セピア色の写真 Sepia coloured pictures

セピア色の写真・・・・・
祖母の家のアルバムの写真です。

写っているのは、小さかった私の母と、私の叔母たち。母は2番目の女の子でした。
三人姉妹で、いつもおそろいの洋服を着ていました。
生地を祖父が買ってきて、祖母が縫ったそうです。

こうしてみると、私の息子・ぐーちゃんと、私の母と叔母たちの小さかった顔、どこか似ていて不思議で嬉しい気持ちがします。

祖母の髪型(ちょっぴりオードリー・ヘップバーン、サザエさん・・？)、ドレス、バスケット。手作りの服。
みんなレトロで可愛い・・。

三人姉妹のうち、母と妹は若くして癌で亡くなってしまいました。長女の叔母が私の母のようになってくれて、祖母と二人で母のようで、そのおかげで私は愛情たっぷりに育つことが出来ました。

祖父は当時植民地だった台湾で育ち、戦争中ニューギニアにいて、戦隊みんなが亡くなってしまった中、ジャングルをさまよい、虫を食べて生き延び、やせほそって日本に帰り着き、祖母のもとにすぐに会いに行ったそうです。
"僕のことを待っていてね"　とは一度も言われなかったそうだけど、真っ先に会いに来てくれて祖母は嬉しかったそうです。
"帰れないかもしれないのに待っていてねと言ったらかわいそうだと思ったから言えなかった・・"、と後で祖父は祖母に言ったそうです。
"あんまりやせていて気の毒だったからつい結婚しちゃったわ"　なんて言ってた祖母だけど、
同時に、この人とだったらトタン屋根の下で暮らしてもいい、って思ったのよ、とも言ってました。

私が小さい頃、祖父母の家に泊まりに行ったとき、戦車がくる！と大声でうなされていたのを覚えています。
何十年たっても、忘れられない悲惨な経験だったのだろうと幼心に感じたことを思い出します。

戦後、祖父は自分で会社をたて、いまは叔父が引き継いでいます。

私は小さな店、会社をいまやっているけれど、それでも大変なことはそれなりにあって、会社をたて従業員を雇い、発展させていく苦労はどんなだったろうと思います。

祖母いわく、若かったころお金がなくて、祖父はいつも同じネクタイをしていて、祖母が、"いつも同じでいいのー？"と聞いたら、
いいんだ、なんて堂々としてたそうです。
私は実の入ったジャムは買えないなあ、ってその頃は思ったのよ、と言う祖母。
でも若かったから出来たのよ、めぐちゃんも出来るわよ、なんて祖母は言ってくれます。


タイムスリップできるとしたら、私はこのときに行ってみたいな。

These sepia coloured pictures are from an album from my grand mother's home.
There are my mother who was a little girl. She was one of the three girls.
The sisters were always wearing clothes my grand mother has made. My grand father bought all the fabrics and she sew the little clothes and also her own.

I can see my baby boy Gustav looks quite a lot like my mother and my aunt, which makes me feel warm.

My grand mother's hair style (can see influence from Audrey Hepburn's movie :-)), her dress, basket, hand made clothes...all nostalgic..

Out of three sisters, my mother and the little sister passed away by cancer when they were young, when I was small. My grand father also passed away by cancer right before they passed away. It was the most difficult time for my grand mother and aunt and me.
But my aunt and grand mother has raised me up like mother and so I have been having lots of love and care.

My grand father has grown up in Taiwan (it was occupied by Japan back then when the world was dark by war) and went to war, fought in New Guinnean islands. All the soldiers in his troop died and he swam a river in jungle where the corps were covering. He ate insects in jungle and survived until the war ended.
He came back to Japan and to my grand mother.
He never told her to wait for him, and he later told her that he chouldn't do that as he knew he would most likely die so he didn't want to break her heart by making her wait for him forever.

She joked, "He was so thin and miserable when he came back so I felt sorry and married him"
but also told me "I felt happy with him even under the broken little shelter (they were living in Tokyo where there was a huge bomb attack)".

When I was small and visited grand father and grand mother's home, I remember at midnight grand father suddenly shouted "Oh no, they are coming! The tank is coming!" and panicking in nightmare.
I was sleeping next to my grand mother and she hugged me and said, "He has been seeing the nightmare sometimes like that all his life". I was very small but could feel what war has done to him.

He has built his own company and now my uncle is running the company.

I have my own little shop and company started from last year. It is a small company but I can imagine how much work he must have been through to run a company and have employees.

After the war everybody was poor and struggling and so were my grand parents.
He was wearing the same tie every day and she made all the clothes herself.
She says she could do that because she had hope and she was young.

If there are time machine, I wish I could visit them at the time of these pictures.