The Page I Open the Moment I Feel I've Reached My Limit

There is a page in my heart, a page of precious moments, that I open the very instant I feel I have reached my limit.

During my maternity leave with my eldest son, I didn't know who to talk to about my parenting struggles,
and I felt incredibly lonely.


Even when I thought about going out, I was anxious that he might cry while we were traveling, so I spent my days cooped up in our room, just the two of us.
I lived with constant anxiety and impatience, as if I were carrying a bomb that could go off at any moment.

The only time I would leave the room was to get mail from the mailbox on the first floor of our apartment building.
As I took the mail out, I would suddenly think, "What would happen if I just left my child here and walked away right now?" I would imagine my son crying with a bright red face, with no one noticing until my husband came home, and I would think, "I can't do that," and open the door to our home again. Sleep, eat, change diapers, bath, sleep. Days repeated with mechanical regularity. I felt completely cut off from society, as if I were drifting through these days without even knowing if a massive bomb had been dropped somewhere in the world and an emergency evacuation notice had been issued. In the vast universe, I felt like I was on a spaceship drifting with my son. Days where I didn't know where I was going, or what the past or future held.

One day, when I went to get the mail, I passed by the landlady who lived on the first floor as she was returning from a walk.
The landlady was a woman in her 80s whose family had lived in the area for generations, and her daily walk was part of her routine.
When I gave her a casual "Hello,"
she suddenly spoke to me, saying, "It's not too hot, not too cold; it's just the perfect weather, isn't it?"

Surprised by the first conversation I'd had with someone other than my family in a long time, I parroted back, "It's not too hot, not too cold; it really is perfect weather." Then, we both chuckled and I went back to my room.
Not too hot, not too cold, just perfect weather.
What even is that? That's amazing.
I was filled with an indescribable sense of relief, and the tension in my shoulders just melted away.

From that day on, I started talking to the landlady almost every day, and my son
began calling her "Landlady Grandma," or "Obaba" for short.
When he would fuss on the stairs on our way home in the evening, she would open her door and say, "Oh my, you want to cry, don't you? It's okay to cry. Here, I just made these rice balls, they're delicious, take them." She would give him a warm rice ball, and after stuffing his cheeks with it, he would stop crying and start climbing the stairs on his own. Every time my son cried on the stairs, she would gently pass us delicious, seasonal food through her door, like chestnut rice, simmered butterbur, or egg sandwiches.

Each time, I was pulled back from a world of despair over my inconsolable son into a warm, real world. We would eat the food she gave us, saying, "This is delicious, isn't it?" and I would survive that moment. The food Obaba handed me was always warm and so delicious it brought tears to my eyes. It was so perfectly balanced and tasty that I found myself wondering, "Are rice balls and egg sandwiches really this good?" The ohagi (sweet rice balls) were especially amazing; they had just the right amount of sweetness, and they were so good I could eat them forever.

When my son started running around, I worried that the sound of his footsteps might echo on the first floor, so I asked Obaba about it.

She said, "I love the sound of children's footsteps. It's different from the sound of adults' footsteps.
It's a positive sound that says, 'I'm going to live!'
So just listening to it makes me feel energized, too. It makes me happy, so please let me hear it a lot."

The very existence of a child, who can give energy just by being alive. Maybe I'm doing okay raising such a child. There is someone right here who tells me that's a good thing. That alone is enough. I'm okay now, I can do this, I'm going to live! At that moment, I felt power welling up from the bottom of my stomach.

Before my son started elementary school, we decided to move, and my son said he wanted to write a letter to Obaba. He chose the stationery himself and wrote with all his might in the hiragana he had just learned. In big hiragana letters, it said,

"To Obaba, we were like real family, weren't we? Thank you."

That's what it said.

I had thought of him as just a baby. My son had been feeling so much and had made it this far. My heart was full at his inner growth.

I told my son, "You're right. She was there for us through rain and wind, and on the days you didn't want to go to nursery school, she always spoke to us. The chestnut rice and the bonito flake rice balls were truly delicious, weren't they?" I put the letter in an envelope while crying.

Obaba watched over us closer than anyone else. She was more than family; she was family.

Obaba never once said the common words of encouragement like, "It must be hard, hang in there," or "They grow up in the blink of an eye, so you'll be fine."

Instead, every day, whenever I thought I had reached my limit, she would quietly open her door and offer me a rice ball.
I think the chestnut rice and bonito flake rice balls that Obaba quietly handed me were her message of "Live!" I will hold onto that firmly and turn it into my strength.

Three years have passed since then. My son is in the third grade now and has made many friends. I have also made friends in our new home and have settled into the community.
However, I don't have the intense connection I had with Obaba. Those miraculous days feel distant and nostalgic. In moments when I occasionally feel isolated and desperate, I open the page of those days. I remember the taste of that chestnut rice and those bonito flake rice balls.

And I receive Obaba's message: "Live!"