This report was written in an English writing class during summer school one year. For me, listening to the foreign teachers' English was more difficult than writing. However it was a stressful and fulfilling time. The content is about my mother's love for her ex-husband who died in Second World War.
Second World War was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In Japan many soldiers never returned home. They couldn't reunite with their parents, wife, children and loved ones. They loved someone despite a severe time. There were various forms in love. A woman, Eiko, who lived in war lost her husband. She grieved her misfortune when her husband's death. She was drinking to distract herself from being sad. However, Even if she is mentally and financially difficult, she would keep loving her husband. Thanks to continuing to love her husband, She was able to overcome many difficulties. She had a checkered career, keep loving her husband forever.
Eiko was usually smooth, silent, and patient. She spoke softly or lovingly so she was popular with everybody. However, she had a drinking problem. She was a heavy drinker. She became another person when she was drunk so used violent language against the people around her. One day there was such a thing. She was out at her cousin’s wedding ceremony. When it was evening, the sky had a grown dark and began to snow heavily. She still didn’t come home at the scheduled time. Then her children picked her up relative’s house, but she wasn’t there. She was missing. They searched for her together although she wasn’t anywhere to be found. When they resigned themselves to search for her, they saw something that looked like a small mound covered snow. Her children wiped the snow away. She had passed out from drinking too much. She was about to freeze to death, but she was helped by them. The real reason she drinks was to distract herself from the sadness of her husband's death.
Eiko had a husband but he was killed in the Second World War in 1943. His remains were never returned to her. They married in 1940 and had a child in 1942. Her husband was dispatched with troops to the Battle of Guadalcanal. Several decades later she felt deep sorrow at his death and couldn’t give him up. On 24 January 1972, news came in that Shoichi Yokoi who was the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War was discovered in the jungles of Guam. The news shocked her very much. She thought possibly her husband may still be living somewhere and she was waiting impatiently for him to return. Then she would pick him up at a railway station on the outskirts of the village. She was fully expecting him to come home but he never appeared. She would keep loving him forever. When Eiko was 21 years of age, her husband died in the war at age 22 but she remained hopeful that he might one day return to her.
Eiko was 20 years old in 1940. Japanese people drove the war. Women were no exception. She various activities such as sewing senninbari (a cotton belt with a thousand red stitches), seeing off soldiers, donating money earned from collecting and selling waste materials. Also she engaged in farming . There were food shortages in Japan. Thanks to she lived country side, she had blessing nature such as mulberry, silverberry, akebi, walnut and chestnut. This year she got married Kumao who lived in the neighborhood so she was so happy but had uneasy feeling under the war. One day, she had a high temperature and her husband took her to the hospital in a bicycle-drawn cart. When the cart which she laid started to move, she felt pain because of a gravel road with pebbles although. However, the pain was mild than a penicillin. In winter, her husband made a skis with hiiragi trees and she enjoyed skiing with her husband. Despite the though times, she had a great time with her family.
Eiko was a heavy drinker since she lost her husband. She changed her personality after drinking. She was also in danger of death under the influence of alcoohol. However she was always so sweet, smart and popular. She got married in 1940 and a baby was born in 1942. When a new stage in her life had just begun, her husband was drafted in to the army and was slain in the Battle of Guadalcanal. On 24 January 1972, Japanese Army Shoichi Yokoi was discovered in the jungles of Guam. She was upset to hear the news. She was convinced that her husband was alive somewhere. Her heart pounded at the future excitement. She waited for her husband to return and would meet him at a railway station. However her husband never was there. Still she continued to love him forever.