Photo/Illutration The JR Nagasaki Line runs through Saga Prefecture as well, with a hot-air balloon festival organized in autumn along it. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

TOSU, Saga Prefecture--Japan's nurses, even off-duty, sometimes find themselves tapped to provide vital comfort to strangers in need.

Yasuomi Saito still recalls how, looking out the window of the train as he was riding home late one night, he felt the call of duty, snapping him out of the lull of the clickety-clack of the train's wheels on the tracks.

Glancing about, Saito took note of his fellow passengers, who included a company employee and a young person wearing headphones, but he heard only the train rolling along the JR Nagasaki Line.

It was then that he inadvertently eavesdropped on an exchange carried out in hushed tones.

“It'll take time to get to the hospital,” someone said in a muted voice, followed by, “You should have the last conversation.”

The exchange was between a man and a woman who appeared to be in their 60s seated nearby. The couple was staring at a cellphone.

Though the wife recommended that her husband “should make a call,” he hesitated because speaking over the phone on the train “would bother other passengers.” The husband argued, “We should call after reaching the station.”

As the noise of the train continued, the voices of the pair gradually grew louder.

“A voice can be heard even by someone who is unconscious,” the wife said. “Your father is waiting for you.”

But her spouse refused to make the call, again citing consideration for the other passengers.

Saito figured the couple must be rushing to reach the bedside of the husband’s father, who he assumed was in a critical condition and close to death.

The couple clearly felt the patient would die before they reached the medical center.

Saito considered telling them that it wouldn't bother him if they used the phone but thought at the same time that they might find it rude if he did so.

As a nurse at a palliative care center, Saito had seen many patients pass away before their families came to them. Recalling this experience, Saito finally made up his mind to speak up.

He was about to stand up and go over to the couple when a woman likely in her 40s got there first, and leaning close, told them, “You should make the call.”

Passengers around her nodded deeply in agreement.

At the sight of that, the husband put his cellphone to his ear and spoke into it, saying, “Place the phone by dad's ear, mom,” followed by a flood of words.

“Dad, you worked so hard so we could eat our fill and never suffered from hunger,” he shouted. “Don't worry about us.”

Saito also overheard the man expressing other words of appreciation. When he ended the call, the man looked down and struggled to stop sobbing while his wife gently rubbed his shoulder.

After a while, the train arrived at the next station and the couple disembarked, bowing deeply to the other passengers in gratitude as they left.

Several laid-back young people got onboard, quickly transforming the atmosphere on the car into a cheerful one.

Watching the landscape sweep by the window as the train resumed its journey, Saito remembered the man's words over the phone to his father. The word “hunger” especially stuck with him.

Saito speculated the husband wanted to express his gratitude to his father for having raised him during the backbreaking days immediately after the end of World War II. The man's message “must have reached” his father, he thought.

To Saito, now 43, the simple chance crossing of paths which occurred around the end of the year several years ago brought home the wonder of total strangers’ ability to sympathize with one another, a feeling he has a hunch the other passengers also share.

Before he knew it, the cold air that had rushed in from outdoors while the train stopped on that December night had already been warmed up.

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