Pacemaker

My father had to get a pacemaker put in. He had some problems with his heart. So I arranged for him to get an operation. After the operation, the doctor said to me, “The battery of the pacemaker will work for seven years. Seven years from now, let him have an operation to install a new battery.”

I started to worry. Seven years? Would I remember that?

I don’t know about your country’s system. In Japan, we have to update our driver’s license every five or so years. The police stations send us postcards to remind us. If we own cars, we need to get car inspections every two years. The car companies call us when it is time. How about passports? No one informs me when I need to update my passport. I am not a good passport holder. I have forgotten to update my passport many times over the years.

I didn’t know whether pacemakers fell in the same category as driver’s licenses, car inspections, or passports. If I forgot about the need to change the battery after seven years, my father would die. It was very frightening.

I actually can’t remember how we solved the problem. I think it is possible my father passed away before the seventh year. On the other hand, he was hospitalized many times before he passed away. Perhaps the hospital remembered to change the battery. I don’t remember. I do know that he didn’t die due to a low battery. So we must have solved the problem somehow.

We should have a system that can send reminder messages to our future selves.

 

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Picture by Fukuchi Illustration Factory

 

Where Is the Original?

Let me tell you about an old Japanese animation: Lupin the 3rd: The Mystery of Mamo was released in 1978. I was eight. I watched the animation on TV and loved it. It was a large-scale and dynamic story. Historically famous people appeared in it. The characters moved around the world. Even the White House Chief of Staff appeared in it. It included scenes that were inappropriate for children. I mean erotic scenes and violent scenes. I was a child. So of course, I loved those scenes.

Let me introduce the story: Lupin’s enemy was Mamo. Lupin killed Mamo many times, but Mamo returned every time. Actually, the different Mamos were clones. In the climactic scene, Lupin thought he had burned the final Mamo to death. He assumed that that was the original Mamo. But then he found a small machine in the burned remains of his body. So he suspected that that was not the original. So where was the original? 　

By the way, I usually write about caregiving for my mother. You don’t know much about my experience as a caregiver for my father. It was actually harder than caregiving for my mother: He needed hemodialysis, he struggled to walk and to hear, and he was stubborn.

I’m not joking. His stubbornness was the most difficult aspect of caregiving for him. I was always afraid of him. I always needed to butter him up in order to start caregiving.

One day, he passed away. I had taken care of him for sixteen years, during which we had lived together. Those had been the most humiliating days of my life, and they had finally ended.

After the funeral, we moved to the crematorium. Then, following the cremation, we had a ceremony. The family members met his ashes and bones. I had already experienced this a few times. So, there should have been nothing to be surprised about. But there was.

There was a small burned machine in my father’s ashes. Why? I was confused. I imagined all sorts of possibilities. Then I remembered Lupin the 3rd: The Mystery of Mamo.

Suddenly, it hit me: Maybe my father was not dead! This might be one of his clones! Where was the original?

Actually, that wasn’t it. The machine in the ashes was his pacemaker. I had almost forgotten that my father had had some heart problems. He’d had to get a pacemaker. I had arranged for the operation a few years before. But that was my first time to see the pacemaker itself.

Ultimately, my father was not a clone. But a part of his body was a machine. So we could have called him a cyborg.

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Japanese

Picture by ikorch

My Mother Used to Say

 

 My mother used to say, “When you evaluate a person, you should not mind what the person usually says. Watch carefully how the person reacts when a negative thing happens.”

 My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

 My mother had a friend who was like a right-hand woman. Her husband is a professor at a university. She always said beautiful things.

 The day my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the right-hand woman and I were in the consulting room at the hospital with my mother.

 On the way from the hospital, the right-hand woman suddenly yelled at me. She verbally abused me. She took her anger out on me. For the next twenty years, she never helped with caregiving for my mother.

 I have an elder brother. He is three years older than me. He always said beautiful things. I told him that our mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He suddenly yelled at me. He verbally abused me. He took his anger out on me. For the next twenty years, he never helped with caregiving for our mother.

 I always say stupid things. But I never yelled at anyone, even when I knew my mother had Alzheimer’s disease. Anger should not be taken out on someone. From that day on, I lived with my mother for fourteen years. After that, I found a good nursing home. I commuted there every week for six years. I was the chief mourner. I built her grave.

 The right-hand woman and my elder brother were my mother’s favorite people. But I don’t know what they were doing while my mother was in crisis. Maybe they were busy saying beautiful things to do beautiful things.

Now, I am very happy that I almost lost contact with them.

 

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Japanese

Picture by Mono Abe