The ordinary things that support us

Author ：Den

Yesterday, I saw my 2-year-old daughter showing a funny face by trying to wink so hard. She often does lovely silly things like this or makes cute mispronunciations. When I find her words or actions adorable, I feel like sharing them with someone.

Since there is no one living with the two of us, and no relatives live close by, I usually write about her cuteness in a “communication notebook” which I submit to the nursery every morning. Teachers kindly take time out of their busy schedules to write back to my messages and sometimes have a chat about what I have written.

For me, the notebook is like an exchange diary to share my feelings about the growth of my daughter. The correspondence supports me emotionally and I kind of miss it on weekends, when we don’t go to the nursery.

Looking back, I see that there has been a lot of support for me since I decided to give birth to a baby without marriage.

The town I lived in during my days of pregnancy had a lot of snow, so one of my acquaintances helped me to shovel the snow every day. One of my friends supported carrying heavy tanks of kerosene for my stove, and one made a phone tree in preparation for an emergency.

Probably there was a lot of other consideration and support which I just couldn’t notice in the struggling days. A neighborhood old lady who adored my baby, or a business associate who took many pictures of us, may also have helped us naturally in our daily life.

Now I recall that I have gotten just the right amount of hand-me-downs for my daughter at the perfect timing. And that people merrily gathered in my apartment when I decided to leave the town and helped me to clean every hole and corner of the room.

Of course, as an unmarried mother, I have a certain amount of experiences of being discriminated against or feeling offended about the unfair systems. But the memories of those hard experiences are rather vague. Maybe it’s because the persons or systems that caused them were kinds of those far from me, like “Japanese society” or “an acquaintance’s acquaintance”.

Close people have always been just nice and assistful to us.

Our neighbors now are also kind; I have never been anxious about my daughter’s tearful scream or loud footsteps as the next-door single mother and the old lady living downstairs are both nice.

There are some nights when I feel uneasy about our future since I don’t have a steady income now. In a case like that, I try to think about all those nice people, breathe deeply, and write something in the “communication notebook” for the next morning.

We can see the beautiful moon from our room; there is a large window facing south with nothing to shut the view. When the moon is full and bright like tonight, we open the curtains and sit side by side near the window.

Irreplaceable happiness when we see the moon with a beloved one has been described since ancient times in classical literature. Now I finally understand it with my beloved kid. I’m sure that I’ll never forget this happy moment and that the memory will help us someday in our future.

This essay was written by Moko for Mother's Day campaign by Single Mothers Sisterhood. Single Mothers' Sisterhood is the non-profit organization based in Japan to support single mothers' self-care of their mental and physical wellness through online self-care classes where single mothers can feel a warm and supportive connection with each other.

This campaign celebrates the irreplaceable charm of single mothers and calls for "self affirmation" and "importance of self-care. We want to shed light on positive aspects of our lives!! We welcome donations to support the empowerment of single mothers. See also the Mother's Day campaign 2021 support page.