Canon's Diary

June 28th, Saturday. A perfectly clear day. When I woke up, it was already past 9:00. A week’s worth of fatigue had hit me all at once, and I had overslept. I had an appointment at the psychiatric clinic at 9:30, so I jumped out of bed and hurried to get ready. In the kitchen, I found some rice balls. My wife must have made them for me before leaving for work. I was in a rush, so that small kindness really helped.

As I was scrambling to get ready, the contractors for our house repairs arrived. That’s right—today they were continuing the work that had been halted by rain on Monday. I exchanged a quick greeting with them, left the rest to my mother, and got in the car.

The summer sun was dazzling. Even the once soft, fresh green leaves seemed to be wilting a bit under the relentless sunlight. On June 27th, it was announced that the rainy season had ended unusually early across much of western Japan. The height of summer was just around the corner.

I parked at the usual coin-operated lot near Tsukushino Station on the Den-en-toshi Line and headed into the clinic. There, slightly overgrown goldcrests and hydrangeas that had turned a summer green welcomed me.

I’ve been coming here since 2012. Unlike most modern clinics, this one was converted from the second floor of a private two-family home. What was probably once the living room now had long benches and served as the waiting room and reception, while the kitchen on the south side had been turned into the consultation room. So the sink and stove were still there, unused but kept perfectly clean. When the doctor called me in, sunlight poured through the south-facing window, gently illuminating my physician. She’s a woman in her late seventies, with white hair and a white coat that suit her kind face perfectly. When I first started coming here, I was still emotionally unstable and probably caused her some trouble with my erratic talk. But these days, it’s mostly just casual chatting before I leave.

“How have you been feeling lately?”

“Well, in April my company ordered me to start working alone in Osaka. But since I also had to take care of my father, I agreed on the condition that I could come back to Tokyo for about half the month. But then, just as I started living in Osaka, my father passed away on May 11th… I rushed back to Tokyo, and with the funeral, inheritance paperwork, and name changes, it was really overwhelming. They gave me a week of bereavement leave, but that was nowhere near enough. It took about a month from filing the death report to completing the removal from the family registry. After the funeral on May 18th, I returned to Osaka for work, then came back to Tokyo on June 20th. I worked remotely here until Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday, I took days off to gather and submit necessary documents at the ward office. There’s still a ton left to do—handling bank and postal inheritance procedures, filing for life insurance payouts, and switching my father’s pension over to a survivor’s pension for my mother at the pension office. To have my mother inherit my father’s house, we’ll also need to go to the Legal Affairs Bureau, which seems to involve quite a bit of paperwork and multiple visits. Since there’s nothing more we can do this week, I’ll come back again during the week of July 20th to continue.”

“That sounds quite exhausting. How’s your health? You’re not feeling stressed or anxious with so much to handle?”

“Fortunately, my condition seems stable now. As long as I have my medication, I don’t really feel stressed. It’s true that being away from the company so much might not look good to my boss, but I’ve reached a point where I can just accept that some things are beyond my control. If anything, I’m more worried about my mother being alone and depressed, and the burden it places on my wife, who’s been helping care for her. I wish I could come back to Tokyo more often, but since our head office is in Osaka, that’s hard to do.”

“I see. So it’ll be a while before things settle down. But I’m glad your condition is stable. Your mother was here the other day too, and she seemed happy that her relationship with your wife had improved.”

“Yes, I think it’s gotten better. My wife sometimes cooks for my mother, it seems.”

“That’s wonderful. I’ll prescribe your usual medication. Please take care.”

She really is a kind doctor. But since she’s getting older, she told me she plans to close the clinic by the end of this year. It’s sad, but I’ll have to find a clinic that can handle my prescriptions both in Tokyo and Osaka. I wish I could continue seeing her a little longer.

I got back in the car and drove to the pharmacy, which is attached to a drugstore near my house. After parking and checking in at the counter:

“I’m sorry, it’s a bit busy today, so it’ll take about 40 minutes to prepare your medicine.”
“Oh, that’s fine. I’ll do some shopping next door in the meantime.”

Inside the drugstore, I bought some carbonated water and two boxes of powdered sports drink you mix with water. I’d looked for these at supermarkets in Osaka but couldn’t find them, so I was glad to pick them up here. At just 250 yen for five liters’ worth, it’s much cheaper than buying bottled drinks. It’ll be an essential item for tennis in this season. Before long, my medicine was ready, and I picked it up. I’d left the contractors to my mother, which made me a little uneasy, so under the blazing sun, I hurried back home.