quartia | syo.

March - A Part of Syo-chan's Healthiness
Up until the early years in elementary school, I was always in the hospital. In the beginning, my grandma would stay by my side. But she couldn’t always stay with me, and so I was always alone at night. The nurses were nice, but I had nothing to do and the bed was different from mine at home, so it was a bit scary. Especially at night… I can’t really explain it, but it’s kind of like being left alone at night at school. The building was huge, the floors were hard—even though there were other patients, it wasn’t like I could make friends with them right away.

I didn’t want anyone to worry, so I acted strong, but I was really scared… That maybe a tomorrow wouldn’t come for me…

The IVD hurt and I hated it so much. But I’ve always been vain. I tried my hardest to put up with it—“I’m completely fine!”

The nurses and the doctors, and even the other patients said to me, “You’re remarkable, Syo-chan. You’re a good kid.” I might have been glad to be recognized like that—if I did my best and held it in, I’d be complimented.

The only time I had fun was when Kaoru and Grandpa and Grandma would come visit. Oh, well, my parents did visit occasionally, but my dad visited a few times a month, and my mom only came a few times a year.

Anyway, it was fun having someone come see me and talk about a lot of things. They brought me a lot of stuff, and talked to me about things that I didn’t know anything about. Especially Kaoru—he’d chatter excitedly about when I get out of the hospital, we’d do this or that and go to all these places. I’d get really excited too.

But for that, nights were hard. I guess you could say it was backlash from the day. When I was by myself, I was so lonely it felt like there was a huge, gaping hole in my heart. The only person in this dark room was me, and I wondered if maybe what happened during the day was a dream… I was lonely, and scared—I covered my head with the pillow and pressed my face to the bed, so that no one would hear me cry. I cried so that no one would find out, but when I woke up in the morning my eyes would be all red. The nurses probably figured it out, because the day after I’d cry, they’d always pat my head gently…

Even still, when I got out of the hospital, I went to my kindergarten or my elementary school. I could never really go to kindergarten, so I never went on any trips or participated in sports day.

So I was super excited for the school trip in elementary school. I was counting my fingers a month beforehand, and the week before I was putting stuff in my bag. Every day, I’d take it all out and repack it.

But… Right before, I got a fever. It had nothing to do with my heart. It was just a virus, but I guess it was something a bit stronger than a cold… They told me I couldn’t go to school. What on earth. A strep throat!! I’ve heard of the flu and stuff, but why can’t I go on the trip because of some stupid cold I never heard of!? And I was so mad that it was always me at times like these.

On the day of the trip it was down to just a slight fever, but they said I couldn’t go because I’d get the rest of the class sick. I had to stay home. I regretted it so much. This was just a cold! I couldn’t believe, I couldn’t go anywhere because of nothing!

Normally, after a trip or a sports festival Kaoru would talk all excitedly about it and I’d be glad to hear it, but at that time I was so mad I yelled at him, “Don’t talk to me about the trip!” And then, Kaoru got really upset and was crying and crying.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

He apologized over and over again for talking happily about everything up til now, and never realizing it. Things got out of hand.

From then on I decided I wouldn’t complain in front of Kaoru anymore. I think he was more worried about me than I was. I didn’t want him to feel inferior whenever something fun happened, because I wanted him to have fun for me, too.

He was worried and cried like that, but my mother was optimistic.

“There’s a limit to amount of unhappiness you can have in your life! If you get all your unhappiness now, there’ll be really good stuff later on. That’s great,” she said with a smile. And then,

“There’s good stuff if you just live your life. So just live! It’s okay, if you’ve got a fighting spirit and the guts, something’ll come of it. And if you can get over your trials, you’ll be a bigger person.”

After she said that to me, she gave me manga like sports manga, and things where the hero would go through tough times and tough trials, but in the end managed something with hard work and spirit.

I think even still I read it like crazy.

Kaoru cried for me. My mother set herself up as if she wasn’t worried. My father hugged me kindly. I think that’s why I somehow managed without wearing out.

I heard this later from my father, but apparently even my mother was super scared. She actually wanted to stay with me and do something for me. Even then, she gritted her teeth and saved up for me. She took up a crazy schedule, and with that she managed to overcome it with hard work and spirit, he said. That way she saved as much as she could save and made a treatment fund for me. It didn’t matter how much it cost. She wanted the best treatment for me. She was determined to give me at least a little bit of a chance to live. And even though he was busy, my father came out to visit me at the hospital a lot. I’m sure it was pretty hard.

The fact that I’m as healthy as I am now is all thanks to my family. So if I don’t live to the fullest, it’d be an insult to them.

I gotta live each day as if it were the most precious, without any regrets.

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