Pathway to Japanese Literature

Before the Departed Soul of My Younger Sister

The grief of an elder sister bereft of her only younger sister was a sorrow surpassing even her parents'. When I thought of my little sister setting out on that endless journey—a child walking alone down a path with no hand to hold—tears fell unbidden down my cheeks.

What remained with me now were her name inscribed on the unvarnished memorial tablet, the night garments worn evening after evening, a few small kimonos, and a handful—though even those were mostly broken toys.

Thirteen days after sending off the coffin, in the middle of a quiet night, I completed this brief yet unbearably sorrowful essay born from grief.

This I dedicated to the soul of my younger sister that clung to some part of my being.

Each time I saw the red kimono sewn yet never worn, each time I saw the pink night robe, if only my lamenting heart as an elder sister could have been known—even fractionally—by her, then in moments lost to aching memories she might have become a phantom, a dream, and with just a single word gently stroked this sinking heart of mine with those small hands—those hands that once were hers.

Would she wrap those slender arms around my neck and embrace me to her chest as she did then?

Waiting, moment by moment with tears, for the fleeting joy of that day—

September 26, Taisho Year 3 (1914)

Exceedingly precious treasure lost—pitiable elder sister.

A fine mist falls, insect cries desolate,

My heart, sorrowing

In the middle of the night

(1)

I had gone to my grandmother’s house in Fukushima, as I had just recovered from a serious illness around that time.

On the tenth night, when I had begun to grow weary of that village’s monotonous life—poor, stagnant, and averse to labor, like a place asleep—I unexpectedly received a telegram from Tokyo saying my younger sister was ill.

Given that the child was usually healthy and that the letter sent two days prior hadn’t mentioned her illness at all, Grandmother simply wouldn’t believe it.
Since about two days prior, the maid had fallen ill and returned to her family home, so I had taken her place doing the water chores and dusting, and on the very first day, I sustained two wounds.

Grandmother said things like, “She probably made them send a telegram saying that because working was too hard.”

I had originally thought to wait about three more days, but suddenly hastened my plans and decided to depart on the first train the following day.

“Even if you go, those meant to die now will die.”

Disregarding their attempts to stop me, I tidied my belongings and hastily folded the yukata I’d left hanging on the clothes rack after taking it off.

The quiet anxiety and fear assailing my heart left me unable to settle into any task.

The backs of my eyes burned hot, tears refusing to fall while my heartbeat pounded rapid and distinct—just as when something stirred me—until my voice turned utterly hoarse.

As if my heartbeat reached to the very tips of my fingers, when rolling up the travel money bills, I trembled uncontrollably.

Grandmother, who hadn’t expected me to leave so soon, went to the nearby post office to exchange the money she was giving me.

When I saw the faint light—like that of a square lantern—swaying along the lonely village path damp with dew, a renewed sense of helplessness overcame me. As I recalled my small, strong-willed younger sister with her wide mouth, I slowly tended to the hearth fire.

Though it was around nine o’clock, Grandmother had already gone to bed, and no amount of calling would rouse her; she attempted to go but failed and returned as she had come.

The act of returning from a journey due to a family member’s illness was my first such experience, and an indescribable, restless agitation—something I had never encountered before—thoroughly churned my heart.
Wanting to somehow calm my mind, I mindlessly picked at edamame I didn’t even want while discussing the cause of this illness.
She had always been a child with a strong appetite, eating beyond what was suitable for her age and small frame, and sometimes eating in an unseemly manner, so she had developed gastric dilatation around the time before I came.
It was everyone’s unanimous conjecture that it was meningitis originating from gastric complications.

If it were indeed meningitis, I wished she would die.

To speak of wishing for my own younger sister’s death may indeed sound cruel, but a heart that loved its one and only sister wished for her death rather than expose her humiliating, imbecilic state as a living corpse for others to pity.

My mind grew restless, my footsteps and form heavy as I paced endlessly about; Grandmother too sat wearing an unimpressed expression, silently blinking under the dim electric light that bathed her in its drowsy glow.

“A child not doted on even by her brothers—that’s what they call an unfortunate girl.”

In an irritated tone, Grandmother muttered complaints about how the younger sister was being treated.

“It’s because there are so many brothers—can’t be helped, right? If she recovers this time, you should have her raised here. It’ll give you something to look forward to.”

“What! She’ll recover?”

“By the time you arrive, she’ll already be dead.”

Grandmother’s words thudded into my heart—that heart which clung only to hopeful expectations about my younger sister’s grave illness.

“There’s nothing decided about her dying— To say such things now—”

“To say such things now—”

Agitated and restless, I stomped into bed. Even when I lay down as if to bash my own head against something, sleep wouldn't come—my unblinking eyes floated adrift in the darkness. After hearing the one o'clock bell, I soon sank into deep slumber, yet within that brief span saw countless dreams.

One went like this: Clad in a blazing red kimono, I ventured into mountains to gather matsutake. The fragrant mushrooms clustered thickly, luring me ever deeper until I reached a stream bridged by pine logs. Having crossed it, I whirled around—only to find a giant snake swaying through grass as it crawled opposite my path. Stunned by both the grief of severed return and shock at my bridge being serpentine flesh, I stood transfixed until awareness returned. Then I looked down—my once-crimson kimono had turned wholly blue.
The strangeness jolted me awake.
Why had such an eerie dream visited me in that fleeting sleep? I simply couldn't grasp it.

I awoke and was able to remember that dream endlessly.

(2)

On the first train at 7:25, I embarked on an anxious journey home.
The moment I became aware of strangers sitting right beside me, I began observing them with analytical attentiveness, and my thoughts of my ill younger sister were reduced by half.

On the day I received the telegram, while daylight still lingered, I accepted a parcel of books from a friend's residence.

There being three or four volumes with pages still unopened, I passed the eight long hours without excessive tedium.

The scenery shifted as if flying past; my heart became captivated by passengers boarding at each station—each bearing their local distinctiveness—until I found myself in such a lucid, almost serene state that I could scarcely believe I journeyed back to the capital for my sister's illness.

Until reaching Ujiie Station, I alternated between reading and gazing at landscapes, not yet assailed by anxieties too overwhelming to endure alone.

When I saw the five- or six-year-old girl who had boarded at Ujiie Station with her painfully thin, pallid, malnourished face—and since she was about the same age—I became utterly consumed.

Was she really that ashen? Had she grown so gaunt? Please don’t let it be a grave illness. Let her still be alive.
As anxiety, terror, and sorrow churned violently within me, my chest constricted until even breathing became arduous.

Gazing fixedly at one spot, I exhaled frantic breaths while imagining my little sister lying there as though entombed beneath the futon.

Tears ceaselessly brimmed at my eyelids, yet maintaining composure in public required such strenuous effort that my face burned hot and sweat began seeping through where my obi was fastened.

Not a single thought of life or death remained in my mind—driven wholly by the desire to see the little girl I was close to, I broke into a run. Even as I hurried, my desperate urge to arrive sooner made me wonder—wouldn't taking a shortcut get me there faster than the train?

When I emerged from the ordinary countryside, the capital’s station proved a world of such dizzying, frantic liveliness that it left me dazed.

The still-young rickshaw driver I’d hired to take me home was crafty yet slow-witted, his loose tabi sinking into the rain-soaked mud with a listless squelch-squelch-squelch as he plodded along.

When a rickshaw from behind passed us smoothly as if gloating, I flew into a rage and kicked the footboard with a rhythmic thud-thud. Yet even as I did so, I found my own mind absurd—thinking that if I made too heavy a thud-thud, it would only slow us further—so I adjusted to a lighter thump-thump, gaining faint satisfaction from this compromise.

When I entered the house gate, there were two cars parked.
This wasn't good.
When I thought this, all the blood in my body rushed to my head.
When I went to pay the rickshaw driver, I found myself one copper coin short.
As I frantically rang the pillar bell,

“You’ve come back.”

When I heard this voice, the women collapsed crying beside me.

“How is she?”
“Well? What’s happening?”

They seemed to be trembling and unable to speak.
The two women helped me take off my shoes, one at a time.
The man who had come to help paid the rickshaw driver and carried away my luggage.

While feeling as though my head were spinning, I thought she must be in the innermost room, so I hurried into the Western-style room with quick steps.
And there I stood, frozen stiff as a rod.
At the same time, tears that wouldn’t stop no matter how I tried streamed steadily down my cheeks.
Oh, what a thing this was.

The first thing my eyes met was rows upon rows of medicine bottles; next came two doctors, then our parents and women clustered around—my younger sister entered my vision last, so gravely ill and mourned that she was tended to with such care it made her the final thing I noticed.

Her eyes flew open yet held no light—pallid cheeks, slack lips, her thin undeveloped chest heaving violently in torment—and when I saw that face of hers, despairing as though she'd cast both body and soul before some vast unknowable force... Oh, that horror! That grief! However many years may pass, so long as breath remains in me, I shall never forget that face.

How could she be forgotten—poor thing.

Mother quietly looked up at my face, then turned her gaze toward my younger sister.
A composed demeanor—on Mother’s face, forcibly kept calm—bore an undeniably pained expression.

I became unable to stand upright on my own.

As facial muscles spasmed, unconsciously dripping tears blurred my surroundings; my ears rang like alarm bells until it felt as if all had plunged into darkness. Without uttering a word to anyone, I collapsed onto the piled futon bedding in the room’s corner.

The women stood on either side of me and said, “Please, say a word to her.”
“Please—how long she has been waiting…”

To speak one word to my younger sister who now seemed merely to be dozing—to call her name just once—I clenched my lips hard to still their trembling and tried to suppress the spasms twisting my face into anguish.

After two or three minutes, cradling my barely calmed heart, I sat beside my pitiable young sister.
“Hanako… Hanako.”

I was finally able to call out a few words. But when I saw those eyes—no response, not even a flicker of an eyelash—sorrow once again raged through my heart. No matter how hard I tried, my lips merely trembled uselessly, and no voice came out.

Mother told me in a tearful, anguished voice how that morning she had seen various phantoms—how she had said she was glad I had returned, how her optic nerves were damaged and everything was dark, so she pleaded to light the lamps—all while groping in the air for her own mother, whose voice she could hear but whose form remained unseen.

Due to the ringing in my ears, only about half of what was said registered in my mind. Her chest was marked by numerous injection sites—how she must have suffered… Oh, how pitiful—that small body of hers. I removed my hakama and tied my obi, while at my feet the maid prostrated herself in tears, saying, “It’s all because of my carelessness that things have come to this terrible pass—I cannot apologize enough,” yet I felt neither the urge to reprimand her nor any anger. So filled with sorrow was my heart.

I returned home at three-thirty.

I became utterly at a loss for what to do, so I simply sat at my younger sister’s bedside—clutching her small hand, listening to the rasping gurgle of phlegm caught deep in her throat, restraining her convulsing limbs when pain made her thrash—enduring moments so agonizing they threatened to steal my consciousness away.

The injections had now become nothing but a fleeting effort to prolong her life—her breath grew increasingly labored, her small eyes glimmering with a light that had lost all hope.

No tears came; no voice came.

My soul dwelled solely upon my pitiable younger sister—barely clinging to this faint life—breathing and gasping alongside her.

O five small fingers in my hand growing colder by the moment—O God!

I could endure no more.

I staggered from the room as though drunk.
Nowhere to go.
Trembling with terror, I was dragged back into sorrow’s realm.
The shadow of a god wielding absolute power—against which no force could contend—fell across her eyes with merciless calm; her lips parted, life’s flame flickering faintly as if poised to vanish.

Overwhelmed by the extremity of it all, I could not bring myself to take that hand. Pressing my chest—which felt ready to burst—with both hands, I kept watch over the life fading away with a sensation of freezing solid. I stood frozen in place.

Her eyelids were quietly closed by Mother’s gentle fingers; her mouth was covered by the hand of a woman who had served her for many years.
Many women were crying aloud as they took the cold child’s hand and pressed it to their own cheeks.
Amidst sniffling sobs and sigh-filled air, I stood as though turned to stone.

A miracle will occur.

For the sake of my parents left behind to grieve—for the sake of my siblings.

No miracle occurred.

When I discerned even the soundless sobs that had seemed like distant tidal waves—and realized where I stood—

Tears newly streamed down my cheeks, and lamentations, with freshly revived strength, tore at my heart.

My one and only five-year-old younger sister,

Where have you gone.

The small figure laid out so beautifully, gently, languishingly—

O my one and only—my one and only younger sister—

(3)

The wax candles flickered with elegant grace.

The antique gold-brocaded pouch dagger glimmered upon the pillow where black hair lay, guarding a small beautiful soul.

Within sorrowfully arranged Genroku dance screens turned upside-down, pliant Yuzen crepe silk floated softly about my sister’s form.

“It’s that Yuzen silk you always begged to wear—see, Hanako-chan? You’re wearing it now.”

Undeniably, nothing rivaled the beauty of that child’s figure lying beneath wax candles in mid-autumn night.
There was no sadness.

I sat quietly by her side, lost in thought.

My heart, agitated by shock and grief, had finally begun to settle a little now.

In just five years—the image of the child who passed away having experienced no more than five New Year’s days since coming into this world now vividly rose in my heart.

That she passed without tasting even a single one of the world’s harsh obligations, the ugly underbelly of human hearts, or the bitterness of what we call life—this too could be called a blessing.

But even more fortunate than that is not knowing "death" itself—the great force with which it approaches people.

What must a sick person feel when they know death's shadow approaches them moment by moment?
Indeed, they become utterly filled with a fierce desire to cling to "life."

Memories of the past appear like arrows grazing the heart—how these mingled joys and sorrows must make leaving this world so unbearable.

A heart that feels pain while knowing death draws near becomes something we cannot comprehend—a complex, poignant thing steeped in pathos.

The fierce, bitter struggle of life's faint remnant subsided into death's solemn hand—and to be embraced thus without resistance became an unassailable happiness.

The face of the child, beautified by sorrowful death, was a thing of utmost sacredness.

The color of her cheeks like white wax; death's form manifested upon small lips sealed in profound crimson—all appeared truly unfathomable.
Death—now materializing vividly before my eyes with cheekless beauty and chill—planted yet another seed of mystery within my heart.
Into this heart that had until now contemplated death only through my meager knowledge—without method, without design—it cast yet another new sentiment of contemplation.

A new yet immensely powerful fear of death and the mysterious, perilous charm born from its immense power to beautify coalesced into an unsolvable riddle within me.
The great meaning of death—constantly contending with life-giving force—its true nature is surely not something humans can ever fully comprehend.
At least for me now, to grasp death’s meaning—it is certain I cannot even conceive of such a feeling.

Even knowing it was impossible, in my current state of mind I could not help dwelling on it.

When guarding my one and only sister's cold form while quietly contemplating death, I could not maintain calm composure of emotion.

Sorrow welled up, tears spilled over—until finally, extending these thoughts even to my own fate, I imagined the grief of those left behind after my death—even the shape of my grave—and wept.

All were the effects of my youth.

From that day onward, as thirty, forty years passed and time flowed on, when my hair had turned white, I might have been able to think of that without shedding a single tear.
Yet I did not wish for such a state; how agonizing it was to imagine that this opal-like brilliance of my heart—then brimming with vitality—would fade, leaving me with a weary, dulled, pitiable sentiment unable to feel even the power of "death" or the greatness of "life’s force."

However much white hair may entwine my head, however many wrinkles may crowd my forehead—all I desire is to preserve naught but vigorous, keen emotions.

Now I grieved my sister’s death, humbly thinking of things in the pale candlelight as I protected her young soul.

However, years later, I would become the one who was protected.
Contemplating this truth anew from that day, and having contemplated it since days so distant they had long since passed, I strived daily so that even should my body perish, my thoughts alone might receive immortal life—endeavoring to construct thoughts worthy of attaining that precious immortal existence.

To die in one’s teens or twenties at my age is excruciatingly hard, and even those around fifty still hold a fierce attachment to life.
Holding many unrealized hopes in their hearts, after some effort and diligence, they come to find enjoyment in the reality they were born into.
For we who hold many hopes in our hearts, death is truly painful.
How beautifully, how splendidly—it compels one to yearn for even a moment in life when the heart believes its hopes might be realized.

When one reaches fifty or sixty, they are filled with a kind of joy in completing the work they’ve done until now.

Who would rejoice in entrusting their body to death’s hand at the very moment when their life’s work—built through years of hardship—is being carefully and lovingly polished, growing ever more precious?
At any time, none but infants unaware of death can meet their approaching end without a thought.

Unless one has transcended the boundary between life and death through the power of divine beings, it must inevitably be so.
No matter where one is or whose hands they pass into, death remains death; yet I believe that my young child, surrounded by her parents and siblings and passing away amidst stifled sobs with a touch of love beyond compare, must surely have found peace in her soul.

There can be no soul lonelier or more fraught with unease than one that departs without a single person to lay a hand upon its brow or gentle tears to moisten its deathbed.

As long as there is even one person in this world who sheds tears for me, I will surely be happy; and now I have my deeply blessed parents, siblings, many friends, and blood relations.

Is there not always a chain of love surrounding me—blessings, fraternal affection, and bonds of flesh and blood that no force can sever—perpetually encircling?

It is truly something to be grateful for.

Observing my younger sister’s brief lifetime—born like a dream and vanished without a sound, leaving no footprints behind—I wonder how great a force the footprints of life, trodden unknowingly over time, will manifest after death.

Combining even the unrealized potential of the child who departed before fully growing, I am compelled to think that we must leave behind in this human world—in an untainted, lofty place—a twofold, powerful, indelible footprint.

(IV)

The day of encoffining—even the thought of it felt like my heart might burst.

I feared attending the proceedings.

It was sorrow that made me afraid.

A few steps removed, I sat silently staring at the wall.

Even as I waited with bated breath for someone to come summon me, I found myself unable to go.

A heartrending emotion—wrenched into some monstrous shape—surged through my chest, leaving me neither able to remain seated nor steady enough to wander aimlessly—my helpless gaze caught by a single lotus blooming ephemerally in pale purple.

To say I was intensely exhausted would be accurate; to say I felt utterly drained would also hold true.

The strangely sunken mood that follows extreme agitation even felt as though it had drilled a gaping hole somewhere in my body—a hole that might soon steal away my very life.

Is it coming now—is it coming now? The sorrow of my heart in those moments, tearfully awaiting that mournful black-robed messenger—this helplessness; how much agony has the death of my own flesh-and-blood younger sister taught me?

Even were this a precious lesson I must inevitably accept for my own sake—though I had wished for even a moment’s respite to catch my breath—it was merely that what must come sooner or later had arrived ahead of time.

To the god who governs death, whether my sister’s passing came ten years too soon or ten years too late must make no difference at all.

Whether tears flowed or not, the god of death—coldly and indifferently—wielded his sharpened sickle to scythe through life’s force from one end to the other; this alone was his work, and no doubt his pleasure.

At last, I was called.

Like a criminal being dragged forth, I advanced painfully—so painfully—toward what I did not want to see yet could not look away from.

When I stood at the entrance to that room, there were no traces of the beautiful Yuzen patterns; within fragrant white hinoki cypress wood, her body had been quietly laid by relatives' hands, with green tea placed around it.

With sisterly sorrow filling my gentle heart, I placed the Saikyō doll and small toys she had once wanted but I never gave her in what might be called her chest area.

Even though she wanted it, I didn’t do it—how I now regret my actions from that time.

However, it all ended up being in vain.

A small meal set—that too—was placed beside the doll.
The infant who departed without becoming a daughter took on an endless journey, carrying in her hands modestly shaped forms—a charcoal stove, a hearth, a cutting board—all scaled down to suit her grasp, items she would have used had she grown to enter the world.
Merely imagining the five-year-old girl with thick hair—her pale body wrapped in a dazzling five-colored Yuzen-dyed ceremonial garment as she slept, with similar dolls and adorable meal utensils placed upon her chest—caused tears to flow without end.

O gentle heart that nearly forgets even make-believe feasts!

To clasp a doll as her sole companion on that lonesome path—such tender grace!
My sister—within the coffin so purely laid upon the snow-white altar—were all her artless smiles, her tears, her joys, her sorrows gathered there?
For eternity?
Never to return?

The elder sister—left with but one fleeting smile or a single tear—now wished.

The night heavy with contemplation, swelling with each breath drawn and released, had now reached its second day of quivering deep within my heart in the wax candle’s shadow.

The dawn’s night—now retaining only its name—would guard the spirit substitute and be enveloped in the same hue of night.

(V)

The light rain that began when the sky first paled at dawn still showed no sign of ceasing, falling steadily within the stillness of early morning.

Due to lack of sleep and the sadness deeply gnawing at my heart, my face was pale, my eyes red and swollen.

In the midst of the steadily falling rain, we now had to take this younger sister to Aoyama—her eternal resting place—so she might lie in quiet peace.
We donned black crested kimonos and hakama trousers.

A little before the coffin-front ceremony began, Okei-chan—who had lovingly doted on that younger sister—arrived.

She probably didn’t even know there were people wanting to send her off through the rain with unshed tears.
The hearts of those left behind—if she had known them, how could she lie here so coldly and serenely?

The coffin-front ceremony began.

The two white-robed priests offered prayers brimming with tender sincerity to the spirit preparing to leave her parents’ home—her siblings’ home—adorned an altar [...] with fresh offerings from mountain and sea, and continued entreating: “May you mingle peacefully among the host of gods.”

After offering the tamagushi and prostrating myself before the small, lovely coffin draped in white silk, the tears I had held back until now came streaming down with unstoppable force.

A tumult of emotions—sorrow and regret, all manner of anguished thoughts—overwhelmed my mind until I grew dizzy; I felt on the verge of blurting out something.
I looked down and returned to my seat with a feeling of wanting to hurl something into the void.

The hair I never tied no matter how many times I came—now that I’ve combed it with all my heart, is there not even a single smile in return?

O my present heart, tormented by not giving the doll she said she wanted—if only you had called my name just once, all this suffering might have been forgotten.

The tamagushi offerings from countless people were piled high, and the ceremony concluded.
The echoes of each tear-inducing ritual prayer still remain within my chest.

Encircled by parents and siblings, the coffin exited the gate.

As a small consolation, I steadied it with my hands and placed my only younger sister into the beautifully lacquered hearse befitting her send-off.

We too promptly boarded the following carriage.

The carriage began creaking forward in silence.
O voiceless, bowed hearts of those seeing us off!

When I imagined my younger sister lying within the carriage with its glinting metal fittings that flashed intermittently through gaps, a peculiar loneliness and strange calm came swirling back within me.

My younger sister’s coffin advancing through the rain.

How profoundly grateful my heart felt toward that lone figure who paused to bow.

Following my younger sister’s coffin along the muddy road, I wondered if we weren’t journeying to the very ends of the earth. When we reached Aoyama by way of that road which felt both interminable and fleeting, the hour remained still quite early.

Words of self-admonishment—You must not shed tears—welled up in my chest, and though I felt as though I might sink into the earth, not a single tear fell down my cheek.

During both the priests’ recitation of prayers and their offering of tamagushi, I—now the chief mourner—attended to every matter before anyone else.
Neither shame nor hesitation arose even faintly in the corners of my heart.

Having served as an attendant and quietly guided it along, the coffin was once again cradled in everyone’s hands, placed onto the carriage, and led down a desolate gravel road to the family cemetery where her infant brother and other relatives lay at rest.

The grave where my younger sister would rest had been dug alongside the younger brother who had left this world as an infant.

I stood before that grave pit.

Thick hemp ropes were fastened to both ends of the coffin, and by the hands of two burly men, it descended quietly—quietly headfirst.

The silver streaks of drizzling rain vanished into the surface of the plain wood coffin.

Slithering... slithering, the hemp ropes slipped through the men’s hands.

Thud… thud-thud, small clumps of soil tumbled down.
In the mournful silence, two sounds resonated profoundly: the men—having only to lower it—loosened their grip on the ropes, and the coffin came to rest in the deep earth’s depths.

I grasped soil and placed it onto the coffin.

Thud—that single sound ended up terrifying my heart down to its very core.

Another one—in place of Mother—

Another one—on behalf of my deceased younger sister’s brothers—I shoveled in a great amount of soil.

Each time I released a clump, would the foot I was bracing slip and come crashing down upon that coffin?

With my umbrella closed, the rain wept upon my black-clad shoulder.
When I finally heard the shovel-scraping sound of soil being scooped and spread over the coffin, the terrifying sorrow that surged anew through my heart made my fingertips quiver, choked my throat, and caused my eyes to gleam with an eerie light.

When I thought that after some time had passed—until I too would be brought here to lie beside my younger sister—I would never again glimpse even the shadow of this coffin, an infuriating feeling welled up within me, and I glared at the two men indifferently heaping soil.

While I glared at the men, the soil kept piling higher and higher until it had completely covered the grave to the same height as where I now stood.

The grave marker inscribed by Father’s hand was erected upon it, and the pair of sakaki trees presented by relatives were planted on either side.

They squared the earth, sprinkled water, laid out mats, and the final ritual was swiftly concluded.
What an abrupt ending this was.

My one and only younger sister was thus laid to rest.
The mysterious power of familial love from my departed kin—now healed—has become an unbearably cherished, precious memory for me, manifesting now as tears.
O roots of the young cedar that overhung the coffin—spread gently across it, become a beautiful net; purify this clamorous world’s din and carry it cleansed to my sister’s ears.

As you welcomed her, we—our kinship’s tears soaking her finery without restraint—sent her off bearing tiny meal utensils and a doll.

It was my one and only younger sister, you must understand.

O Earth!
Hear me well—this was my sister whom nothing could replace, my sole—

You who receive her—make soft the bridal bed for this too-precious bride; fashion it gently, tenderly, with utmost care.
I beg you, O Earth.

Heed this plea from a sister left alone to mourn.

Rain fell—wind blew.

The earthen shrine must be lonely. Must be cold.

To crimson soil where we laid her—

We stitched flowers of golden thread,

Layered thick with silk floss for night’s raiment

And to accompany it—a thing like a rainbow—
A silk-embroidered handball—
Day after endless day, night through sleepless night,

Let the small silver needle bear,
Though I stitched and stitched—how sorrowful it is—
Though I wish to send her off, there remains no means—
At the shrine of earth, all alone—

The elder sister who sent off her younger sister
Holding the sewn garment in hand
Lonely and alone I stand—
At the castle gate of the shrine of earth—
“O gatekeeper who grants passage—
“O venerable one,” I beseech—yet
Blue kimono and silver sickle
Solemnly stands the aged one,
With sunken eyes fixed upon the crimson garment,
Staring fixedly as he stands
Forever and ever—forever and ever
“If that’s how it is, then I’ll go—
Though I do not plead, this garment—
“Please give this to my younger sister,”
A wish beyond utterance…

Tears fall softly like snow.
Soaking into white silk floss.
Even if I try to rush in, there is no gate.
Though I wish to entreat, there is no means to do so.

Clutching the sewn garment in hand,

The elder sister left behind wanders lost.

Calling the name, weeping—

Rain falls—wind blows.

The shrine of earth must be lonely. Must be cold.

I sent off—this garment,

This ball—

The elder sister left behind—wanders lost—
(End)

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Having lost my one and only irreplaceable younger sister，I came to know the strangeness of what is called human feelings—how they transform completely through the power of great familial love and a certain motive．The reason I came to think such things this time was that unless I made clear my deceased younger sister’s personality and appearance，that reason could not be understood．

Among the countless children in the world，there exist those who are somehow called charmless．

Unfortunately，his younger sister was thought to have been one of them．

Neither her appearance—which might stir pure affection at a single glance—nor her voice had been granted by God.

When one saw a baby who resembled no one, it was natural for parents and siblings alike to be struck by a strange feeling.

The newborn child had no sin.
There was nothing to do but say she had encountered an unfortunate coincidence.
The fact that, due to that unfortunate unexpected event, the child was directly not treated with good feelings by her siblings was truly an incomparably miserable thing.

People often claimed they did not love or not love based on appearance, but loving something with a face that gave an unpleasant feeling at first glance to the utmost degree was generally impossible unless one possessed some rare virtue or skill that veiled its ugliness.

Moreover, children who do not know how to adorn themselves with any artifice lay bare their true selves to anyone and everyone at all times.

Even if a child possesses the innocence unique to childhood, there must be a lovely appearance that renders it all the more beautiful.
Certainly, I believe this.

Because children have traditionally been regarded as closest to the divine, when one speaks of children, one imagines them as beautiful.
The age of a child—striving to grow, striving to grow—is when all things are thoroughly, thoroughly human.

When a child unabashedly craves food, if a white-haired child with dark skin were to cling to one’s knees, pouting her small mouth while tearfully begging for an irresistibly charming sweet, even as one scolds her for being naughty, an unbearable love would stir deep within one’s heart.
However, if that child were an unkempt one, it would end up being nothing but an unpleasant feeling.

My younger sister, who lacked the endearing charm typical of children, laughed relatively infrequently.
For a child, her intellectually strong-willed nature left no trace of childish softness on her face.
Her mouth—large and tightly pressed as often seen in people of such disposition—and her two somewhat fearsome eyes shone beneath a prominent forehead.

Even if told by others, once she set her mind on something, she would see it through whether she liked it or not; because of this, her demeanor was quite unrefined.

Her voice was coarse.

But her complexion was fair, and her hair was thick.
Beneath that unrefined exterior lay exceedingly delicate emotions, and she tenderly attended to the trivial matters of her father and brothers.
Being that she was my only younger sister, next to our parents I cherished her dearly; I would occasionally tie her hair and teach her songs.

While being held on my lap, she loved to fiddle with my hair; from a little before her death, she would often thrust both hands into my chest.

The memory of her stroking my hair and fiddling with my face using those small, round hands—then entwining them around my neck and hugging her tiny body against mine—how profoundly it filled my heart with sorrow.

How dearly she had clung to me could be understood even from how, each time the brothers scolded her, she would cry while calling my name.

What still tears at my heart is that it was this younger sister who gave me another name.

“I am Nakajō Hanako,” she would say; and since I—being her older sister in the Nakajō family—was called “Nee-chan,” she would laughingly repeat, “Nakajō-ne, Nakajō-ne!”
Though it was a name whose meaning would have remained elusive unless explained, I find myself murmuring this name under my breath, overcome by a strange, choking sorrow.

My heart grieves simply at having lost the younger sister who gave me that name.

What manner of heart compels me now to write down these feelings gained through those sorrowful times—to record them thus without resenting those busy hours?

Is it not the mysterious love of flesh and blood that compels my hand to take up the pen and weave these words?

The heart of a sister who has lost her only younger sister grieves more deeply than even her own parents.

I should have tied her hair then; I should have dressed her in that kimono then.

I should have held her longer then.

Now, a heart grieving irreversible things can be stirred even by trivial matters encountered daily.

Could there not have been much, much more love that I should have poured upon that young sister than what there was?

The servants and acquaintances may have shed tears and shared memories at that time, but now that even the tenth-day memorial service has long since concluded, where is there anyone who dwells on unbearable memories and sheds tears?

Time passing moment by moment can alter people’s hearts in any way.
Even as eternities pass unchanged—the love of bone and flesh alone remains.
Is it not that this world’s most deeply rooted anchor lies solely in such love?
I have now come to know how powerful this love of bone and flesh truly is.
Now that she is gone—who would recount those mischiefs from when his sister lived?

Who would speak of that disobedient child now and prompt someone to make an unpleasant face?

"Death"—solely through this single word—utterly transformed people's feelings toward my younger sister.

Now I recall every matter with tender fondness.

The wish to have kept her alive surges in every heart.

May people's hearts—so altered by tears—endure unchanged forever—

Yet this is what none but immediate family could sustain.

There is nothing as mysterious as people’s hearts transformed by a single event. Furthermore, there is nothing as mysteriously terrifying as human emotions that can change.

――○――

My younger sister, who had led a brief life, left behind not a single item that might serve as a keepsake.
For me, she bequeathed nothing but these "memories".
How bittersweet this truth remains.

A little before she passed away, she began to learn the "Hatoppopo" song.

Hatoppopo, Hatoppopo—come flying with a coo-coo-coo!

Come down from the temple roof.

She had sung that far on her own, but passed away while I taught her what remained.

Having sung that far, she suddenly faltered,

“Hanako forgot!” she said while clinging to me—those small hands that kept gradually tightening around my chest—this feeling alone remains with me now.

Father had bought a kubi-ningyo doll from Kyoto and given it to me; I had tied only one into an “ochigo” hairstyle. I dressed it in a purple Kai silk kimono and treasured it, but as time passed, I forgot about it and ended up casting it aside somewhere. No matter how soiled it might have been, I would have at least considered it a memento if found—yet the forgotten kubi-ningyo doll cannot be found in any corner. Did it vanish from this world along with its owner?

Where is the pitiful doll with its pitch-black face and broken nose?

Won’t you come out for me?

Won’t you become a memento of that younger sister who died so young?

Every time I rummage through cupboards or open old boxes, I keep hoping to find some small, wretched keepsake.

That younger sister of hers—unable to move her mouth freely and thus unable to sound the Chinese lantern rattle—merely sucked on a red rubber one.
Now, as I idly sound these Chinese lantern rattles shaped like beans and eggplants and all manner of things—I find myself thinking: If only I could have let her at least play with these rattles.
When sorrow nests deep within one’s heart—it stirs up whenever anything happens.
Because mine had been altered—today I caught sight of that red crepe silk wadded garment inside the chest of drawers.

Because we hadn't finished preparing it for this New Year's celebration, even my promise—that I would surely dress her in it next year—had become meaningless.

There would be no younger sister to wear that garment next time.
To whom should I give it now?

She had been so eagerly anticipating wearing it.

The fever that took my younger sister measured forty-two degrees.

When I recall how I had lost consciousness from merely forty degrees of fever, it seemed inevitable that such heat would claim a life.
Given her gastric dilatation alone, one could scarcely imagine such a fever arising.
I pictured the blood coursing through her body seething and boiling back upon itself.
The 'life' resisting against encroaching 'death' ignited this scorching heat within her flesh—and when that life exhausted its strength and began its decline, 'death' redoubled its violent onslaught.

That the greatest struggle in this world—arising unseen between skin and flesh—could be waged so quietly, without a single sound or scream, was beyond anything I could have imagined.

Perhaps conflicts between people and struggles between hearts—those waged in silence and stillness—are all the more immensely powerful and terrifying for it.
Silent humans, conflict, and death are terrifying things.

The light cast upon her deathly face—flickering candlelight and the color of water at dawn—are precisely those most opposite yet most fitting.

Her form lay with vivid purple contours against golden rays that flickered thick and fast, possessing a mysterious and vivid splendor. When a watery hue gradually emerged from pale gray to illuminate her hair, all the world's pure things seemed gathered beneath that light. Her face shone silver while her hair clustered like a deep forest upon her small forehead. The infant's childlike beauty—purified by Death—shone dazzlingly.

The deceased is one who—even merely glimpsed beneath golden radiance, illuminated by beauty all the more—is believed to have parted from all things, to have left the human world for some distant realm.

There is nothing more sacred than a child’s form after their soul has departed.
How much more so that which rests beneath water-blue and gold.

My younger sister was born on March 1 five years ago; rain fell that day.

On September 11, when she died, rain fell again—and through the town veiled in drizzling mist, we went to Aoyama on the thirteenth.

My younger sister, who had a deep connection with rain, came into the world on a rainy day and left it on a similar day.

By trivial things, I am relentlessly reminded.

Why am I writing like this?

It’s not that writing brings me joy.

Rather, it is torment.

Tears of memory stream down my cheeks with each line I write; even if it brings no relief, my heart overflows with sorrow.

But I cannot help but write.

It is a strange thing.

Is it not because—even after many years have passed—I do not want to lose those feelings from that time that I write like this?

Even if these written things—these characters made manifest—were to vanish, as long as I live, I wish never to lose that heart from that time.

Yet we, who must be governed by time—that great thing far mightier than humankind—will find ourselves made to forget by time’s inexorable power, even as we strive against forgetting.

Perhaps I write this so that even when mercilessly made to forget by time’s power, should I see these characters again, I might return to the feelings of that time.

Some unquiet feeling compels me to write this.

When I grow elderly, my spirit and mind wearied, and think of how my younger sister—who would have stayed a dozen years my junior, tending to me, comforting me, becoming my steadfast ally—was lost in childhood, what feelings might take hold?

I deem it happiness—nothing beyond—that she could leave this world cradled in Mother’s arms, amidst relatives’ muffled weeping grieving her death.