Among the bundle of papers my mother had re-bound, there was just one sheet that simply wouldn’t go back to the way it was.

#nana56b


Synopsis

Ours was a poor household—just my mother and me.

My father fell ill six months after I was born, and there isn’t a single photograph of him.

My mother, who worked as a craftswoman in the “town of gloves,” tried to preserve my growth in a different way.

Using a needle and thread, she stitched my likeness, one by one, onto scraps of leather no bigger than the palm of her hand.

“Today I stood up all by myself.”
“Today, I stood up all by myself.”

Her stitching, written entirely in hiragana with a faltering hand, was by no means skillful. Y

et late at night, after finishing all her work, my mother would sit under a bare lightbulb and bring my day to life.

That was the only luxury we had in our poor home.

However, when I was in the fourth grade, a friend who came over to play found that bundle of leather pieces.

“We’re so poor we can’t even take pictures,” they laughed. Overcome with shame and misery,

I tore every single page of that stack to shreds while my mother was away.

When she came home that evening, she saw the pitiful scraps of leather spilling out of the trash can and froze in her tracks.

Then, without a sound, she let tears fall one by one.



That night, I suddenly woke up to find the light on in the living room.

Peeking through the crack in the sliding door, I saw my mother, hunched over, picking up even the scraps of thread I’d torn off and stitching the scattered pieces of leather back together one by one.

Watching her back as she tried, with trembling fingers, to bring my childhood days back to life,

I buried my face in my pillow and cried quietly.

The next morning, with puffy eyes, my mother placed the re-sewn bundle in front of me.

Then, looking apologetic,

she said, “I’m sorry I made you feel embarrassed. I’m sorry.”

I had expected to be scolded,

but my mother was sincerely apologizing, as if it were her fault.

“But you know,” she said, gently stroking the re-sewn bundle with both hands.

“You see, Mom couldn’t afford to buy you a camera, so I sewed this instead.”

“Even though it’s not very good, this is Mom’s one and only treasure.”



The moment I heard those words, I couldn’t hold back any longer, and tears welled up.

I cried, repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

My mother, with her gnarled hands, stroked my head over and over again

and said gently, “Don’t cry. It’s all right now.”

But among the bundle my mother had mended, there was one photo that simply wouldn’t go back together.

She wrapped that single photo in washi paper and tucked it away at the bottom of the sewing box.

I thought that piece represented me.

But what was embroidered on that single piece wasn’t me—

it was a slender man holding a baby, his body tilted slightly to one side.

In the corner, a single line read, “So I won’t forget this person.”

It was an image of my late father holding me as a baby.

My mother, who had not a single photograph of …