Sunday 3 April 2011

Bag black hole?

It's vanished.
The bag. Gone and will probably never be seen again.
Yujiro went yesterday on the Big Bag Hunt - checking at the lunchbox shop and the drycleaners near our old apartment.
Yes, Okaasan had been in the day before looking for her bag.
Yes, she'd been in 2 days before shopping/bringing in dry cleaning.


Nobody knows anything about a bag.
There was no request to "keep my bag while I go to another shop".
All a blank.
The dry cleaning shop staff said they'd even gone WITH Okaasan to a few local shops to try and help her find the bag! Japan is like that, people will actually leave their business counter and come down the street with you if they think you need help. It's amazing.


And so. She lost it somewhere on her Thursday outing. But she doesn't know where, and in her mind this story of leaving it for a while at the lunchbox shop took form.
So. We aren't mentioning the bag again, unless she does. 
She seemed happier at dinner yesterday, ate a lot and responded to chat about food and sports teams donating money.
Maybe she has already forgotten the bag? Or maybe the topic is lurking just beneath the surface, ready to pop out again when she is stressed about something.
The bag itself is no big deal. Like all Japanese woman Okaasan has a VAST array of bags. It's some kind of obsession here. She probably had 20 bags of all shapes and sizes. And you can always buy more gloves.


But it's HER feeling from this loss that is unknown. That is something we watch for. Her disappointment and frustration about losing something, which somehow has become entrusting another person with it - and now it's gone....



3 comments:

  1. that's disappointing. is it possible she never took it with her? like it's somewhere in her room? that happens sometimes at the home... just an idea.... but those incidents will increase & must be really frustrating for okaasan and others like her...

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  2. Hard to say...and SHE doesn't know.

    She has so many of these little nylon/cotton bags with flowers and anime characters on them.
    But when she came back from the trip out Thursday I think she actually telephoned Yujiro before she got home and said she'd lost it at the shop....so the "lost" part of the story is probably accurate.
    But what bag and where - who knows!

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  3. I wonder if my mum will slowly get like this. Although I know mum's illness is more aggressive and things will happen faster it just seems so sad. Probably more for the people around? than the person themselves? Is that true? From your posts Okaasan doesn't appear to stay too upset over things or her flailing memory.

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