The Final Status Report

A status report from alumni of Company S in Niigata arrived. Among the entries was a message from Mr. T that could effectively be taken as a "farewell greeting."

I transferred to Company S in Niigata at the age of fifty-three and served as its head for eight years. Until then, performance had been sluggish, and the company had been struggling while supporting three hundred employees, but thanks to the success of our technical development, performance soared, and the company came to be known within the group as "Company S of Technology."

Mr. T was at the heart of that technical development. He was an extremely talented metallurgical engineer, about ten years my junior. I am a mechanical engineer specializing in plastic working, and metallurgy was outside my field of expertise. I believe we were able to compensate for each other's shortcomings.

At that time, mobile phones were becoming popular with a feature that notified users of incoming calls via vibration. An eccentric weight was used as the vibration source, but Mr. T developed a rust-resistant tungsten alloy and completed a weight that required no plating. Company S's weights were adopted in forty percent of the world's mobile phones.

Furthermore, in the business of undertaking metal surface treatment, he developed a new coating and succeeded in dramatically extending the life of tools and molds. As a result, orders grew significantly, contributing greatly to the company's improved performance.

After eight years at Company S, I became the head of a listed company in Tokyo. Even after that, whenever I had questions regarding metal technology, I sought Mr. T's opinion privately several times. I also consulted him after I was assigned to Himeji, and he always answered me sincerely.

After I retired from Himeji, due to my own health issues, I stopped keeping in touch, and our exchange of New Year's cards also ceased.

Looking back now, perhaps Mr. T had been harboring concerns about his health even back then. He was not the type to push himself, and I believe he cherished his life with his wife.

The alumni association's status report stated the following:
"I have undergone all treatments for my illness, but they were ineffective, and chemotherapy and other treatments have been discontinued. It is now a battle of physical strength; I have been in emergency hospitalization since May 3rd."
And finally, it concluded with:
"There is a possibility that I will not be able to prolong my life for long, so I am sending this greeting. ...Please take good care of yourselves."

It was a farewell greeting made with full awareness of his situation. The way he calmly looked at his own circumstances and reported them concisely is very much like Mr. T.

I regret that I have not been in touch for many years. I think about sending an email to wish him well, but it may already be too late. I am quietly reflecting on the days when we worked together and he taught me so many things.