The drawings by my son, who has a developmental disorder, might one day surpass Picasso's.

#nana56b


Synopsis

In the living room, bathed in the soft light of dusk,
Minato’s hands were trembling.“…Here, Mom.”
What he held out was a sheet of drawing paper with
slightly bent corners, its color faded from being
rubbed with an eraser countless times.

What was drawn on it was a silhouette far too
distorted to be called a “face.” Hair as black and
stiff as nori stuck to a rice ball. Large eyes that
had bled together from being saturated with moisture.
And, drawn right in the center, a single, trembling
red line.

Minato had always found it a little difficult to
give shape to his feelings. In particular, the act of
“drawing”—which requires fine motor skills in the
fingertips—was an ordeal for him, like battling an
invisible wall.

The next day, as I went to pick him up at the
kindergarten entrance, his homeroom teacher gently
called me over. Her eyes were slightly red and moist.

“That day, Minato… he really tried his very best.”
What the teacher told me was the story of a harrowing
struggle hidden on the back of his drawing paper.

“While the other children were drawing smoothly and
effortlessly, Minato kept redrawing his picture over
and over again, crying the whole time. He rubbed the
eraser so hard the paper was about to tear. At one
point, he panicked and cried out, ‘How am I supposed
to draw Mom’s back? I can’t see it!’…”

My vision blurred.


For Minato, his beloved mother’s presence wasn’t
limited to the face he could see right in front of
him. He must have felt at a loss as he tried to
capture everything—her back as she stood in the
kitchen, the arms that hugged him, and all that
warmth—in a single image of “Mom.” By trying to
depict something invisible, he was struggling
against his own limitations.

On the way home, Minato’s small hand, walking
beside me, was clutching the hem of my coat tightly.
“Mom, I’m sorry it’s so bad.”
Hearing those words, spoken so quietly, felt like my
heart was about to burst.

Back home, I hung the drawing on the wall once more.
I gazed at his tear-stained eyes. Those were surely
the traces of the tears that had spilled while he was
drawing. And then, there was the clumsy red line
drawn right down the middle of the face.

“Minato, thank you. Mom loves this drawing more than
anything in the world.”
When I said that, Minato sniffed, looking both
embarrassed and proud.

This red line is smiling, isn’t it?
A single line drawn with all his might, squeezing out
the indescribable feeling of “I love you.”

For now, your world may still be locked away inside
your heart.
But I believe that your hand—the one that tried to
draw the shape of Mom’s “heart,” the only one in
the whole world—
possesses a power more beautiful and noble than that
of any genius.

I hope that those tears, which have wet so many
sheets of drawing paper, will one day transform into
colors that no one else can ever …