Days like a manga. "In the days that are filling up."

Yesterday, I graduated from the kindergarten I attended for 12 years.

A kindergarten in the forest that my eldest son started attending in the summer when he was two. A lively place where people from babies to the elderly gather. A place where we spent a lot of time as parents and children. This place welcomed our family, who had moved from Kanagawa and had no acquaintances or friends, with a "Welcome back."

Our family of three became four, then five, and the triangular relationship became a pentagon, gradually approaching a circle. Days spent being conscious of rejoicing in the birth of children, watching over their growth, re-growing ourselves, and growing together.

"Children will respect their own personality and become aware of their own dignity as human beings, and come to respect themselves, in proportion to the degree to which they are respected by adults. And this self-respect will later influence their entire moral attitude as adults."

The words of Dr. Paul Tournier, a Swiss personality physician, are casually posted on the wall of the kindergarten.

Being respected as a "person," one becomes able to respect others to the same extent that one has been respected.

My husband and I have spent our days feeling this as a reality in the figures of our children. There are as many ways of being as there are people, and we spend our days gazing at those differences. I feel that children grow up naturally interacting with others who are different from themselves, thinking that it is natural for there to be differences.

And there is nothing that does not change, and my husband, my children, and I all change over time.

With my eldest son, it was normal to go to kindergarten every day from morning, and my second son continued to go to kindergarten accompanying his older brother from one month old, and by the time he was in the junior class, he felt like he had fully enjoyed kindergarten. As for my youngest daughter, she chose "not to go," and in the approximately four years since she entered kindergarten at two and a half, although there was an expansion of infectious diseases, the number of times she attended was very small.

<Am I depriving my youngest daughter of the opportunities that my eldest and second sons have accumulated?>

While continuing to ask myself this question, I wanted to cherish my youngest daughter's choice.

The kindergarten graduation ceremony I have experienced twice before. Although the kindergarten building is usually lively with children's voices, on this day, we are welcomed by staff in formal attire saying "Congratulations," and it is a space where silence and a good sense of tension flow. Feeling that atmosphere, the children's backs naturally straighten. A feeling of gratitude that wells up for the principal and staff who have watched over the children's growth for a long time, and a feeling of mutual appreciation among the parents who have struggled together for the children's growth.

I know that child-rearing will continue and there is no end, but it is a milestone day.

And the third graduation ceremony arrived. Although she did not attend kindergarten much, my youngest daughter sat on a wooden box chair with a slightly nervous look. In an atmosphere different from usual, she must have felt a lot in her own way.

The graduation certificate of the kindergarten we attended is a bit unusual.

Every year, it is something handmade by the staff. For my eldest son, it was a three-dimensional hot air balloon. The balloon part was hollow and lit up. For my second son, it was inspired by soap bubbles, and it was like a large photo frame, and you could see the nature of the four seasons around the kindergarten and photos of the staff in the round cut-out part. Moreover, it was not just a photo frame, but you could also play by putting marbles in the cut-out part. For my youngest daughter, the certificate was a wooden puzzle. The kindergarten building is the main feature, and the scenery where she played a lot is incorporated around it.

My youngest daughter received the handmade graduation certificate that the staff made by working overtime until late every day from the principal.

Memories of being loved, accepted, respected, and hugged among people who rejoiced as if it were their own that life had been conceived and were relieved that she was born.

You are growing up wonderfully

Words from the staff directed at my children. Not "You are raising them wonderfully," but "They are growing up wonderfully." These are words spoken after long watching over the fact that the children are growing up on their own. These words are my treasure.

After the graduation ceremony, various events from the past 12 years float up one by one. "We had that happen, didn't we?" "And this happened too, right?" I talk with my husband while laughing.

It is not a sense of accomplishment, nor a sense of loss, nor regret, but a different feeling entirely within me. It is difficult to put this feeling into words, and perhaps there is no need to put it into words right away.

Today, the morning after the graduation ceremony, heavy, damp snow continues to fall.

While quietly listening to this song with my eldest son, who woke up early, I thought that my current feeling, which I cannot quite put into words, is something like this.

That song is "Michiteyuku" (Filling Up) by Fujii Kaze.

Not being filled by someone, not filling with something, but filling up.

The sensation of filling up, just as the moon quietly becomes a full circle.

Taking a long time, filling up.

Thinking I had received something, it spills from my palms, and I scoop it up again, only to realize that what I scooped up was not what I had hoped for.

While repeating such things, when I look at what was left in my small palms, I feel that it is already enough.

This sensation is different from the satisfaction of being filled.
The sensation of staring alone at the surface of a lake in a forest that is quiet everywhere.

I am quietly filling up.

"Filling Up" Fujii Kaze

The afternoon I started running,
the days we piled up,
inevitably, everything comes to an end.

The faint heart-throbbing,
the sparkle of that day,
I leave this and that somewhere behind.

That it was good that way,
that it was fine this way,
until the day we can laugh together healthily.

The sky that dawns, the sky that darkens,
we go beyond them.

Saying that things that change cannot be helped,
I let go, I become lighter, I fill up.

The joy that disappears
the moment you hold it,
chasing only such things,
I wasted the word "love."
I wonder if I can understand its true meaning now.
It is a tragedy to love in order to be loved.
Blessings for a parched heart.

The sky that clears, the sky that rages,
we cherish them both.

I have nothing, but I offer everything.
I let go, I become lighter, I fill up.
The light from my wide-open heart
illuminates the darkness and shows the way.
Eventually, it connects beyond life and death.

Letting go of hands together, becoming lighter, filling up

Whether the sky is clearing up or turning stormy,
we will cherish it all
I have nothing, but I offer you everything

Letting go of hands, becoming lighter, filling up