Hidemi's Rambling No.144

Japanese school year ends in March, and it’s the time for good-byes. I, for one, had my fair share of good-byes in March. It was March when I left my hometown. A few years before that, I saw my best teacher off crying at the train station, also in March. She was my homeroom teacher when I was a freshman in high school. I had never had so helpful, close teacher as her in my life. Every time I felt gloomy, she somehow sensed it and encouraged me. Whenever I was talking with my friends after class, she joined to hear my stories, which she really liked because she thought I was funny. She saved me from my otherwise dismal school days during the year. One day, I heard that she was going to transfer to a distant city. I had felt so sad from then on. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. One morning, I was walking to a train station for school as usual. Near the station, a steep slope led to a small bridge over a filthy, smelly, purple river from some factories. While I was walking on the slope toward the bridge, from nowhere, a song came to my mind. That was the first song I ever wrote and was about my teacher. At her farewell party, I sang my song with playing the guitar in front of people for the first time. Although I played and sang flawlessly, nobody applauded. Instead, everybody cried. My teacher was crying for the whole song. My first song was probably too sad for the occasion…