Taachan, where are you now? How are you doing these days?
       Are you alright?      
       You are not sick, are you?

       Since our mother found you missing while she was hospitalized, she had been feeling lonesome and searching for you.  As a traditional Meiji woman, she didn't verbalize her feelings, but she never forgot to pray to God (for your safe return).

Surely she believed you were still alive somewhere--- although there was no evidence--- perhaps it was a mother's hunch?

When we received the reports of the abduction from a North Korean eyewittness, 33 years after your disapearance, she said with a calm but smiling face in tears "Taachan must have gone through a very hard time."

Our mother had been telling us that her life would be only one more year or so.  Please remember.  Our mother was so nice and sweet, was'nt she? 

Whether she felt at ease with her stronger belief that you were alive, or she fell ill from the cold weather, within 3 months she lost all her energy and was taken to heaven.

For one month before her death, she kept saying impatiently "Time is running out. Time is running out" at the regret of not being able to see you any more.

It has been one year and three months since she passed away. I still feel sorry that I was unable to protect her alive.

Please hurry back home to say "Mother, I am home now!"  I'm waiting for you to come home soon.