The Color of the Floor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 There is a stage when an Alzheimer’s disease patient needs 24-7 care. At this stage, the patient can go out by themselves, but they can’t come home by themselves. Someone has to keep watching the patient 24-7. But the stage would end in a few years.

 In the next stage, the caregiver will be released from watching duty. The patient will lose energy to go out by themselves. In my mother’s case, those were easy days. But they were short.

 In the next stage, we had to face another difficult problem. We needed help in my mother’s toileting. She couldn’t recognize a toilet. She started using inappropriate places as her toilet. Cleaning up my mother’s toilet’s fault was one of the most disgusting jobs I’ve done in my life.

 To avoid this, we had to lead her to a toilet very often. But it was better than 24-7 care. At least, we could rest for a while during non-toilet time.

My mother’s disease became worse. Leading her to the toilet became more difficult day by day.

One day, I noticed that she always stops at the same place in our house on the way to the toilet. The place was the borderline between the living room and the corridor. She always stops at the borderline and climbs over it as if there was a difference in level.

The colors of the floor were different on the living room and on the corridor. Alzheimer’s disease patients find it difficult to distinguish the differences between a color change and a difference in level. Doctors call this depth perception disorder.

We can remember the colors of the floors and the differences in level in our house, but a patient with Alzheimer’s can’t memorize them. My mother found a color change on the floor. She worried it could be a difference in level, so she needed to be careful.

That made this job difficult. But we couldn’t renovate our house. Every time she stops at the borderline, I tell her, “It is safe. It is safe. There is no difference in level. It’s flat. Just walk through.”

If I knew it would happen, I would’ve made the floor in the house the same color.

My friends, when buying your final house, please choose one that has floors of the same color.

Picture by Vladfree

Something That Has Eyes

 

 When my family moved into our new home, the moving company said, “If you have something you want to throw away, we can dispose the articles, except for those that have eyes, particularly dolls and pictures.” They said they couldn’t dispose even stuffed toys and posters of singing idols.

 Let us think like we are workers in a moving company. If we dispose articles like dolls and pictures, they could be precious dolls and memorable pictures of someone whom we had never met. It could be spooky.

 My grandaunt didn’t have a child. After her passing, I cleared up her house. I commuted to her house once a week. It took about two years. Of course, I recycled those I could recycle. I separated her waste.

 Her husband, my granduncle, was a photo processing shopkeeper. His hobby was photography. There were many photos in her house. I put off disposing the photos because I assumed it was an easy job. I never had a spooky feeling about the photos. My granduncle was my good friend. He would never curse me. Unfortunately, when I was almost finished clearing up the house, I became sick. I stayed in a hospital for a long time.

 We should not leave a house empty for a long time. From the hospital, I asked my wife to employ a clearing up company. I didn’t think about the photos.

 The clearing company invited a Buddhist monk. The monk chanted a sutra for the photos. Of course, we needed to pay him extra. I am not stingy, but if I discarded the photos at first, we didn’t need any religious ceremony.

Dear friends, if you move or clear up things left by deceased people, you should discard those that have eyes first. These things should be handled by close people.

Picture by Masayuki Wada

Way of Using Chopsticks

 

 We, Japanese, basically use chopsticks. There is a right way to use chopsticks, but some of us don’t know how.

 Once I read an interview article. In the article, a Japanese CEO said, “I will never hire a person who uses chopsticks the wrong way. Their parents had tried to educate them on how to use chopsticks correctly, but they refused to accept the education. Educating this kind of people is a waste of time.”

 When I read this article, I thought the CEO was stupid. I know many excellent people who use chopsticks in a unique way. There are many examples in different fields. Some had done a great achievement differently from the traditional way. We should not evaluate people just because of how they use chopsticks.

 I talked to one of my friends about this idea. His response was an unexpected one:

“What? The company gives opportunity to have a meal with the CEO before the job offer?”

 He was a jobseeker during the financial crisis in 2008.

 The CEO may be stupid, but at least the company is careful about employment.

Picture by Omori Yamori