I couldn't afford to waste even a single yen of the money my mother had saved up.

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Synopsis

My family was poor.

My mother worked at a supermarket, and spent almost all of her remaining time doing sewing work at home.

Hemming frayed pant legs, patching the worn elbows of school uniforms—that was the kind of work she did.

Whenever she was home, my mother was almost always sitting at her sewing machine.

My father had been gone for as long as I could remember.

I once asked her about it, but she never stopped sewing.

As a child, I thought that was her answer.

On winter mornings, I would always wake up to the sound of the sewing machine.

My mother’s hands were always rough and chapped.

That was because they were exposed to needles, fabric, and cold water all year round.

I never saw my mother spend money on herself.

She went to the hair salon maybe once a year, if that.

She always cut her own hair as best she could.

I began to think that once I graduated from high school, I would get a job and make life easier for my mother…

A while later, a parent-teacher conference was held at school.

My mother put on her best going-out clothes, took the day off from work, and came.


The teacher looked at the “Career Aspirations” section and read aloud, “Employment.”

That was when it happened.

My mother straightened her back and said to the teacher,

“Teacher, how much would it cost to send this child to college?”

I couldn’t believe my ears.

My mother took a bankbook out of her bag.

It was an old savings book, well-worn with frayed corners.

“Can I send my son to college with this?”

I could tell the teacher gasped when he saw the numbers.

The passbook showed a balance I could never have imagined.

One yen, ten yen, one hundred yen.

These were the amounts my mother had accumulated with her rough hands while sitting at her sewing machine.

Year after year, year after year.

I clenched my fists under the desk and simply kept my head down.

I didn’t want either the teacher or my mother to see my tears.

From then on, I studied tirelessly, sacrificing sleep.


I couldn’t waste even a single yen of the money my mother had saved up.

It was money she had saved over the years with her rough hands, without spending a single yen on herself.

I sat at my desk until dawn, pinching my cheeks to fight off sleep.

In winter, I placed a hot water bottle at my feet and draped a blanket over my knees.

That blanket was one my mother had sewn together from scraps of fabric.

I still can’t forget the day the acceptance letter arrived.

Clutching it tightly, I ran as fast as I could.

When I opened the door, my mother was sitting at her sewing machine, just as she always did.

“I got in. Mom, I got in!”

My mother stopped her hand holding the needle and slowly turned toward me.

Then, without saying a word, she simply nodded over and over.

A single tear rolled down my mother’s cheek, leaving a small stain on the fabric she was sewing.

That was the first time in my life I’d ever seen …