A message arrived from a friend who set off for heaven yesterday.

My heartfelt thanks and condolences to the family who passed this message on.


It read something like this.

I won’t say goodbye.

Because it made me happy.

Because it was fun.

Because I was glad of it.

The cancer came back, and I have fought it for three years now, but it seems it has beaten me this time. Well — I suppose that’s fate too.

(… omitted …)

From here I will cheer everyone’s happiness on with everything I have, from up there.

But our souls stay connected for ever, so I won’t say goodbye.

“A life can do anything, given passion and courage.”

That is what this life has taught me.

Everyone — carry that passion and courage, and go for your dreams!!

What you can do to live a life with no regrets

Among the words in that message was “because I was glad of it”. This death gave me, again, time to face what a life is.

I have lived my own life facing death from early childhood, so thinking about the moment I die has always been a large part of it for me.

People often told me I was “rushing through life”, but to me that simply meant living without regret.

Everyone dies eventually. Without exception, that moment comes for all of us. Being ready for it, whenever it comes, is not complicated. It is simple.

  • Put what you feel into words.
  • Do not put off what you wanted to do — take the step.
  • Go and see the people you want to see, however far, however long it takes.

Is thinking about death taboo?

There is a tendency in this world to treat thinking about death as taboo.

But these days, with a word like “ending activities” now current even in Japan, more people seem to be growing conscious of their own death and getting ready for it.

Even time spent in despair is a waste

My reply to the message he left me:

“I’m right in the middle of a challenge, carrying passion and courage right now … you know, listen …”

There is so much I want to tell him, and it can no longer reach him.

But right now, carrying cancer, I am heading towards a challenge I have staked my life on.

It is precisely because I have this challenge that I have not fallen to the bottom of despair.

Precisely because there is a challenge in front of me that makes even time spent in despair feel like a waste,
I feel that I absolutely will not, and cannot, let this chance go.

So that a society where anyone who feels like acting
is actually able to act

becomes real, I keep driving.