Happy holidays!

Greetings to all of you!!!

a person I should love most

There is one thing I have never written about here.

I think my weakest point is ..... my mother.
I don't know about my father very well. I think he is dead according to every information I've got from people around me. My parents got divorced when I was a baby. The last time I saw him was, I believe, when I was one or one and a half year old. I cannot believe why I can remember that but the blur image of his face is in my mind, with beard, a beret hat, thin and tall.... My mother didn't like to keep anything that made her remember him so she got red of everything, including, of course, his photos, so there is nothing left for me to remember his face any more.

I don't have any siblings so before I got my husband, I had only my mother as my family after spending ten years of my life being put into several different families' hands.

Our life has been always difficult to get along with each other in many ways.
I feel like there is no chemistry between us...... sadly. I'd get interested in something and would tell her and she wouldn't like it or wouldn't be interested it that at all. I'd love some food, and she would think it's good taste at all.... From small things to critical life deciding things, we have different perspectives. She would do something, which I never like, including love affairs. I would do something, which she never likes.

She is not good at keeping in touch with people.
When she feel like doing so, she calls, she faxes, she mails, and when she suddenly wouldn't like doing so, she never calls, faxes, she even never respond to people's calls, including me, sometimes it continues for a several months or possibly a year!

I have many many shortcomings. Maybe some of her angers towards me or her ignoring me is my faults.

Since I came back home, I've seen her a several times, perhaps, 4 or 5 times.
Each time, something shocking to me happened and made me depressed and made me think I never wanted to see her again, which made me so sad. I got hurt and I assume I hurt her somehow.

Then after spending depressing time for a while, I thought I should see her because we are a mother and a child, I encouraged myself to love her, I tried to get in touch with her and when I made it, I failed..... we had another collision somehow.... even the last time I saw her in September was, for me, nothing happened, we laughed each other, we said good bye with smile, then she faxed us the night, saying we were rude to her, she even said my husband had been rude all the time since we got married! I was so shocked to read it, I felt deeply sorry to my husband and couldn't recover myself to want to see her again....

She had her birthday this month.
The only thing, such a small thing, for me to do for her was, just sent a fax message to say her happy birthday, no response, of course, my fault, maybe.

The only person I should love most in the world, I cannot love her deeply.
I want to love all people around me and when I think of her, I got doomed.
Then I would think, about the time when I go out to the world and have fun with my friend, even when I volunteer for needed people, maybe it's not for the people but I'd do it to escape from the fact that I cannot love the very person I should love most. I'm such a selfish person.


I've tried to write about this a thousand times and couldn't do it. I cannot write this on my Japanese blog because she might have a chance to know it. But I wanted to write this because without writing this, everything I'm doing it sounds too angelic. I would like to communicate with people not only to help people but also to help myself out of the hell where I think of myself being a dirty existence.


I want to love her. I want to be a good daughter. I'll try to do it, I'll be like that, until the last time of my life. I wish she waits for me for that time.


Life is often difficult to deal with everything, right? Yes!

My recent life

Hello, my friends! Long time no see..... I'm doing well but had no time or energy to update here....


I want to report my recent life today.

As for music;

I came back to teach the senior citizen chorus group and they are doing really well! I started to teach them by using what I got from NY experiences, from the choirs I belonged to, from the way my vocal teacher taught me, from the experiences of the Western Wind workshops, and so on. They seemed puzzled sometimes and then they understood me for a while later and improved so much! I'm really thankful to every musician I met through my NY life.

We are participating the city cultural festival next spring and we started to rehearse the program. We are singing three songs all in Japanese, and we will add choreography taken the hint from the sign language. I asked one my former private students for help and she helped me to think it out. Her parents couldn't hear so she used the sign language since she was a child. She became an elementary school teacher, got married and now have three children! I visited her house twice to work with her. We became good partners and thought up a great choreography, both meaningful and beautiful one! Last Friday, I taught the chorus members it for the first time. I was so glad that they liked our choreography so much! I know we have to work hard to sing and perform well but we are making it finally, I'm sure!


I've got six private students up to now, one led to another, became six! They all are women and over 50's. I think they deserve to enjoying their own lives after devoting most of their time for their family for many years. I'm so glad I can help them enjoy their own lives by learning something new!


My husband and I are performing Messiah by Handel next Tuesday. It's coming so soon! Last night we had the first rehearsal with the conductor and had a great time! The conductor currently lives in NY and came to Japan all the way from there. His name is Kimbo Ishii-Eto. We are having two more rehearsals with the piano accompaniment and two rehearsals with the orchestra and then will perform it finally. I have to be careful not to lose my voice till then!


And...
It's related to partly music but, as for my church life:
I became one of the organists there! It's not a paid job to be an organist in church but I'm glad I can do it. We have a quite beautiful organ in our church and I am glad that I received the opportunity to play it! My first playing music day was last Sunday. For the past few weeks since I was offered to do it, I checked out many songs from my sacred music stock to find out what suits to play for the day. I went to church twice to learn how to use the organ and became friends with it and I fell in love with the organ. It sounds really beautiful. As I played some of the English Hymns, I couldn't stop my tears coming out because each song reminded me some specific wonderful memories with my friends over there.

"Oh this is Dynah's favorite!"
"Oh I sang this in my Park Slope church!"
"I love this song playing in the beginning of the service at the nursing home!"
"This is John's favorite! That is Eugenia's!"

And on and on and on.....

I felt sometimes happy to remember the memories and also somehow sad that I was here and not there.... with them any more and felt like I couldn't share my memories with anyone over here.

I chose "Because He lives" for the offertory music. This is John's favorite. John was one of the volunteer ministries at the nursing home I worked. Whenever he became emotional, and perhaps not coming up with any words to say, he would start to sing this song and I loved it!

Also I have another memory with this Hymn. When I stayed in Auckland, NZ in 2002 for three months to learn English language, I sang this at a shopping mall to fund-raising campaign by the church I was attending. I was asked to sing anything I knew and I chose "Because He lives" by my instinct. I think the reason I was asked to sing was I couldn't speak English very well at that time so I couldn't contribute to the campaign by talking to passing-by people there. So it was the only thing I could do.

I started to sing it, trembling.....
To my surprise, people started to stop by one after another, smiling, listening to me, so kindly.
Then after a while, a woman came up to me saying, "My husband is sitting over there at the food court table. He likes your singing so much and asked me to say it on behalf of him. He is sick so he couldn't come here." I was so glad to hear that and I went to the table and made a chat with him for a while.

Then.... I was back to singing the same song again and again....
A middle-aged man, perhaps Chinese, suddenly appeared in front of me, and to my great surprise, he started to sing it with my with the big smile so joyfully!!!! We sang the song together for the next few minutes and just said good bye without exchanging any personal information about us. Then this was not the end! I met him again at my church after few weeks when the church provided language learning classes for foreign residents. We became friends and he invited me to the small meeting at his house. I was surprised to see so many Chinese Christians living there at his house. They cooked a wonderful Chinese meal for me and we had a great time together.


Like these, I have wonderful memories with every music. I think it'd be one of the greatest things when you continued to do something for a long time. You have wonderful memories one after another and it becomes your history and you can live with them!



When I played the organ at my current church last Sunday, I got nervous, my hands started to tremble, my brain become empty somehow.... and I became panic! Then I pictured everyone's face. I even called everyone's name in my mind one after another.... "Please love me Lord, and my friends, Lisa, Nancy, Pam, Joyce, Cheryl, Michael, Jonathan, Ieva, Togu, Sachi, Jayson, Marge, Rita, Richard, Dynah, Virginia, Mr. Thurmond, Morris, Ramon, Alma, Russell, Mr. McGee, Mr. Brown, Eugenia, John, Ms. Butterfly, Ms. Paul, Rosa, Kristina, Philip, Sig, Dorry, Brian, Jim, Nuala, and, and , and......

I couldn't put them all but it really helped! As I recalled the names of my friends, I felt as if I was protected by them and they cheered me up! Then my mind became so calm and I could get focused on playing music for God. It was amazing!

Many people form the congregation came up to me to thank me after the service and one of them said "It was really heartful, Naoko!" I was so happy to hear the comment! Yes I put all of my heart into the music and they understood my mind!


We have several organists in our church so I'm going to play the organ once or twice a month from now on. I look forward to playing it next month!

After the service, our pastor asked me to teach a choir at another church just for this Christmas. He said, "there is another church, 20 minutes train rude from here, they are in trouble not having anyone to direct the choir right now. Could you help them? If you could go there just a few times after church, Sunday afternoons perhaps, they will appreciate it so much!" And as you can imagine, I said, "Yes, I'd be glad to!"

One event leads to another. One friendship leads to another... and I'm having this magic right now!


I have to work hard and it wouldn't be that easy. But I want to enjoy everything with great joy!



Oh.... I was about to forget!!!!
We got a new family yesterday!!!!


I named him "Kuri". He was abandoned just in front of our house and cried and cried for more than five days.... we were not going to take him but after five days or so hearing his desperate cry we couldn't stand it and took him inside. He has a cold but we believe he survives and becomes well soon!



Talk to you soon, dear friends!

Gara gone, too.

Booko went to the heaven in May. Gara has gone this morning. It's too hard to accept that we had three cats and now two of them are not with us any more....

He was getting weak and weak for the past few weeks. We brought him to the vet and were told that he wouldn't live long. He became unable to eat or drink.... yesterday, he hid behind the bookshelf or a curtain or some shading places as if he was seeking for a good place to die. I've heard that cats don't want to be seen when they die.

In winter, he always slept on my arm and didn't move till morning. I liked being with his warm body like holding a hot-water bag. When he slept, he did so tightly that even the alarm clock rang so loudly he didn't woke up.

He was so shy. Whenever our friends came, he hid himself and never showed up then when the guests left he appeared from somewhere crying hard.

When we found him 15 or 16 years ago, he was bullied by kids because he was so weak, I think he got a cat flue or something, his eyes were covered with mucus or something and he seemed unable to see. His voice was hoarse. I brought him home and took care of him.

We loved him a lot and he brought us a lot of happiness. I believe he will start having a happy life with Booko in heaven. And we should have a happy life with Momo since we have only her now....

I love you, Gara! Thank you for your presence!

it'll become a historic event!

It'll be the general election day tomorrow in our country, Japan. And I'm sure it'll be such a historic day and on a textbook later. Most of the media surveys are saying it's very likely for Democratic Party of Japan gains landslide victory.

I know this feeling, yes. It was last year. I was in NY. There was the Presidential Election. And Obama became the first African American President in the history. All media predicted that Obama would win but I remember American people couldn't believe the prediction and were watching the election coverage with mixed feeling, a great expectation and a slight uncertainly. Then the result came and people got overjoyed!

We will see what happens so soon and I'm really excited about that!

Trip to Hiroshima -Rev. Shikama-

By the way, you can see the photos of our Hiroshima trip by clicking the "Slideshow" on top right of this blog.


OK, let's continue.

On Sunday, we attended a Sunday service at a local church, Hiroshima Church (United Church of Christ in Japan). It was Peace Sunday in the Church so they contributed the service for peace. The victims' names of the A-bomb who were the church member at that time were all called with their age, the day they died, the distance from the center of the explosion. They lost 33 members, age of 2-87. The sermon was given by Rev. Shikama who is the son of the Reverend at the bomb time.

After the service, Rev. Shikama gave his lecture about his experience and his wish for peace. I was deeply impressed with his story. His story came into the deep place of my heart directly. So I'll try to recollect what he said from my brief memo. It's not perfect but I want to try because I want to remember my deep appreciation for his lecture by writing down what I heard.


********************
It was Monday. Mr. Shikama, a junior high school student at that time, was supposed to go to the city hall and work as a volunteer with his classmates. Their work was to get rid of several buildings to avoid the spread of the fire. He was on his way to the hall. In the meantime, at the workplace, his class teacher asked one of the pupils to go to their school to tell some students to come to the place. The teacher worried if some students went to the school by mistake because it was Monday and some students were absent on the last weekend because of sickness or some other reasons. So, the student who was asked was going to school and met Shikama on his way. Then he asked Shikama to do his job for him. So Shikama changed his direction from the city hall to his school. It was a very fateful moment. If he hadn't met his classmate and hadn't been asked to go to school, he must have been at the workplace and ...... very highly possibly died of the A-bomb because all of them, ALL of the pupils, 220 on the second grade, and teachers working at the site died of it. This fact made him suffer a lot in his later life.


The A-bomb was dropped by unman parachute. I didn't know that. According to his classmates, who were not died right after the bomb but a few days later, the students thought it was beautiful and fun to look at the parachute dropping from the sky so they went outside to see it, not knowing the parachute killing them.


When Shikama arrived at the school, there were around eight classmates by mistake. He thought more people might come so they decided to wait for a while. They were in their classroom, then a boy, Mr. K, came into the room, saying "Good morning!", at the very moment, an enormously bright light, "as if the sun was dropped directly on us" (by Shikama), ran through them. At the next moment, nothing was there. Everything was collapsed. Then he realized he was alive. One of the desks saved him as a cushion. He guessed they were directly hit by a normal bomb, so he believed that somebody was coming to help them very soon, until he went outside.

He saw the mushroom cloud, a giant, enormous cloud in the sky. He heard people's desperate cry for help. He called the names of his classmates, miraculously, all of them, eight, were alive, only getting injured somehow. He thought they needed food to survive so he told the students to go back to the classroom to get their lunchbox. He too went back there and found something, looking like a wrapping cloth for a lunchbox, with gladness, he grabbed it and opened it. It was a head of Mr. K, who was coming into the room at that time, saying "Good morning" so cheerfully. He was dead. The distance between Shikama and K was just 2 yards. K just didn't have any cushion to protect him, such a small difference between life and death.

He thought about life and death as he was holding K's head in his chest. He thought of himself being alive.

The survived students evacuated all together to Yoshijima then Mr. Shikama left there to look for his family. His father, the Reverend of the church at that time, was at a blind school to give a sermon, his mother was at home next to church, his elder sister was at some volunteer work. Fortunately they got all together after a few days and went to a village for safety where two of his younger brothers had been. After a month, his sister passed away from the A-bomb sickness, saying "I'm happier than the people who were not with their family, dying all by themselves. I'm with my loved family. I'm happy...."



Mr. Shikama talked about a relation between human's sin and nuclear weapons. Japan is a victim if concerning only about the A-bomb, but it is also a victimizer if concerning about Sino-Japanese war or the Great War, having developed poison gass in its island sites. Wars are always about how to make weapons to kill many people at a time, desperately seeking for it, and developing it.... and a kind of the goal, as a ultimate weapon, might be the A-bomb, he said.

In this world, we tend to lose our hope for peace. We might give it up. Then there came Obama's speech in Prague about his intention for an abolition of nuclear weapons, appeared as a ray of hope, he said.

He thought about the meaning why he could survive, in other words, why God made him survive, he questioned God a lot of times, Why you chose me? Why? He suffered. He wondered God's will. What kind of mission God gave him to perform? He asked himself why he became a Christian. He was not going to become a ministry but after many twists and turns, he became the one. Now he is in his 80's, retired from the regular church based ministry and currently he is active as a traveling preacher.

Among his words, I liked his expression:
Our lives are borrowed from God. A kind of a rental for free.

Our lives might not be as dramatic as his, he said, but all of us have a dramatic lives if we look at not only our own lives but also our parents' or grandparents' or grand-grandparents'. Then you might find something dramatic and then you might think of the meaning of life, the secret of life. Our lives are gifts from God, His precious gifts. So we should use the gift for what we can do something meaningful. And he thinks we should not only talk about peace but make peace with all our might using a beautiful gift from Him. We should be the peacemakers, he said.


************

I thought about myself after listening to his lecture.
I've been wishing for peace, yes, but have I tried to make peace really? I don't know, maybe not enough. When I think of peace in the world, a part of me would believe we can do it, then another part of me doubt it with despair because it's unlikely to happen in this world. Mr. Shikama taught me that we shouldn't give up anything even if it's unlikely to happen. Thank you, Mr. Shikama, for making me awake.


After the lecture Takao and I developed some friendship with the church people. A woman whose home town is Osaka came to us and gave us a book of war experiences by the church members. I read it on my way home on the train. There were tens of, perhaps a hundred of stories about war.... and every story is so impressive, coming from their deep hearts.

I learned newly that the survivors cannot speak out about their experience easily because it's too hard to remember the time. So many of them tend to shut their mouth for a long long time. Some of them passed away without talking anything about the war even to their family. They should be glad that they could survive but they cannot because they would even feel guilty of being alive for so many of people around them died at the time. Also, after a certain time since the war, Hibakusha (the victims of A-bomb) got discriminated against because of their experience. Speculations were around that if they could have babies normally or the A-bomb sickness could be picked up from them.... So they couldn't get married so easily, they couldn't get hired, they suffered a lot, then they learned that they should not reveal their experiences in order to lead a normal life. They would think they don't want their family to suffer from it so they would never talk about it to anybody.

They would feel guilty because they couldn't save people's lives on the day. They passed the places where people lying down dying, calling for help, they saw so many of them, too many of them. It was impossible for them to save the lives, impossible, so they might have gone to be feelingless..... to save themselves, they had no choice but made their blood frozen to save their own lives. None of us cannot blame them. Still they tend to blame themselves for not to be able to save the lives.....


I feel a great amount of pain when I think of those people..... I cannot understand exactly, no I cannot, but I feel it somehow, even if a part of it...


So I learned from listening Mr. Shikama's lecture and reading the stories that it's so precious and meaningful to listen to their stories even after 64 years from the end of the war, it never be rusty, because more and more people start to speak out after realizing their stories might die away and be buried if all of the experienced people passed away. More and more Hibakusha or war-experienced people start to speak out because they want to make peace, they never ever want to see the world where people kill each other.

I know it's often hard to talk about war with our close people, our parents, or our grandparents, I feel the difficulty with that, too. No matter with whom you talk to, it's so precious to be able to hear their stories. With great appreciation, we should listen to them whenever we have a chance. Then we can learn something, and we could relay the stories to the next generation. We might be the last generation who can listen to the stories directly from them.


Now I'm remembering the time I was in NY. I worked at a nursing home. I listened to many stories from the residents. I feel grateful for all of them who talked with me, who shared joy and sorrow with me, who even listened to me and encouraged me when I was down. I miss you a lot.....! And I'll never forget the time with you....!

There might be no victims or victimizer with any war. All of people might be the victims, no matter in which side they are, in what kind of status they are.... all people involved in it would suffer after a long time, perhaps for all their lives. We should make peace altogether, I know, but I don't know how to do it..... just I learned it and I'll try to figure it out.





I'm so glad we made our trip to Hiroshima at this time of the year.
Thank you, Hiroshima!

Trip to Hiroshima -the Dome-

This is the A-bomb dome. It welcomed me there. It's been there since then, showing its tragic shape, and telling us the important message forever till we make it together.

It was two years ago we visited there together for the first time after our marriage. We visited The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. A volunteer guide showed us around so kindly, which impressed us so much and the visit made us think of peace much more then ever before.

Then I stayed in NY for a year till this April. I saw Mr. Obama becoming the President of the United States of America. At the end of my stay in NY, he made one of the most important speeches about nukes. On April 5th, 2009, in Prague, he said "And as nuclear power -- as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act." and also "So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." This speech has moved many many people's minds and made them act, especially, among Japanese people, especially among Hibakushas.

Since I came back here, in my country, I've felt how much his speech awakened people's yearning for peace.

At the symposium, among the panelists, Mr. Patrick Coffey was there. He is a Marine veteran. He went to wars zones, he went back to university, where he saw an exhibition sponsored by Hiroshima and Nagasaki cities. He was shocked to see the photos and became active for peace. I was impressed by his enthusiasm for peace.

Through this visit, I strongly felt people's hope for realization of nuclear-free world has become so strong after hearing the Obama's speech in Prague. I hadn't realized it so strongly till I got there. I heard people referring or talking about the speech so many times while I was there. People make their eyes shine so beautifully when they talk about that, which would make me even a kind of sad, worrying or wondering if the President can make it or not.... or if he could overcome the obstacles coming toward him when he tries to make it, because I can see people here have just started to believe seriously that we might be able to make the world without any nuclear weapons. I know it's not that easy. And I don't know if I can believe the idea...... and I don't want to make the elderly victims disappointed. I cannot explain my complex feeling with this.



I want to write about a man's story on the next entry.

Trip to Hiroshima -Trams-

One of the reasons why I love Hiroshima very much is the trams!
In Osaka, we have trams lines in very limited areas, but in Hiroshima, you could get anywhere in the city center by trams, it's amazing!

Trip to Hiroshima -Hiroshima station-

a nearby station from our house.

Tsuruhashi station in Osaka.

Osaka station.

then....

Yeah! We are at the Hiroshima station at noon!!!
Let's start the journey!

Trip to Hiroshima -let's start!-

I'll start writing about our memorable trip to Hiroshima.

It started on August 1st. We got up at 3:30 in the morning and left home at 5 in order to take the first train. There is a special unlimited ride ticket by JR railroad company sold only during holiday seasons, called Seishun 18 Kippu. You could take any local trains cost only around $20 per day. You cannot take any bullet trains or limited express trains without paying additional fare.

We bought the tickets and made five connections to get to Hiroshima. It took us more than 6 hours to get there (if you use bullet trains you can get there within 2.5 hours).

We have the purpose to be there. We were to listen in the symposium called "The Road to the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons", which were starting at 1 PM on August 1st, so we needed to get to the Hiroshima station till noon.

I do love trip by train! I love it! So does Takao. We enjoyed our journey so much! And we made it! All trains came on time so we made all of the connections. Then....