Dr. Takeshi Yoro, a MD, human anatomist, and essayist, has been writing on a wide variety of topics these days. I was already his fan even before the publication of one of his best sellers” Wall of Fools” (“Baka no Kabe”, Shincho Shinsho 2003). For example, I was quite inspired by his book “Yuinoron (cerebro-centrism) ” for his unique and creative viewpoint on human mind. He was one of the instructors of human anatomy class when I was in medical school in Tokyo University a long time ago, but I never knew that he would turn out to be such a popular author.
Now I would like to quote one of his personal episodes that he discussed at length in his new book” Wall of Death”(“Shi no Kabe”Shincho Shinsho, 2004) in which he discussed the death of his father that he experienced in his childhood.
‘My father died when I was 4 years old. That is my oldest memory. He was suffering from tuberculosis. It was in the middle of the night when he passed away and I was very sleepy. At his bedside, I was told by one of my relatives to say good-bye to my father, but I couldn’t do so. My father then smiled at me, coughed up some blood, and passed away.’
‘In my childhood, I was a little always shy and I couldn’t greed with my neighbors very well. As far as the death of my father, I remembered it often, but it was not until in my thirties that I finally accepted that fact. Perhaps it was because I happened to attend wakes and funerals of some of my relatives around that time, which triggered the reminiscence of the death of my father.’
One day when I was riding the subway, it suddenly occurred to me that there is a connection between my difficulty greeting and the death of my father. I realized vividly the death of my father for the first time in my life, and I began sobbing while still riding the subway. I had been thirty years since my father passed away. I couldn’t realize his death until that moment. I knew it, but unconsciously I was denying it.’
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