Two Deaths, Two Kinds of IKIGAI: My Beloved Mother and Father Part 1: My Mother

In 2014, I was with my mother in her final moments. Ten years later, I was there for my father. After he passed, I decided to let go of the apartment that had been our family home.

I was around 20 when we moved into that apartment. I remember my mother being so happy, saying, "I'm finally free from the exhausting neighborhood relationships of the housing complex."

The four of us—my father, my mother, my younger brother, and I—lived there together for about five years.

First, I moved out. Then, my brother started living on his own. A few years later, my mother passed away, leaving my father to live there alone at the end.

I wonder if that apartment was quietly watching over our family the whole time, as we changed shape and eventually went our separate ways.

Back in our housing complex days. When my brother was born.

My mother was struck by an incurable disease when she was 55. She lived for another 10 years, constantly in and out of the hospital.

One day, on our way back from the hospital, we stopped together at a long-standing hat shop in the hilly area of Kobe. My mother bought a deep purple hat adorned with flowers.

As we walked side by side, with me carrying the elegant box, my mother said to me, "Buying something like this... I guess I still want to live, don't I?"

Over the next few years, I don't know how many times she actually wore that hat out.

Even so, as her body and her destiny grew weaker year by year, day by day, she never cursed her fate or complained. She was always smiling, just like a young girl.

Even when she needed a cane, and eventually a wheelchair, she still loved good food. She would look at newspaper ads or TV shopping channels and order local delicacies online.

Whenever I went out, she would ask me things like, "Can you buy some pork buns from Shikairo?" or "Please get some mitarashi dango from Asahido."

The mitarashi dango from Asahido that my mother loved so much. I even put them in her casket.

Even after she became mostly bedridden at home, our mornings would start with her requests: "I think I'll have a fried egg today."

And in the days right before she passed, getting text messages from her hospital bed saying, "Make some dashimaki (rolled omelet) and bring it to me"—

It reassured me. It made me think, "Ah, my mother is still here." I remember feeling a sense of relief.

But just a few days later, "I don't need dashimaki anymore." That became her final message to me.

After she could no longer eat dashimaki, the last thing she tasted was... a melon, perhaps? Or a peach? She gently refused what was brought to her lips, said faintly, "I've had enough," and closed her eyes, slipping into sleep or perhaps a coma.

After that, there were only a few harsh days leading toward death.

Up until that very moment, my mother never once uttered a single word of complaint. She never said, "It hurts," or "I'm suffering." She just smiled, ate the things she found delicious, and said, "Thank you."

Even when there was barely any life left in her body, as I pushed her wheelchair, she would say to me, "Look, there are flowers blooming over there."

Who were those words really for, I wonder?

Even while feeling her own death approaching, even within the closed, white space of a hospital room, my mother kept finding something right in front of her—something delicious, something beautiful.

I don't know if that was my mother's "IKIGAI" or not. But there is one thing I can say for sure: my mother was a genius at feeling "IKIGAI."

Ten years later, when my father passed away, I placed that hat she bought into his casket. Right beside the hands of my father, dressed in his suit, along with Asahido's mitarashi dango.

Perhaps in heaven, she is with my father again, occasionally bickering, but saying things like, "This is delicious," or "Oh, look, flowers are blooming."

As for me, for a little while longer, no matter what happens, as long as I have this body on earth, I will keep finding "delicious things" and "beautiful things."

Just like my mother.

My mother and father. At their wedding.

Watching how my mother lived, I've come to realize something. "IKIGAI" isn't about achieving something great, or constantly being useful to others.

It is simply about enjoying and cherishing the life right in front of you, and the self that is able to feel it.

It is by no means something special or luxurious. It is something small, modest, something that might seem insignificant. Something so ordinary that it easily fades from view.

Yet, it is exactly in that "something" that we are kept alive. Right to the very end. If only we could realize that...

IKIGAI is not something to be sought far away, nor is it something to be polished through rigorous training.

Just by knowing that it is simply here—that it has always been here— we begin to see that the ordinary is a miracle, and that there is no such thing as a "today" that is exactly the same as "yesterday."

No matter where you are or what you are doing, your very own, unique "IKIGAI" will begin to bloom from right there.

As long as family is there, and we are smiling, that is enough.

Next time, I will write about my father's IKIGAI after losing my mother.

If you ever feel like "I don't know what my IKIGAI is"... It might not be that you haven't found it yet. It might just be scattered in your heart, still unable to be put into words.

While some people can naturally savor their IKIGAI, others begin to notice it by stopping, laying it all out, and taking a good look.

"Delicious," "Beautiful," "I love this"— The [IKIGAI MAP], a visual collage of the small treasures found in daily life, serves as a "map" and a "compass" for living "your greatest happiness."

It's not about drawing up "future dreams" or "goals" and achieving them. It's about feeling the "IKIGAI that is right here, right now," bringing it out, and gazing at it.

How about joining friends from all over the world to host an [IKIGAI MAP Workshop]—which is being held all across Japan and the globe?

The IKIGAI MAP Facilitator Training Course will be held this spring. What's more, this time the instructor is Inami Akita, CEO of Hifumi Coach Inc.! I, Ai, living in Vancouver, Canada, and Rie, a professional coach living in Shanghai, are also planning to join.

Won't you come learn with us?

Looking forward to meeting you. With love. Ai About the Writer | Ai Funato

Aiming for a "world where all life expresses and circulates love and talents"—ultimately, a "world without money." In July 2024, I shifted my focus from Business to Giveness.

• "Offer the highest value I can give right now, for free."

• "Ask for help when I need it."

• "Never try to change others."

Through these three simple principles, how will I and the world around me change? I am currently enjoying a real-life human experiment to find out.

My titles here on Earth include: Copywriter, Coach, Festival Organizer for the Hifumi / IKIGAI Village, and Operations Team for WorldShift WA-charabo!

If you'd like to play together on this beautiful planet, connect with me here.