resolve the mother-daughter issue, worked on reforming my thinking, and my thoughts and words had become aligned.

Before and after working on reforming my thinking, my heart had become as calm as if I were a completely different person. That is precisely why I could not dismiss that intense memory lapse as a mere memory lapse.

The mother actually in front of me had changed into a completely different person from the one who would shower me with prickly words.

When I thought about how much power aligning my own thoughts and words had to change reality, I became a little scared. Having had such an experience, I could no longer hold negative thoughts or use negative words.

It happened when I visited my parents' home to accompany my mother to her orthopedic appointment. She took out a red T-shirt that looked a bit high-quality and said, 'Yuko gave me this.'

I had no memory of it at all.

The T-shirt, with its embroidery and seemingly high-quality fabric, looked like something purchased at a department store.

I have absolutely no memory of it.

I was apparently in my twenties and single at the time. Would I forget a bright red T-shirt I gave my mother as a gift?

It is true that lately, my memory has gotten worse, and there are times when I look for the glasses I am already wearing.

I have heard many stories from people who have had various mysterious experiences. So, I had thought that mysterious experiences might exist.

But when I actually experienced it myself, it felt as if I had moved to a parallel world.

I can understand not remembering a T-shirt bought decades ago. But if the width of a bridge I always cross has changed, or the terrain around land I newly bought is completely different before and after the purchase, I couldn't explain it without thinking that way.

And then, the phrase I have often heard: 'The past and the future are both here now.'
That phrase, which I could never understand, felt like it had somehow clicked.

What came to my mind was an image like the pages of a book.
Many pages exist as if they are overlapping, and every time you turn a page, a slightly different world appears.
In that place, both the past and the future are different from the present.

Of course, I don't know if that is really true.

However, by changing my thoughts and words, the world I see has certainly changed.

My relationship with my mother, the bridge, and the river.

So now, I think that such worlds might exist.

Kin-chan

Besides my mother being very calm after the thought reform, there was one other thing that surprised me.

It was that Kin-chan, with his raspy voice, was no longer avoiding me.

Until now, he would fly away just by seeing me a little, but now he rubs against me, and he doesn't run away even when I approach him.

His 'nyugya, nyugya' meow hadn't changed much.
Kin-chan had a day where he didn't eat his food, perhaps because he was feeling unwell. He recovered the next day, so I didn't have to take him to the vet.

Kin-chan, having regained a little energy, was lying on a red rug. When I groomed him, Kin-chan seemed very comfortable.

While grooming him, I looked at Kin-chan's face.
I suddenly wondered if he had such a cute face.

An incredible amount of hair came off.
When rolled up, it was about the size of a baseball.

My beloved cats in the past also used to line up to be groomed. Because they would get so covered in hair, I had a designated place for grooming. When I sat in that chair, they would rub against me while meowing in cute voices, wanting to be groomed, or they would rub their heads against me.

Kin-chan is a slightly different type from the cats I used to have.

He doesn't seem like the type to beg for grooming himself, and my mother, perhaps due to her own physical fatigue, didn't seem to be in a state to groom him.

No wonder his fur was so matted.

My mother also became cooperative with my dietary restrictions.
Although, perhaps it is also because the dietary restrictions were no longer as necessary as they were when I had a huge fight with my mother.

Does the scenery change this much just by healing the wounds of the subconscious?

Why is it that things go well with my child, but not with my mother?

I have thought about that many times.

Now, I feel I understand a little.

I simply poured love onto my child.

But toward my mother, I was still carrying my childhood wounds and was seeking love somewhere.

Perhaps the reason Kin-chan stopped running away was because he sensed that change in me.

I decided on the day I would return home next and left my parents' house. My mother gave me peas harvested from the garden and citrus fruits she had received.

My mother no longer had the physical strength to see me off at the station. But she waved her hand in front of the entrance until I was out of sight.

Actually, I wanted to be with her more.

Could I have imagined that a day would come when I, who thought living with my mother was absolutely impossible, would want to spend more time with her?

This real-life experience felt like a miracle.

I saw my mother's back as she headed to the entrance to see me off. Her bright red T-shirt was covered in Kin-chan's hair. He must have been lying in the place where I groomed him. Come to think of it, before I vacuumed, I heard from that room, 'Wow, there's so much cat hair.'

'Mom, your back is covered in hair.'

I laughed with my mother.

I headed to the station while chasing after Kin-chan, who happened to be at the entrance.

This work is the first part of a trilogy.

Part Two

Part Three

This is a work I want people all over the world to read.