I woke up to a stinging sensation on my cheek.
It was the morning of New Year's Day.
I looked around from under the covers to see what was going on, and saw that the sliding glass door of the living room next door was fully open.
I looked in the direction of the sound and saw that my brother was meticulously scrubbing the floor.
"Oh, Kazuki, you're awake! Maybe it's because we don't live here all the time, but it's dirty and that's not good..."
Saying this, my brother's hands kept moving toward the kitchen. The temperature outside is -10 degrees Celsius.
Since yesterday, my brother and I have been in Matsumoto, Shinshu, where I was born and raised, to see my elderly parents and spend the New Year's holiday.
My eldest son, Masakazu, and second daughter, Wakana, are also coming, so we are staying at a second house at the foot of the mountains, a 10-minute drive away from my parents' office and home in the city.
A short time later, my parents arrived. Seeing my brother cleaning the house the whole time, my mother said to me.
" He's going to get laughed at for cleaning so early in the morning on New Year's. He's so unbalanced,"
She was appalled.
At noon, we all had a traditional Japanese dinner (Osechi).
After that, my children and I went to an observatory where we could see the Northern Alps under a clear blue sky, visited a shrine, enjoyed our first bath in the evening at Utsukushigahara Onsen (hot spring), and had another evening dinner at a hot pot, but something was not quite right with Wakana.
At first, she was laughing and blurting out, "My nose is running, and I can't taste the food, even though it's a great meal."
But then she started coughing, and when my brother, who is a doctor, examined her, he found that she had a fever and might have contracted corona or influenza.
"I thought it would be terrible if Grandma and Grandpa got corona, so I had a PCR test done the day before I arrived and an antigen test done on the same day, both of which were negative," said Wakana.
At my brother's instruction, I drove with Masakazu to buy a test kit for the nasal cavity. The drugstores that were open during the day were all closed at night, and after searching all over town, we finally found one.
"I'm so glad you were able to stay up until New Year's night. I really appreciate it."
The words just spilled out of my mouth.
As it turned out, she was negative for influenza and positive for corona.
Wakana was immediately quarantined to her room. The rest of our family were all considered to be in close contact with the Corona patient, Wakana.
My brother and I had both planned to return home on the 3rd, so we each began to deal with the situation.
My brother, in particular, immediately called the doctor on duty at the hospital where he worked and arranged for the postponement of surgery after the 4th.
On January 3, my brother tested everyone and we all came back negative.
On January 4, Masakazu was told that if he tested negative that day, he could return home by train, but the test results were positive.
My parents also tested positive. My brother and I tested negative, so my parents and the children had to live in isolation in two places. We had a lot of work to do, such as taking them to the hospital, getting a positive certificate, contacting the public health center, and supporting them in their daily lives, including food.
In the end, my children and I were able to return home on the 12th.
My parents were elderly and had some underlying medical conditions, but thanks to the vaccine, they were able to survive without becoming seriously ill.
My brother went home first, as he did not want to delay the patient's surgery any longer.
Unexpectedly, I had to spend a week with my brother and two weeks with my parents. It was probably the first time since I was in high school. Every day, my brother and I went to the supermarket to buy groceries.
"Let's buy this 47 yen Mito natto (fermented soybeans), it's cheap and looks tasty." We went shopping while saying that.
This was probably the first time since we went shopping together for snacks the day before a field trip in elementary school.
At our house, plastic models of tanks and airplanes we had made as children were displayed in a glass case. It was easy to tell at a glance which one was made by which one.
My brother's models were so precise and exquisite, with elaborate and unique paint jobs, that they looked as if they could start moving at any moment. Mine were broken, missing parts here and there, and they seem to have been made in a random and rough way.
In our free research at school, my brother won the prefectural science prize for his experiment of feeding food additives to mice and dissecting and analyzing them, and I would imitate him, but I never got a decent result and always came up with a half-baked result.
Since we went to the same school through high school, I would often pull out my brother's test papers and cram them in one night for the regular test, and I would often get similar questions, and only then would I get a good score, but never any real ability.
I was always chasing, chasing, chasing my brother who was 1 year and 4 months and 2 grades older than me, but I couldn't catch up to him.
I thought, "This is the kind of person who excels, who works hard every day , without any emotional ups and downs.
I was proud of my brother and kept boasting about him, even though I could never become like him.
When I heard that my brother was going to become a doctor, I thought, "People would want to be treated by someone like him."
After my brother left first, I was sorting through photo albums of our family and other things, and I came across his application form from high school.
Why it was there when he was supposed to submit it to the university he was applying to is a mystery to me, but in the last section of the mostly all-five score, there is a sentence that reads.
"He has a mild and cheerful personality ・・・・・・ (followed by good conduct, etc. all the time) ・・・・・. But he is also very meticulous."
It made me laugh.
Among the dozens of albums, there were many pictures of my brother and me together.
I lived in the same room with my brother until I was 16 years old, so I felt again that I had spent more time with him than with my parents, more than anyone else.
We are always photographed together side by side in the house, in the yard, in the park, at relatives' houses, and on trips.
I'm sure that most of these photos were taken by either my mother or father, but what were they thinking when they looked at us and pressed the shutter of their camera?
I could not always do as well or as meticulously as my brother, but I have no memories of my parents ever forcing me to be like him or chastising me for it.
They kept looking at my brother and me, each different from the other, as if they were admiring my brother's beautiful plastic model and my broken plastic model side by side, enjoying them. The number of shutters pressed may have been only a few hundred, but the shutters of my parents' eyes would have been pressed countless times.
And my brother, who was always next to me, still lives in me even now that we have grown apart.
As an adult, there was only one time when my brother scolded me.
It was four years ago, when Wakana went to Uganda to volunteer as part of a university club activity.
A phone call came in from herself that she was out of breath, and when my brother diagnosed her remotely, he told me that she would die unless she was given a specific antibiotic.
At that time, Wakana was in a rural area of Uganda, so there were no doctors, no hospitals, and no one to help her.
I was desperate to find a hospital in Uganda that could treat the disease. There were many things I did not understand, and in the midst of contacting my brother repeatedly, I even tried to get the office staff at the hospital to connect me to the phone while my brother was in the middle of his examination.
He said, "Kazuki, I understand how you feel, but Wakana is not the only patient!"
He scolded me and admonished me to wait for a while.
In the end, my brother sent the antibiotic data to the hospital, and the local staff spent hours transporting Wakana to the hospital.
For me, it was an opportunity to know the rigor of my brother's work and the kindness he showed to others after decades of dealing with each and every life. It was a figure of my brother that I had never seen when I was a child.
When I came back to Suzuka for the first time in two weeks, many people said, "Welcome back!" and "How was it?" I was approached by many people. I had only informed a few people that I was dealing with Corona for my parents and children, so I was a bit surprised!
I was also asked by people I only see once or twice a month, "Are your parents okay?" I felt a bit strange.
Even from Academy students whom I hardly talk to on a daily basis, when they ask me "How was Matsumoto?" In response to the question, "How do they know so much?" A line of question marks lined up in my head.
What is the information communication system in the Suzuka community like?
Before, the topic was something like, "There is no gossip or rumors spreading here at all, I wonder why?" "Why is that?" Recently, I had never heard of "rumors" and felt that I was far away from them.
But, on the other hand, is it possible that we "feel each other's presence somewhere"? Like, "I haven't seen that person recently, I wonder how he/she is doing?"
It's as if that person is still alive in each other's hearts, even if only slightly.
I happened to be at a social gathering of people who had come on the Suzuka tour, and one of the participants asked me
"When a community becomes that close, like a family, what happens to your original family?"
I told him about my two weeks of living in Corona, but I don't think there is anything in me that can cut me off from my original family or the larger family of the community.
However, I felt as if an arrow of questioning was pointed in my direction, wondering what I am trying to do in Suzuka, and why I am living here now.
During one of the familiar Thursday-1 family meetings, Toshimi had this to say.
"I don't know why, but many times I can picture my own father and mother in our meetings.
If I had to describe it in words, I would say it looks like they are trying to pour all of themselves into me and my younger siblings.
It's not about what they did for me or anything, it's about the root of it.
I don't know why it comes to mind.
When I gave birth, I held the newborn in my arms and said, " Thank you for being born," and I felt a sense of love that I wanted to pour everything I had into it. As if milk would naturally come out of my boobs."
"When did my parents' image reside in me?
They both passed away a long time ago, and I'm already past the age my parents were when they died, but it's like there's a parent figure inside me.
I don't know if that is a true parental figure or not.
I'm teaching swimming to the Cherish kids right now, and I want to give them everything I have, and it just comes up.
I wonder..."
I sometimes think to myself in a great attitude,
"I'm alive."
But
I am alive =
I am being kept alive.
In me, that person is alive.
Many people are alive.
Regardless of whether I like them or not,
whether they are good or bad.
The person, the person, the person who lives in me...
I live with that person in me.
I live by that person in me.
Human beings are fascinating.
