In the autumn of 1954, my father, Yūki, moved from Fukuoka to Kurume City in the south of the prefecture where he worked as a professor of dermatology at the university. He lived in a boarding house near his office, staying alone during the week as he always had and returning to Kurakata on Friday evenings to assist at his father’s clinic on Saturdays. He would go back to Kurume early Monday morning by “express train”, which in those days took about 90 minutes.

Even when he was home, he would continue to do his research, make dictations, or study English while listening to “Ringer Phone” records. Sometimes he enjoyed listening to classical music and would pretend to be the famous Wilhelm Furtwängler or Herbert von Karajan conducting an imaginary orchestra.

My father also listened to the music from movies, such as Doris Day’s “Que Sera, Sera” from the Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much. I remember humming along with the tune when I was only eight years old even though I had no idea what the lyrics meant.

“Que sera, sera. Whatever will be will be.”

Little did I know then that this song would help me get through the difficulties I would face in later life.

My father’s favorite pastime, though, was watching movies and he used to take me to a theater in town since I was the only person in our house who had any free time. The movies depended on whatever was popular at the time and we went almost every weekend. My biggest concern during these outings was whether my father had money on him or not. One day when we reached the theater, he suddenly turned to me and asked, “Have you got any money on you?” I was only six or seven years old, but I was shocked to discover that my father could be so unreliable. From then on, I always asked if he had money before we departed. Everyone in the family remembers this and still gets a good laugh out of it. “How undependable Yūki was!”

Another one of his pastimes was walking our dogs. As he approached our house on Fridays, the dogs would begin to bark excitedly and welcome him home. Shigeru would get particularly excited and bark loudly, begging to be taken for a walk. Despite being tired, my father would grip the dog’s leash. To be honest, it was actually Shigeru who took his master out for these long walks.

 I did not know whether my father liked saké or not, but I have heard that his drinking could be excessive. That said, he could hold his liquor better than most people, so I never really saw him drunk in our house.

He used to drink a big mug of beer at dinner when he came home. Since no one fussed over him much, I would sit at the table beside him. One evening, he wanted me to join him in drinking beer even though I couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old. Unable to resist, I drank the beer he gave me. The moment I did, my face turned red and I became very chatty. My father called my mother and, unable to control his laughing, said. “Motoko’s drunk. Give her some medicine.” The taste of the medicine was so bitter that I vowed never to drink beer again.

Happy memories such as these, common in any family, sadly came to an abrupt end.

In the autumn of 1959, my father became severely ill. By the time he was operated upon, the stomach cancer was at such an advanced stage that the situation was hopeless. There would be no treatment, no cure, just a slow, agonizing goodbye. My mother moved to Kurume to be at his side and take care of him.

I was never told how serious his condition was, but a few months later in early 1960 my mother called Taichirō on the phone and asked him to let me go and live with them in Kurume during his final days. At the time, my elder sister was boarding with a family in Fukuoka where she was enrolled in a private high school. It would be the first and only time for me to live with my parents in peace without any interference from others.

Compared to Kurakata, Kurume was much larger, more modern and sophisticated. It was warmer, too. The world-renowned Bridgestone Tire Company and other major companies related to the rubber industry were located in the city, and the town was filled with the hustle and bustle of companies’ workers and their families.

In his final months, my father never got angry and my mother never dared go against his opinions which allowed the three of us to enjoy a peaceful, albeit short-lived, chapter in our lives.

After a ten-month-long battle with cancer, my father finally succumbed on the 8th of August 1960. His death was an agonizing one—both physically and emotionally—for he took many of his many hopes and dreams with him to the grave. Eager to not only continue on with his research, he had also wanted to solve the intractable troubles facing his family. This tragic theme would unfortunately be revisited time and time again like the mournful chorus of my life.

I was in the sixth grade of elementary school at the time of his death, but already felt much older.

A Silent Ovation is available in print and digital version at Amazon.