Fumiko

In 2006, my mother Fumiko died from lung cancer at the age of 47. I was in my last year of high school when she was first diagnosed, and she battled the illness for three years. Up to only a month before her death, I couldn’t conceive of the idea that she would succumb to cancer. I convinced myself that she would eventually defeat it, and be waiting at home for me again like before.

This hope was instantly swept away when I visited her at the hospital in February of that year. As I entered the room, I saw my mother sitting on her bed behind the curtain with a hanging head and a swollen face. I felt an electric shock run through my entire body. Fortunately, she didn’t notice me, so I ran into the bathroom to catch my breath and collect myself. I knew I couldn’t show her the shocked expression on my face, because that would make her realize that there wasn’t much time left for her. Even now, I can clearly remember the extraordinary nervousness I felt.

Following her death, I was overwhelmed with guilt. I had decided not to go home for the New Year’s holiday only three months before, instead choosing to stay in Tokyo with my friends. That somehow made it easier for me to believe that my mom would be all right.

My mom was a really joyful person who would laugh out loud a lot. On my way home from school, when I turned the corner from which I could see our house, I often heard her laughing at television shows. She was also sensitive and reacted strongly to what others thought of her. After having spent most of her life in a big city, I think she continuously struggled to adjust to our rural lifestyle.

When she drove, she always played foreign artists like Chaka Khan or Whitney Houston. Even though I never told her, I was secretly proud that she was listening to Western music in a countryside area as remote as ours.

When my mom was healthy she was very self-critical and uncertain about herself, but when she was fighting her illness she was confident and determined to win. After she lost all of her hair from radiation and wore a wig for the first time, she made fun of herself and laughed very hard, even though my father, sister and I were very concerned about how it might affect her. It seemed that being sick allowed my mom to become more mentally strong. However, while she tried to be positive and tough, her physical strength deteriorated day by day. I slept with her in her hospital room for the last three weeks. As she started slipping in and out of consciousness, one day she suddenly sat up in bed and said in a clear tone: “How about Japanese pancakes for dinner tonight?” It looked like she didn’t understand that her own death was approaching.

I had my camera with me in the hospital room, as I thought I might want to capture something from my last days with her. But after seeing cancer completely change her appearance, I worried that photographing her in that state would erase my earlier, healthier memories of her. I barely managed to touch my camera in those final days.

In 2017, my childhood home in Niigata was torn down due to damage that had never been properly repaired after the 2007 Chuetsu-Oki earthquake. I felt a void inside me. My mom had been gone for a decade by that time, and now the house where I had grown up with her was gone as well. When I visited the site the following year, only an empty lot remained. With nothing but grass and weeds blowing in the wind, it looked as if there had never been a house there at all.

A couple of years ago, I found an unfamiliar old metal cookie box in my grandparents’ house. It was full of negatives and photos from my mom’s childhood and early adulthood, as well as many images from the early years of my parents’ relationship before they got married. I had never seen those pictures before. As a photographer, I always had feelings of regret because I didn’t take pictures of my mother when she was alive. After the discovery of my mom’s old photos, I decided to make a book to serve as a composite portrait of her as seen through the memories she left behind.

We all experience the loss of loved ones. Accepting death and recovering from grief requires hard work. In my case, the feeling of disbelief that followed my mom’s death made me avoid thinking about her for a long time to protect myself from the pain. Until I decided to create this book, I always had a hard time remembering my mom when she was healthy and happy. As I retraced her memories while working on this project, I realized that her final painful period was only one small part of a larger life filled with joy. Despite the void inside me formed after the loss of my mom, I am now ready to go on living because I was finally able to recover the memories of her cheerful laughter and beautiful smile.

© Sayuri Ichida - Image from the Fumiko photography project
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The VHS filmed by my father shows a fragment of everyday scenery from my childhood. The visual of this video footage was endlessly repeating in my head while watching my mother dying.

© Sayuri Ichida - Image from the Fumiko photography project
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My mother's cause of death was lung cancer. She was 47. After a valiant two-year battle, it spread all over her body despite all efforts.

© Sayuri Ichida - Image from the Fumiko photography project
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My visit to my grandparents' house in 2018 led me to discover unfamiliar negatives and photos from my mother's childhood and early adulthood hidden in an old metal cookie box.

© Sayuri Ichida - My mother was a tomboy.
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My mother was a tomboy.

© Sayuri Ichida - She once told me that she didn't like her height because she was always taller than her male classmates.
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She once told me that she didn't like her height because she was always taller than her male classmates.

© Sayuri Ichida - Photographed by my father on their date before they got married.
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Photographed by my father on their date before they got married.

© Sayuri Ichida - Image from the Fumiko photography project
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I had a chance to visit my family house to photograph just before it got demolished. My mother spent most of her evening standing on this spot preparing dinner and washing dishes.

© Sayuri Ichida - Image from the Fumiko photography project
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This superimposed image was created by scanning two negatives together. My mother is showing a sleepy expression towards my father's camera. And the rose planted in front of our house by her kept growing after her death.

© Sayuri Ichida - My mother swimming in the sea on her honeymoon. And the scratch marks on the wall made by our dog.
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My mother swimming in the sea on her honeymoon. And the scratch marks on the wall made by our dog.

© Sayuri Ichida - Image from the Fumiko photography project
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Two years after my family house was demolished, I visited the place. The empty lot appeared to have been untouched, and it looked as if there had never been a house there at all.

© Sayuri Ichida - Image from the Fumiko photography project
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Senbazuru, the one thousand origami cranes, is believed to make one wish come true in Japan. People often make it to wish their loved ones to recover from their illness. Making Senbazuru all by myself helped me distract my mind from confusion and anxiety.

© Sayuri Ichida - The night felt much longer while staying in her hospital room.
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The night felt much longer while staying in her hospital room.

© Sayuri Ichida - Image from the Fumiko photography project
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This is the last picture of my mother taken when she was still alive. She had lost her sight and consciousness, so she was not seeing me. Her swollen face stole her familiar look away, but her eyes remained unchanged.

© Sayuri Ichida - Image from the Fumiko photography project
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Page 2. I’m writing to you from the hospital now, but I should be released by next week (around July 14th). It’s pretty much decided. I heard from Dad that you’re going to come home for the fireworks in Nagaoka? Send me a text and let me know when you’ll be back. When I get out of the hospital, I’ll give you a call on the way home. I’m still in pain, but nowhere near as bad as before. I can’t walk for a long time yet, but I’m working hard at rehab and getting better little by little! By the way, you might think that the color of this stationery is plain (don’t tell Kanako I said that), but I picked it because they said that Libra’s lucky color for today is beige. I can’t wait to see you when you come home. Until then, be careful not to catch a summer cold. You must be meeting all sorts of people in Tokyo. Please make sure to take good care of yourself. Love, Mom P.S. Today is the Star Festival. It takes me back to when we wrote down our Tanabata wishes and decorated the house with them…

© Sayuri Ichida - Image from the Fumiko photography project
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In this video footage, my mother fades out of the frame and moves behind the camera. It looks as if she is watching us from where she is now.

© Sayuri Ichida - Image from the Fumiko photography project
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I made a handmade artist book with this project through the photobook making master class organized by Reminders Photography Stronghold in Tokyo.

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