002. Ice-Colored Voice

"I regret it..."

My mother was a full-time housewife who only worked part-time. She would also rent out a room in our company housing for flower arrangement classes. She didn't dislike interacting with people, but I feel like she didn't enjoy managing those relationships. My mother was the type who lived as she pleased, yet always thought the grass was greener on the other side. She might still be that way now.
My father said of her, "Maybe I should have let her work outside."

Ice-colored voice

"I wonder if it would have been better to let her work..."
He said this, looking off into the distance.
He was reconsidering a past that could not be changed, a past about which nothing could be done.

I remember my mother, who had a limited capacity, easily panicking and becoming emotional. My father was even more short-tempered, but my mother was no match for him.
Seeing my mother like that, from my perspective of having been worn down by society, I sometimes thought,
"Society is troubled by this, so please keep it at home."
He meant that maybe she would have been better off living a different life, but I replied with a laugh,
You know, Dad. I think the life she's living now is the happiest one. If Mom, with her limited capacity, had gone out into society, she would have just caused even more chaos at home.But my father remained silent.

I wonder what he really thought.

He probably thought it was too late to say anything, but after my mother's dementia began, my father started interacting with her friends and others, and perhaps he had some thoughts after comparing her to them. I don't know about my father, but my mother lived surprisingly freely within what she was given. However, because she was someone who thought the grass was always greener on the other side, her ceiling was essentially limitless.
Father, I think things are fine just as they are.
That's what I thought, and that's what I told him.

How many regrets does this man have, I wonder?

Looking at my sleeping father's slightly open mouth, I want to see inside his head. What on earth is he replaying every day, blaming himself for?
A childhood spent experiencing war and living with a purpose. If many people have had the same experience, then the sky over Japan must feel incredibly deep blue.

A story I suddenly remembered while looking at the lush green rice fields.