There is a slightly unusual bond in my family.
When I was born, my mother’s mother—my grandmother—had already passed away.
But my grandmother’s younger sister lived right next door, and for my mother, she was like her real mother.
My mother was an only child, yet my grandmother’s sister had children of her own—people I call my uncle and aunt—and my mother grew up with them like siblings.
That relationship was passed down to me as well.
My uncle’s and aunt’s children felt less like cousins and more like brothers and sisters.
At the center of this family—bound not by blood but by the time we lived together—was my grandmother’s sister.
For a long time, I believed that the final chapter of the woman I called “Grandma” was a battle against hunger.
She spent her last days in a hospital.
Her strength had faded, her muscles weakened, and she was bedridden due to osteoporosis.
On top of that, she had difficulty swallowing, so she was forbidden to eat and survived only through an IV drip.
One day, when I visited her, she said, “Could you buy me a daifuku?”
I was about to go when a nurse stopped me.
“She might choke. Please don’t give her any food.”
Another time she asked for a Yakult.
Thinking it would be safe, I tried to buy one, but again the nurse stopped me.
Even Yakult was dangerous.
If she choked, it could truly be life-threatening.
She could no longer turn over in bed.
She had nothing she could do, yet her mind was clear, and she was constantly hungry.
When I imagined how long she had been enduring that state, my heart ached.
Unable to move, unable to eat—just hunger, endlessly.
It weighed heavily on me.
And I realized that my own final days could be like that too.
After she passed away, when all of us—siblings and cousins—gathered for the funeral, I decided to make a pact for my own end-of-life.
Me: “I’m the oldest among us, so if things go in order, I’ll probably be the first to die. If I ever end up like Grandma in the hospital, no matter what the nurses say, please buy me a daifuku.”
At first they laughed, thinking I was joking.
But I was serious.
Me: “Don’t worry about me choking. I won’t blame you. If the choice is between suffering from hunger or choking to death, I’d rather choke. So please—promise me.”
Cousins: “Uh… maybe you should ask your son?”
Me: “…Right.”
Of course.
Even I couldn’t secretly bring food to Grandma.
No one could.
Doing so would cause serious trouble for the hospital.
“Being kept alive by an IV while fighting hunger”
and
“Ending your life with the comfort of eating something you love”
If you ask which is happier, the answer seems obvious.
But in medical settings,
“the risk of aspiration,”
“policies on life-prolonging treatment,”
“questions of responsibility”—
these rules take priority for the sake of safety.
Medical rules are necessary to protect people.
But they cannot always coexist with a person’s small, personal happiness.
Both the medical rules and the desire to feed someone come from kindness.
No one is wrong, yet no one can be saved.
What word captures this feeling?
Helplessness?
Futility?
The limits of being human?
Medicine protects safety, but it cannot save every small wish.
Even family cannot fulfill certain desires.
It isn’t anger—just the quiet limits of what family can do.
The body has limits too:
wanting to eat but being unable to,
wanting to live but being unable to.
No one is at fault, yet no one can be saved.
And we must carry that helplessness in our hearts as we go on living.
When I brought a daifuku to place on Grandma’s altar, I found several already there.
Everyone must have heard the same request from her.
I still dream about her sometimes.
In those dreams, we siblings are students again, and the whole family is eating together.
During summer vacations, my aunt’s family from Tokyo would come home, and we would travel together or have barbecues in front of the house.
We had so many meals together.
Those were happy times.
Maybe, back then, Grandma wasn’t hungry at all.
Maybe she just wanted to eat together with us.
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