The first time was when he was two. A bout of pneumonia had given him a fever of nearly forty degrees and a persistent cough. Nowadays, pneumonia is no longer difficult to recover from. Thanks to medical advances, there are now effective antibiotics that will knock it on the head. Today, it is common medical knowledge that the main causes of pneumonia for young children are bacteria, viruses, and mycoplasma, and there are clear methods of treatment for each.

Back then, however, it was not uncommon for a doctor to simply say, “There is nothing else I can do. Now it’s up to your son.” In Yukio’s case, they didn’t know that his pneumonia was bacterial, and when his high fever and severe coughing continued, the doctor said, “Hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”

The second time he almost drowned. He had been playing at the river’s edge when he was seven. Miraculously, on that occasion, he was revived after both his breathing and heart had stopped. The person who found him had fortuitously worked for the local fire and ambulance station and had the ability to administer life-saving CPR immediately. Kinuyo had been at the river with him, but it all happened in a second when she had taken her eyes off him.

The third time was a road accident when he was ten. While riding his brand-new bike, he was rammed by a car that had ignored the traffic lights. The impact sent him flying right in front of Kinuyo’s eyes. He was thrown almost thirty feet and had to be carted off in an ambulance with multiple injuries to his whole body. He was on the brink of death but luckily his head was unscathed, and he miraculously regained consciousness.

Parents can’t prevent their child from getting ill, being injured, or having an accident. On all three occasions, Kinuyo nursed him without sleep or rest until he recovered. Apart from toilet breaks, she never left his side, holding his hand in both of hers as if she were praying. Her husband and parents were worried that she would burn herself out and urged her to rest, but she wouldn’t listen. A parent’s love for their child is bottomless. Their children remain children, no matter how old they grow. For Kinuyo, that feeling never changed, even when Yukio left home on his quest to become a celebrated potter.