Here's to You.

In Japan, any individual's absence from work, when it is not work-related, requires some sort of apology to the group. If one travels, for example, one should (read: must) bring back "omiyage," loosely translated as souvenirs, for those at the work place. In other cases, an announcement of what one was doing and throwing in a short "I'm sorry I've been gone lately" at the morning meeting seems to suffice.

Earlier last week, the school nurse's father died. She disappeared from school in the middle of the day, and the whispered explanation of her absence spread through the staffroom like a plague. Only the students were immune to it, not being privileged enough to hear such personal information. She was gone for several days, only reappearing today.

With puffy eyes and a tired demeanor, Sato-sensei apologized for her absence. She spoke for a few minutes, explaining her father's prolonged illness and the reason for her sudden disappearance in the midst of a school week. During the 2 minutes that she spoke, I thought of how I, as a 6th grader, burst into tears when a fellow student made a generic jest about my grandmother - both of mine, unbeknownst to my classmate, had died within the 3 days prior. I would not have had the strength then to stand up in front of my peers and state, calmly and coolly, that my mother's mother had been in a coma for a week or two due to a sudden stroke, or that my father's mother had been on a slow decline from disease for 5 years, a subject so taboo that I was not even aware of it until her condition had her knocking on Death's door. I don't know that I would have the ability to do so even now. I greatly admire Sato-sensei's strength.

So, here's to you, Sato-sensei.
Here's to you, her father, who has now been released from a 3-year struggle.
And here's to you, Anne and Mary, who passed away 13 years ago this week.