"The Way of the Elderly"
Writer Profile
Tomomi Muramatsu
Other : WriterKeio University alumni *Note: The character for "shi" (視) in the name is written with the components "shi" (示) and "mi" (見).
Tomomi Muramatsu
Other : WriterKeio University alumni *Note: The character for "shi" (視) in the name is written with the components "shi" (示) and "mi" (見).
2020/03/30
In this day and age when books about the so-called "elderly" are overflowing, I would like to offer a bit of an explanation—or rather, a deposition—as to why I dared to publish a book titled "The Way of the Elderly." My characteristic stance in works themed around "the elderly" is one filled with envy toward those who are truly elderly, coming from someone like myself who is in the later stages of old age but has yet to grasp the true value or state of being "elderly."
For example, there is a famous funny story among my relatives about a 95-year-old grandmother lying in her sickbed, who said a single line to her uncles who came to visit.
As the uncles were about to leave, mumbling vague words, the grandmother in her sickbed sat up and stopped them, saying, "I've been wanting to ask you all something..." She blinked and looked meaningfully into their eyes. The uncles thought for a moment, "Is it about the inheritance...?" and she looked into their eyes once more.
"I really wanted to ask you... was I an old man or an old woman?"
She supposedly blurted that out. The uncles were stunned and depressed, thinking she had finally reached that point, and left the place quickly. However, after she passed away, it remained as a funny story.
Hearing that, I tilted my head in wonder. Didn't the grandmother just want to make the uncles laugh with that line? The uncles couldn't quite accept her "Way of the Elderly"—full of consideration—which tried to instantly brighten the gloomy atmosphere of the visitors. Because of their conventional sensitivities—old age, weakness, sympathy, care—they let her peerless, humor-filled finishing move, which no one else could imitate, end in a hollow failure.
However, like the "three-year kill" in karate, the bitterness of this unparalleled humor that missed its mark at the time was later dressed up as a funny story after her death and is now told as a symbolic episode of her life. Truly, the vitality of "The Way of the Elderly" is strong.
Well, this kind of chain of "The Way of the Elderly" is the outline of this book.
*Affiliations, titles, etc., are as of the time of publication.