Letter to you ── from your mother

This message is from a mother who was suddenly kicked out of her home one day and torn apart from her beloved child. Her message cannot be delivered now, but she wrote it in the hope that one day these feelings will reach her son.

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To my beloved son

How are you doing?

Are you eating?

Are you sleeping well?

Are you laughing from the bottom of your heart?

I couldn’t stop crying every day since I was separated from you that day. Many years have passed, but I have many memories of shopping trips, playing at the park, and seeing you at kindergarten, but not a single day has gone by that I have forgotten you.

On the day of the visit, I saw you for the first time in a year and realized that you had grown taller and older, and that the year had been too long for me not to see your growth up close.

I know that your desperate need to make a place for yourself and the words of the adults around you forced you to say things that hurt me even if you didn’t want to. It hurt my heart to see you say so many words that I didn’t want to say. I am so sorry, I was just so weak.

I am fighting so hard so that I can spend happy days with you again.

But it is not so easy in this world, and it is taking longer than I thought.

Please don’t forget about your mother, and I will come for you someday, so please wait for me.

I love you.

From your mother.

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Surprisingly, in Japan, there is virtually no substantial remedy for this kind of forced separation of parent and child, and serious human rights violations are left unchecked. The suffering of being forced to leave their homes with nothing but their clothes on and not even being allowed to see their children. This memoir appeals to the heartbreaking reality of parents and children left behind in the cracks of the system. Please know that there are parents and children suffering the same pain at this very moment.

Note :
In Japan, the child’s privacy is carefully protected because a sole custodial parent can claim that a third party, including the non-custodial parent, has violated the child’s privacy, which may result in civil or criminal liability.