#未来へ向けた挑戦(20)# 戦争を聞いて(10) 祖母の戦争 ― 八重菊という名の人　(英語版) ー　My Grandmother’s War — A Woman Named Yaegiku

My mother’s mother was said to be the daughter of a samurai.
Her name was Yaegiku — a flower that blooms in layers.

I never knew how she met my grandfather.
No one spoke of it.

She bore one son and five daughters, in an era that urged women to “bear and multiply.”

My grandfather went to China (Manchuria) before or during the war for work.
The food did not suit him. He returned home and soon passed away.

My mother, still a child, asked her brother,
“Why is Father sitting?”

“There’s no money,” he answered.

It was not a lying coffin.
It was a cheaper seated one.
He was cremated sitting upright.

My grandmother rarely expressed her own thoughts.
“Yes, of course.”
“Thank you kindly.”

But when her book-loving eldest daughter was killed in an air raid while returning a borrowed book —
and her body was never found —
surely “yes” was not enough.

Still, she made rice balls from the little rice they had and fed strangers collapsed on the roadside.
Even when her family tried to stop her.

Later she developed facial paralysis.

After the war, she worked for the occupying forces.
People did not look kindly on that, but survival leaves little choice.

When her children grew up, only three remained at home.
When her son married, he said,
“My wife will already have to be careful around Mother.
Sister, please live on your own.”

Her daughter left in tears.

Her daughter-in-law was extremely frugal.
Chicken was sliced thin and long to reduce what went onto each skewer.
There were two growing boys.

One day, my grandmother quietly said,
“I would like to soak slowly in a warm bath.”

She always bathed last.
No extra hot water.
Only cooling remnants.

That, too, was her war.
The war had not ended.

Even bedridden, she refused water and food,
saying diapers were wasteful,
that it was too much trouble for others.

Eventually, her body failed.

I was nine months pregnant with my second child when she passed.
I did not return to Osaka.

In my heart, I whispered:

Grandmother, I’m sorry.
At last, your war is over.


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