《Milk Shop, Ending Today:③》　　

We have decided to close our business as of May 31, 2023. We sincerely appreciate your support and patronage up until now. Thank you.

Due to the influence of a typhoon, heavy rain is falling. On days like this, my mother always worried if she would be delivering milk while getting completely drenched. It's free to worry, but even so, I wonder if such worries will disappear in the future. I don't know.

The other day, I received documents from my mother. They were related to some paperwork she had been entrusted with by a administrative scrivener regarding the discontinuation of her business.

I went to the ward office to obtain a seal certificate, attached my own seal, and sent it back to Kagawa. It seems that both seals and banknotes still have a role to play in Japan, for now at least.

I've heard that some people find seals troublesome. Indeed, they can be bothersome, and I agree. However, I can't help but feel that there is something beyond the inconvenience and hassle.

Personally, I find seals troublesome too, but I can't help but feel that there is meaning in the act of "stamping" or "imprinting" something. It's something that cannot be measured solely in terms of efficiency or inefficiency on a graph, or so I personally believe.

My mother becomes a milkwoman

Several years ago, my father started experiencing an increase in accidents during deliveries due to an eye disease caused by diabetes. However, those who grew up during the post-war baby boom period rarely complain. They give the impression of not whining like modern people, saying things like "this hurts" or "something's wrong here." When they are unwell, they simply remain quiet, like animals.

However, once they visit a doctor and receive a diagnosis, they suddenly start proclaiming what illness they have, how often they visit the doctor each week, and the medication they take, as if they were spewing out all the words they had saved up until then. They have the vigor of those who loudly proclaim, "We're keeping the market economy running!"

During my visit home, I checked how much my father's vision had deteriorated, and it turned out he could hardly see anything. I was horrified to think that he had been driving with such impaired vision. From that time on, my mother quit her part-time job and took on the role of being my father's eyes during deliveries.

Every day, without any significant breaks, in every season and regardless of holidays, it was a great hardship for my mother to deliver milk. It wasn't something she wanted to do, and she couldn't go on trips. It was a job that didn't align with her own aspirations, but she did her best because it was the business my father had left behind.

By that time, many of the things my father had acquired through his lavish spending were gone or had lost their value. Considering the vision impairment and the likely decrease in the number of customers, I think the number of clients must have been dwindling. It was at the most challenging time that my mother took over the business, and I realized that once again.

In other words, the number of customers was decreasing, but it wasn't on a per-area basis. The delivery area remained the same, but the number of deliveries decreased, causing the pins that were once scattered all over the map to gradually disappear like missing teeth. As a result, the distance to each delivery increased, and it became inefficient. It was tough.

Furthermore, my mother enjoys humor, but she isn't the type to actively join a community. For my mother, business plans and management skills were secondary or even tertiary concerns. She was fully occupied with diligently completing the deliveries in front of her. Even after today ends, there will be deliveries tomorrow. Even after tomorrow ends, there will be deliveries the day after tomorrow...

This kind of obsession is beyond my understanding as someone who has never experienced it. On days when she felt ill or wanted to take a day off, those personal emotions were always ignored, and customers were waiting, demanding their milk.

However, for some reason, whether it was within her capabilities or due to a decrease in elderly customers, or perhaps due to the rise of convenience stores or the appearance of competing companies, the number of customers gradually decreased.

My mother always says, "I feel sorry for the customers who have decreased, and I feel sorry for your father." And those words, which were still somewhat distant to me, seemed like a distant concern.

However, in her own way, my mother found some solace in this job. She expressed gratitude for the beautiful sunrise that she wouldn't have known if she hadn't been doing this job, appreciating the calendar that nature creates.

I can't remember how many years ago it was when my mother told me, "I'm tired of being a milkwoman."

To be continued