Photo/Illutration The article contributed by Saiko Kojima to the “Koe” letter to the editor column that appeared in the March 21 issue of The Asahi Shimbun (The Asahi Shimbun)

Yumiko Shiragaki, a 65-year-old Fukuoka resident, spoke haltingly about losing her husband to an illness about 30 years ago. She was left with three children: two daughters aged 9 and 6 and a 3-year-old son.

She could fully relate to their grief because she herself lost her father in her teens. So, she said to them one day, “Let’s help each other and all try to be cheerful.”

The kids got the message. To this day, Shiragaki has never heard any of them whine in self-pity because they missed their father or hated being fatherless. The kids must have known that being mopey and negative would only make things worse for their mother.

Her son, Takao, grew up to be a baseball-loving university student. One rainy winter evening, the phone rang while she was making “gyoza” and waiting for him to come home.

The call was from a hospital. She was told that Takao had been in a fatal traffic accident. He was just 20 years old.

“He was such a gentle boy, serious and quiet,” Shiragaki said. Fifteen years have passed already, but she still weeps every time she recalls that evening.

There were times when she felt she just couldn’t see any reason to keep living. But then, she would remind herself of her daughters’ unspoken but never-failing support and resolve to pull herself together.

And she knows she is still being helped by many people. Her son’s former teacher, who was his junior high school class mistress, writes to her on every anniversary of his death and during the annual “bon” season.

And this year, the teacher told her that she has carved a statue of Buddha for Takao.

Shiragaki said that just knowing there are people who have not forgotten her son makes her “happy and feel that her whole family has been saved.”

This past spring, The Asahi Shimbun printed a letter from a reader. It was from Shiragaki’s younger daughter, Saiko, 38, who wanted to thank the former teacher.

I read that letter. I visited Fukuoka. And here I am, writing this column.

At Shiragaki’s home, I offered incense at the family altar. Takao looked truly gentle in his photo.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 7

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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