The Child with the Candle

I watched the movie 'Look Back'.

I'd been meaning to watch it when it came out, and I did.
I was a little surprised that the flow of emotions from the protagonist Fujino
touched on the joy and fulfillment, happiness, and loss and sadness I've experienced over the past two years.

Today marks the 19th day since my beloved cat Hayag suddenly left my side.

Back then
my small passion that was somehow trying to emerge
was beginning to fade away at some point in the world's cynicism,
when one day a child appeared around a corner holding a warm candlestick.

That child who had been hiding alone in the dark
gathered courage and came toward me with all their might

the embers of my dying life
with the small candlestick that child gave me
began to burn warmly again.

Every day, the moments I spent with that child were the happiest
and my fading life was filled with light and hope again.

If that child was by my side
I felt like I could overcome anything that came
and I felt like I could do anything.

That child expressed to me gratitude for pulling me out of the loneliness and darkness I was living in.
Every day, with all the strength they could, they expressed their love to me without reservation.

One day that child
had to stay somewhere I couldn't care for them
and in that place without me, that child left this world.
The choice to stay there was mine, not that child's,
so I was in such despair and regret. But I couldn't undo it.
That child was gone.

I felt like a ray of light in my life had disappeared.

At the moment that child's heart and breath stopped, how desperately they must have searched for me
how long they must have waited for me to run and hold them until the very end
I can't know for certain, but I can imagine.

The guilt of not protecting that child
weighs heavier on my breath
than the loss of losing that child.

Hayag.
If you hadn't met me back then
if you hadn't gathered courage and come toward me
through spring and summer and fall and the long winter
if you hadn't waited for me every day, and hadn't held both my hands every day
if we hadn't loved each other
if you hadn't set foot in this world that I led
wouldn't you be alive somewhere right now?
Wouldn't you have played freely and been more free and happy?

Because your life ended so early because of me
I will suffer for the rest of my life.
You who believed in me and loved me from beginning to end
I will miss you and be sorry to you and love you for the rest of my life.

I'm sorry I couldn't hold you tight in the moment you left.
I'm sorry I let you take your last breath trembling with fear in a strange place.

Until your very last moment
for you who must have desperately searched for me
I too, on any day and at any moment for the rest of my life
will remember you and call your name and search for you.

In return, whenever I think of you
I will smile as brightly as I can.
I will walk following your brave footsteps
that guided me from the bathroom to the bedroom every early morning.

Hayag,
I will make sure you live forever as the candlestick of my life.

Let's definitely meet again.