Hidemi’s Rambling No.226

Back in my hospital life of my childhood, the next room to mine was a room for six boys. One of them was a five-year-old boy with leukemia. He often hung around my room and we got along well. I taught him how to fold origami. Because he was little, his mother stayed at the hospital with him. She frequently yelled at him, hit him and even kicked him. I was terrified of her. One day, my mother came to see me and went to take some tea for me from the free tea stand near my room. There, I saw her talking with the boy’s mother and learned that he had only a few months to live. His mother sounded so gentle and so sad. I understood why she treated him like that. For the first time in my life, I realized that sorrow and desperation led to unreasonable anger. Although I was only nine years old, I had never felt mortality so closely and strongly while playing with him…

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