Purple Savior: Chapter 5 - Anpan Named HOPE [Creative Award 2025]

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Chapter 5: Anpan Named HOPE


The signs of spring remind me of the "Puppet Waltz" my mother used to play. The young grass swaying in the wind takes soft, triple-time steps, gently stroking my feet. The distance between my heart and Dr. Sato's had, like that melody, quietly closed before I even realized it.

When we were alone, he began to repeat, "Let's get married," and like keys that are never pressed too hard, the non-legato notes dissolved softly into the air. Those words felt like they might vanish before I could touch them with my palm, so I folded them carefully into my heart.
Dr. Sato also gradually stopped covering his mouth as he used to.

We don't hold hands. We don't kiss. We don't go out. Yet, I was certainly touching him. To me, who offered no reply, he asked for nothing more, simply leaving behind a single word before walking away.
As if entrusting everything to that silence.

--A pillar of support.

The dark, marbled heart that had layered over me back when I wanted to quit being a nurse had, at some point, begun to bleed color and seemed to have been left behind in the previous season.

Having lost my mother and with the form of my family gone, he shone the light of nursing upon me.
My heart had begun to move, quietly, but surely.
Thanks to him, the time I spent sinking into the loneliness of the night gradually decreased, and the nights when I sank my bare skin into freshly washed sheets smelled, in some small way, of a happy spring.

Every day began to regain its pale colors.
Casual conversations, glances as we passed each other, moments of breathing the same air. Each one of these things became a realization that I was alive, spreading deep within my chest.

Perhaps nursing is my true calling. I cherish the fact that I can think that now.


"Yoda, can you attend Mr. Maki's IC?"
"Yes, I'll go."

Mr. Sankichi Maki was an 84-year-old male patient who suffered from repeated aspiration pneumonia.
Over the years, his swallowing function had slowly worn down, causing food and saliva to stray into his trachea and reach his lungs. Suffering from high fevers and spilling out wet coughs tangled with phlegm, he had opened the doors to this hospital many times.
But this time, for Mr. Maki, who had become a "regular," things were a little different. The frailty in his eyes was deeper and quieter than ever before.
Eating had become difficult, and the insertion of a nasogastric tube was considered as a means to deliver nutrition, but Mr. Maki refused it quietly, yet clearly.

He would even pull out his IV lines with his own hands.
The blue-purple subcutaneous hemorrhages that remained like bruises spoke of the strength of his will and a stubbornness that felt almost like a prayer.

His wife was also elderly, and the limits of home care had been reached.
What she had hoped for was a gastrostomy for facility admission. A procedure to make a small hole in the abdomen and deliver nutrition directly to the stomach through a tube. From a medical perspective, it was called life-prolonging treatment.

Afternoon light streamed into the quiet conference room.
The IC (Informed Consent) began slowly.
Sitting in his wheelchair, Mr. Maki sat next to his wife, listening intently to Dr. Sato's explanation.
Though his words were few, his expression spread a silence as if he were savoring every single note.

His hearing was poor, but Mr. Maki's eyes were firmly following the content of the conversation. That gaze, as if quietly tracing piano keys, left an impression on me.

"That's about it for the explanation. Sankichi, what do you want to do?"

After finishing the explanation of the X-rays, the VE (videoendoscopic evaluation of swallowing) results, and even the mechanism of the gastrostomy, Dr. Sato pulled up a round stool and brought his face close to Mr. Maki's mouth.

"I want to eat... an anpan. I want to eat food... from my mouth. I will... absolutely not have a tube put in. I don't want an IV either."

Mr. Maki spoke in a whispery voice tangled with phlegm, brokenly, but desperately.

"...I want to be discharged. I want to die... at home."

Dr. Sato nodded and replied in a calm voice.

"Mr. Maki, I understand your feelings well. You want to eat an anpan and die, don't you?"

There was a warmth, kindness, and strong understanding seeping through those words.
On the ward, Ms. Watanabe, the speech-language-hearing therapist, had been continuing jelly practice so that he could eat by mouth as much as possible.
But for Mr. Maki, it had to be an "anpan" or it meant nothing. Jelly could not satisfy his heart or his body. If he couldn't take in food, his body would naturally decline. The redness in his cheeks was completely lost, and his emaciated figure, looking like nothing but skin and bones, looked sad, contrary to his will.
This day's IC ended quietly without reaching a conclusion. A few days later, when I was working on the ward as usual, the smartphone in my pocket rang.

"Let's have a birthday party."

Dr. Sato's gentle voice faded away on the other side of the phone. Passing by Yayoi-san, who was looking at the attached nursery room from the window, and going through the sunlit corridor, I ran straight toward Dr. Sato, my footsteps echoing, lost in the moment.

The meeting place was under a cherry tree near the hospital's outpatient department.

It was a calm, warm afternoon with cherry blossom petals dancing in the air. There, Mr. Maki sat in his wheelchair, surrounded by Dr. Sato, the speech-language-hearing therapist Ms. Watanabe, and his wife. Today, Sankichi Maki celebrated his 85th birthday.

Dr. Sato rustled through a plastic bag, and a large anpan rolled out.

"Yoda, you brought a lighter, right? Take it out."

I handed him the lighter. The doctor stuck a small white candle firmly into the center of the anpan and lit it with a click.
Even in the brightness of the day, the candle flame looked firm and strong, and for some reason, very fleeting.

We gathered in a circle, gently shielding the flame with our hands.
The spring breeze gently swayed our hair. Except for Sankichi-san, who had thin hair.

"Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear
Mr. Maki.
San-chan.
Happy birthday to you"

In an instant, the air burst open.
At Dr. Sato's loud, energetic voice, which I had never heard before, we burst out laughing, and the candle flame swayed wildly from our breath.

"Doctor, please use that voice on the ward too."
"Shut up. Don't compare me to the rookie Yoda, who I couldn't understand because she sounded like a mosquito."
"Doctor, I didn't know you could sing."

To his wife, who had started to lightly roast him, Dr. Sato answered straight, "Yes," and the scene was so funny that we laughed from the bottom of our hearts.
As grandly and innocently as possible. For just a moment, Sankichi-san's stiff mouth seemed to soften slightly.

"Congratulations."

Instead of Sankichi-san, his wife blew out the candle, and she gently carried half of the anpan to Sankichi-san's mouth, tearing the other half into small pieces.
Mr. Maki rolled the anpan around in his mouth slowly. Forever and ever.
In Mr. Maki's mouth, which lacked saliva, he never swallowed it, and with his wife's hand guiding him, it was gently returned to the plastic bag. He knew well that he could no longer swallow on his own. The suction set was ready, but its turn never came.

"It's sweet."

The anpan was Sankichi-san's reason for living. I could see that he was enjoying the sweet, sweet taste of the red bean paste, looking at the spreading blue sky with a dreamy face, and occasionally gazing at his wife's smile.

The cherry blossom petals fell at our feet, were blown by the wind, and flew away again.
Triggered by the incessant ringing of a smartphone, we brought the birthday party to a close.

Eventually, Mr. Maki's wife began the procedures for home nursing and home medical care with a social worker. With the help of his wife and their children living far away, he was going to return home.

Dr. Sato granted the discharge.

His wife, who had initially been eager to perform a gastrostomy to find a facility, said with tears in her eyes, "I will stay with my husband to the end. We used to share an anpan together often, you know," and thanked us repeatedly.

No one knows what happened to Mr. Maki after he was discharged. And we don't know if this was the right or best answer. The lives of the elderly couple began to move forward once again from within the warm sunlight where cherry blossom blizzards danced.

Sometimes, as if hesitating to fall, petals change their angle, entrust themselves to the wind, and search for a place to land on their own.

At this time, I began to think deeply about "HOPE."

Each patient was an irreplaceable "human being" before they were a patient.
Each person can choose their own aesthetics, hopes, and even how they die. I learned that from Sankichi-san.

Even events that seem like a casual part of daily life for us medical professionals, or just one of many common diseases, can change a patient's life significantly. Our words can sometimes have a terrifying amount of power.

People who have been robbed of their choices and live quietly, hiding their voices, surely exist in many places in the scenery we don't even notice. Humans can choose their own custom-made way of dying, not just treatment.

Yes, through this episode, I strongly felt that I must not be passive.
Dr. Sato nurtured my nursing perspective slowly and quietly.
His white coat's back was always filled with kindness. I cannot be someone who just follows that back. I want to be a person who can gently add color to the margins of a patient's life, right beside him.

So that they don't have to be forced to bloom, but can choose how they scatter.
So that everyone can choose their own "end" with their own hands.

My mother left this world like a dead end on a road that appeared suddenly, but I didn't face that sadness properly, and while leaving my mother behind in a white box, I lived prioritizing only my own time. I just quietly felt ashamed of myself for that.

After finishing my mother's burial, I finally began to accept the parting with a loved one, little by little.

Before long, the season of the naked tree arrived, leaving not even leaves on the cherry tree, exposing only its branches and trunk. Yet, contrary to that season, my heart was absorbed in my work, like a child running around barefoot. Searching for a color that would look good on a new base coat, as if to clothe myself.

In the quiet days, every casual step carved out sound, like stepping on piano keys. A waltz of small lives was certainly echoing there.

⇩Click here for Chapter 6: Spilling Voices⇩