A letter to her

To Yuanyin

Yuanyin, did you remember the question you asked me on your deathbed in our tenth lifetime?

I hadn't told you the truth then, because I'd thought we would meet again in another place, in another era. So I had never told you about the questions that had kept me tossing and turning, that had filled me with anxiety whenever I woke in the middle of the night.

But now, I wanted to answer you, even though you could no longer hear me.

Did I have any regrets in my life? Yes. They were all about you.

My first regret was that I hadn't stopped you when you decided to move to the East District, the most remote part of Kanagawa.

We rode for two hours from Kanagawa's East District to the West District, then walked from the West District to Bunri Town. Just to see you, your husband-by-default and I spent a full five hours getting to the best hospital in Kanagawa.

I wasn't complaining. After all, through all those years of reincarnation, the first thing I'd learned was how to wait.

Riding, waiting for a ride, walking, then sitting outside your hospital room-all of it was just waiting to see you.

I was so practiced at it, yet so helplessly flustered. Because it was too far. The journey to see you was far too long.

My second regret was that I shouldn't have fought with your husband-by-default.

More than ten years had passed since you married Toji Zenin. I could hardly imagine you loving a man for over a decade. After all, even a single minute in his company was too much for me.

On our way to see you, we fought over some pansies by the roadside.

You loved pansies, devotedly and exclusively. They were the only flowers you loved. So as I walked along a road beside waves of wheat, I stopped to admire those newly bloomed flowers, untouched by the ravages of nighttime wind and rain, just as you once had.

I wanted to pick them and bring them to you, but Toji Zenin wouldn't let me.

He crushed the flowers underfoot, then snapped at me in fury, saying you were already dead, that you couldn't see them.

He didn't understand. He didn't understand what pansies meant, or the companionship and family bond we'd shared through so many years of reincarnation.

But I understood him.

He was the one who crushed the flowers, but he was also a "flower" crushed by your death.

Understanding him didn't mean I would put up with him the way I put up with you. The family bond between us was tenuous at best. Apart from the DNA we shared, we were the sort of relatives who wouldn't speak even when we were in the same room.

He snapped at me, and I ignored him. He didn't matter. He didn't matter to me. In this world, no one mattered to me except you.

Reading this, you must be wondering why I had regrets when I was so resolute. Don't rush me. Let me tell you slowly.

We entered the hospital and took the elevator. This time, we went down instead of up.

Level -2 was so cold. I could hardly imagine you lying in a place that cold to say goodbye to me. When the doctor asked us to sign, he specifically named Toji Zenin as the person he wanted to complete the procedure.

But Yuanyin, did you know what I saw?

I saw a statue petrified by Medusa, and he seemed to have died at the very instant he turned to stone. He stood at the elevator doors with his head lowered, lost and frightened, like wind sweeping the grass low only to reveal no cattle or sheep.

That was when I regretted it.

I shouldn't have ignored him, because pain had always hurt everyone equally. He loved you so much. There was no way he could calmly accept your passing.

So I took his place and fulfilled every duty of a husband and a father.

I carefully wrote my name on the clipboard, stroke by stroke, then held back my tears as I embraced your cold body.

Yuanyin, you were so cold. You were like a block of ice, did you know that? I tried so hard to warm you, but nothing I did worked.

I couldn't do it.

Your useless daughter could only watch as they covered you with a white sheet again, then, as the surroundings changed, watch you being pushed into a blazing furnace.

As the roaring flames slowly blurred your form, I cried uncontrollably at the crematorium.

There would be no next meeting, no next lifetime, no more us. Only me.

My third regret was forgetting to ask you: Yuanyin, did you really need me?

Not long after giving birth to me, you chose to have a second child, then waited wholeheartedly for the arrival of the child named Megumi Zenin. When he was born, you sacrificed your body, sacrificed all the time you could have spent with me.

I was so stupid back then. I should have realized what you intended sooner. I shouldn't have foolishly waited until the bond linking our souls vanished before finally realizing that this had been our last lifetime.

People often said that a loved one's final moments mattered, that you had to stay by their side, keep them company, hold them.

I never had the chance to be there for your final moments, but I did get to hold you on your final journey.

All eighty jin of you had been condensed into a ten-jin urn. I held your urn and pressed my face against its side, as though I were nestled in your arms.

Oh, right. Your husband was falling apart. Mentally, I mean. He looked as though he might collapse at any moment. Even setting foot in the hospital seemed to take all his courage, let alone entering the funeral home.

So I brought you from the funeral home to the hospital. I let your final journey begin there.

Let me tell you something funny. When I took a taxi alone to bring you from the funeral home to the hospital, the driver picked up a boy so he could take another fare.

He was probably just starting middle school, with rather classical features. He might grow up to have smiling eyes or narrow, crescent-shaped ones-the sort people always said was popular with girls.

I sat in the back seat holding the urn. The boy hadn't noticed me when he got in, so he gave the driver a destination in the opposite direction from the hospital.

The driver shook his head and pointed at me in the back seat. Only then did the boy see me. He became a little flustered, in an embarrassed sort of way.

The boy had meant to get straight back out, but his phone kept buzzing. Apparently, someone somewhere was urging him to hurry. In the end, he stayed in the car and even paid my fare.

Boys that age were only just beginning to develop their social skills. He understood that he ought to make conversation, but his opening left something to be desired.

Seemingly trying to dispel the awkwardness in the car, he spoke to me in the excessively sweet tone people used with children, asking where I was going and whether I was holding a vase.

Forgive his ignorance of life and death. At his age, he still needed a little more time.

Yuanyin, I didn't shy away from talking about your passing. You could imagine it: my mental state wasn't good either. I could no longer invent those easy, composed words.

I told him the truth and was left with a boy who felt terribly guilty.

He searched every pocket on his body until he found a sweet in a crumpled wrapper. Then he painstakingly smoothed it out, trying to make it look almost new instead of half-worn. As though terrified I might cry, he tucked it into my arms.

The funny thing was that I really did cry. Simply because the way he comforted me reminded me so much of you.

So much like you. And I missed you so much.

It made me realize with painful clarity that what I held in my arms was your ashes, not the living you. That fact defeated me, made me sob in front of a boy younger than my soul.

Yuanyin, my final regret was that I forgot to ask you a question.

Had you ever looked forward to my birth the way you looked forward to Megumi Zenin's?

Ah, never mind. Never mind.

After laying you to rest, I decided to go to my death.

Good night, Mom.

From Yuanli, who loved you