“Living record” of an editor who got cancer in his 40s February 19th 15:54

What would you do if you had only a few months left to live? Last fall, a book was published by a small publisher.

Those days, even though I was busy with work, I was filled with a sense of fulfillment. Time spent with family and friends. My casual daily life made me ask myself the meaning of life.

"The longest is 2 months, the shortest is 1 month"

Someday, in the not-so-distant future, I'll probably die. Until the end, I want to keep hold of my own meaning of life and look at what life demands of me.

(Excerpts from ``Remembering 1908 Days of a Single Publisher Who Got Cancer in His 40s'')

Rintaro Okada passed away on July 3rd last year (age 45). I started interviewing Mr. Okada in late October. He was actively writing books even though he was suffering from terminal cancer.

Mr. Okada has loved books since he was young, and after graduating from university, he got a job at a publishing company that handles specialized books such as history and literature. He wrote many books with war themes and served as company president in his mid-30s.

However, in the year he turned 40, he decided to give up his position as president and start a publishing company, wanting the freedom to create books that focused on anonymous everyday people. "Mizuki Shorin Co., Ltd." Even though we were a one-man publisher with no employees, we continued to produce books energetically.

An unexpected challenge awaited Mr. Okada. September 2021, 43 years old. He was diagnosed with stage 4 scirrhous stomach cancer.

He fought his illness for a while while working, but in the fall of the following year he became ill and was hospitalized. Although he was able to be discharged from the hospital a month later, his doctor told him that he only had two months to live, at most one month.

Mr. Okada gave up all his previous jobs and prepared to die peacefully with his wife and friends. However, while spending time with his wife at his home, Mr. Okada miraculously regained his strength, and a fellow editor came up with a proposal.

"Would you like to write a book?" Mr. Okada had been writing a blog for five years since founding his solo publishing company. I thought about writing a book based on that blog, looking back on those days and adding to what I was thinking and feeling now.

The origin is a book

There is a reason why Mr. Okada decided to write a book based on his blog. It was the first book he wrote after becoming independent.

``Marshall, His Father's Battlefield'' is a diary of a former Japanese soldier who starved to death in the Marshall Islands during the Pacific War.

The main character of the book is Private First Class Tomigoro Sato. As he ran out of food and was unable to move, he continued to write in his diary until the day before his death, thinking of the family he had left behind in Japan.

He was a Japanese soldier who tried to leave something behind until his death. The living record of a man whose name will never be etched into history struck a deep chord in Okada's heart as he began to realize his death.

Mr. Okada

: ``I find the strength of the spirit in continuing to write fascinating.I think there is some value in the fact that someone who is about to die was thinking something like this.''

The meaning of life, the record of living

His first and last book, ``Remembering,'' begins in the early days of his independence, when he was anxious but full of passion and excitement.

On August 23, 2018

, I published four books. Well, to the outside observer, a small publishing company started up and published four books with a small number of copies, but for the person who was doing it, it was a great adventure.

The following is written in a review of this time:

I can vividly remember the excitement, fun, and anxiety of those days. Every day I was reminded of just how interesting work can be.

Mr. Okada looked back on a moment from his casual daily life and wrote about how precious it was.

August 14, 2019

While working, I make beer stew of beef in the kitchen. At the edge of my field of vision, as I complete urgent tasks, I see a pot bubbling away.

Looking back on this time, I wrote...

An ordinary everyday scene. I no longer remember this day. But I remember many days like this. Nowadays, I no longer work while cooking. When I read about everyday scenes like this, I feel like tears are about to fall.

Mr. Okada

: ``My ordinary daily life is written down, and when people read it, they feel that a person with no connection to me lives like this and dies like this, and I'm moved by it.'' I would be very happy if you could do that.”

What I have achieved in life

Late April last year. Mr. Okada, who had been writing smoothly that day, started to worry. While I was filming myself writing, my hands suddenly stopped typing on the keyboard. "I can't think of anything!"

A few days later, in front of his cousin Takuya and his wife Yuko, who came to visit him, Mr. Okada began to talk about his feelings.

Mr. Okada

: ``When you realize that you're about to die, you feel like there's something more that makes you feel alive, and you wonder what you've been holding on to (in life).There's something more inside of you.'' I wonder if that's the case.''

Yuko, who had witnessed Mr. Okada's determination from close quarters, spoke to him.

Yuko

: "I guess it's like this because I feel like I can grab it, but I can't. It's getting close, I'm sure. It's almost there."

What do you want to leave behind with this book? What have I achieved so far? I looked back on my life and struggled to find the answer.

Mr. Okada, who continues to write, has regained enough strength to forget about his life expectancy. But she also suffered from worsening medical conditions, including blood in her urine and nausea.

Even amid all this, I never stopped thinking about the meaning of life. Around this time, I finished reviewing the original blog that I had excerpted for her writing. From here on, I will not be looking back on it, but will be posting the blogs I have written since then.

May 6, 2023

Everyone has their own life history. In many cases, it seems like a very small and personal thing, but in reality, the essence of being alive may lie in that small privateness.

Five days later, he wrote about his "meaning of life."

May 11, 2023

You must determine the meaning of your life in this one-off, individual life scene. I have a job I want to do. There are relationships that I want to cherish. These two things provide me with the meaning of life.

May 29th last year. Mr. Okada felt a strong pain in his abdomen and rushed to the hospital. On this day, she is forced to choose whether to undergo a risky surgery to relieve her pain.

While surgery may cause complications, I cannot continue writing my book if I am in pain.

After consulting with his girlfriend, Yuko, and her parents, Okada finally decided to undergo surgery.

The surgery was successful. However, the disease was taking its toll on Mr. Okada, and on July 3, one month after being hospitalized, he passed away.

Someone's life becomes someone else's food

Three months later. The completed book was delivered to Yuko. A black title on a pure white cover. In the right corner are the words Rintaro Okada. Tears were in Yuko's eyes as she gently picked it up with a smile on her face. The first edition was published in 1000 copies and sold in bookstores and on the Internet.

A postscript I wrote in my hospital room the last time I was hospitalized. This is how I ended my life at the age of 45.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been involved in my life. Thanks to her, I had a fun and fulfilling life.

How did the record of Okada's life reach readers? He looked for people who had read the book and visited them. Masaaki Takeuchi (55), who works in the publishing industry, learned of Okada's book through an acquaintance.

After reading Mr. Okada's book, he felt the power of a book written about the life of a person who is not a celebrity, especially in this day and age when news about wars and disasters continues.

Takeuchi

: ``In a world where we tend to translate everything into numbers, we have to remember that this is not the case, and perhaps books like this or diary can help us think about such things.'' It might be something.”

Takuya Abe (45) found this book on the Internet and became interested because the author was from the same generation as him.

Mr. Okada, who has been steadily researching weeds for over 20 years, overlaps with Mr. Okada, who created the book with an eye on ordinary people.

Abe

: ``While I believe that living is an accumulation of things, I feel like the book really gave me a boost or encouraged me to be more proactive about what I'm doing.'' Yes, there is.”

On the day he passed away, Mr. Okada...

One year and four months have passed since I decided to interview Mr. Okada, but there is one moment that still sticks in my mind. After Mr. Okada was admitted to the hospital in May, which ended up being his last hospitalization, it became difficult to photograph Mr. Okada himself.However, through his wife, Yuko, Mr. Okada contacted me and said that he would be doing an interview. .

I made an appointment to meet him the next day, and I was so excited that I would finally meet him. However, at dawn that day, Mr. Okada passed away.

Why was Mr. Okada willing to spare every minute of his time to interview me in his final moments? I believe that he believed that by recording and leaving behind a record of how he lived to the fullest until his death, it might someday provide some kind of sustenance to someone else's life.

This is a record of the life of one person, Rintaro Okada, who responded to the interview with such determination. I just hope that through this record, something will reach you who are living today.

(Broadcast on "Good Morning Japan" on February 4th)

Image Center Photographer

Kosuke Mitsuhashi

Joined in 2014

After working at the Fukuoka, Nagasaki, and Osaka stations, he

has been in his current position since 2022. He points his camera at various places and covers the theme of "people."