Words of wisdom to guide youth through life

The "cherry blossom front" and the season's first sightings of singing skylarks--both harbingers of spring--are moving up from south to north. In this season of the "relay of life," two schoolteachers who are battling serious illnesses are imparting messages about life to students who are graduating this spring.

The Osaka edition of The Asahi Shimbun recently ran a story about Kazuko Nobechi's last class. A former chief education officer in the city of Suita, Osaka Prefecture, Nobechi, 62, addressed an outgoing class of third-year students at a junior high school where she used to serve as principal.

She reminisced about devoting her body and soul to interacting with troubled and violent students, about the sorrow of parting with her beloved only daughter, who died young, and about the warmth of the many people who have been supporting her in the battle with her illness.

Nobechi's adrenal cortical cancer has spread, and she has little time left. "Even after I am gone, I should still be able to live a second life if my words remain as flickers of light in the hearts of those I have spoken to," she told the youngsters, whose eyes were red as they gazed steadily at her.

Izumi Yamada, 49, of Oita Prefecture, is battling a recurrence of breast cancer. She invited her third-year junior high school students, whom she was teaching until her retirement last spring, to her home. There are only nine third-year students at her former school. "This may be the last time for all of us to get together," she told them, and began wrapping up her "lessons on life."

Over the past year, Yamada was invited to schools around Japan to lecture youngsters on the meaning of life. Wherever she went, she encountered and spoke with children suffering from cancer. Recounting these experiences to her nine third-year students, she noted, "Those kids became friends with other kids in the beds next to them, only to lose them suddenly.

"But despite all these painful goodbyes and the discomfort of the treatments they were undergoing, they treasured every single second of their lives. They have given me the courage to keep going."

In his novel "Kusamakura" (The Three-Cornered World), Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) depicted a skylark singing and soaring into the spring sky, noting that its song could still be heard even after it had disappeared beyond the clouds. The voices of the two teachers will also continue to echo in the hearts of the students who are about to leave the nest.

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 27(IHT/Asahi: March 28,2008)