Secret Place

 

 

 My grand-aunt, my grandmother’s sister, didn’t have a child. She lived alone. She had Alzheimer’s disease. I commuted to her house to care for her every week.

 Taking care of an aged relative is natural. I started it easily. But I faced a difficult problem. She started to have problems managing money. Who should manage her money?

 I really didn’t want to do it. Finally, I started to do it. I am a relative but a distant one. I needed to manage her money very carefully. Because some other relatives could blame me after she passes. When I visited her, I checked her wallet and carefully recorded how much she had. If she didn’t enough money, I added. She should keep some money at her home. I wrote down the date and how much money she had.

 First of all, I needed the courage to ask her how much she had and in which bank.

“Please let me see your bankbook.”

 This sentence is difficult to say to anyone.

 Fortunately, I commuted to her house for several months. She trusted me, and she taught me the place where she kept the bankbook.

 When I found out where she hid her bankbook, I was surprised. It looked like ordinary furniture, but an unassuming part of it opened unexpectedly. There was a small space to hide bankbooks and stamps. In Japan, you need a stamp to withdraw money from a bank, so the stamp is also important. That place was opened without a key, but no one can find it without being informed beforehand. Where did she buy the furniture? How did they sell it to her? They can’t tell the secret in their advertisement.

 If I hadn’t asked her about the bankbook, she might have forgotten the secret. In that case, I would need to take care of her without money. The bankbook and the stamp might be dumped with no one realizing it.

 But Grand-aunt! Surely you had a nice place to hide important things. But you should not hide the bankbook and the stamp in the same place! Japanese insurance companies would never compensate for theft if someone kept a bankbook and stamp in the same location!

 Where should we hide our important items? All of us will get older and die. To whom should we tell the secret? This is a difficult problem.

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Picture by Shintako