Chapter I
Marriage, and the confession of pregnancy.

Summer, 1997. Backstage where the Tokyo Dome concert was held, Namie quitely vented to me (The phrase used here means to let out her feelings with just a couple of words or so) :

'I want to marry...' (It's a soft way of saying 'I want to marry'. It's not as if she demanded that she wanted to marry, she probably kind of just murmured it dreamily. Maybe more along the lines of “I wish I could marry…’)

Of course at the time, I didn't take her seriously.

’It seems like you've come to an age where you start having desires like that...' was all I said, without paying too much attention but Namie replied quickly:

'Mum, would it be strange if I married?'

'It wouldn't be strange... but you still have lots of things to do don't you?' Shocked as I was, this was the reply I was finally able to give.

When I look back on it now, Namie probably would've wanted to directly say to me: 'I want to marry', and at the same time, check how I would react to the word 'marriage'. As proof of this, there was a phonecall from Namie only 1 month after the Tokyo Dome performance.

'It's been decided that I'm marrying SAM'

Even that was enough of a shock, but she went on:

'I'm also carrying a baby'

This was of great shock to me. Even so, I tried my hardest to stay calm and said to Namie:

'Right now I can't say "congratulations" to you whole-heartedly. Ask for your office manager’s consent first. He is like a father-figure for you in Tokyo, so you should get his consent first.'

For Namie, these words might have been cold and deserting. It seems like she was a little disappointed, saying 'nobody is congratulating me'. However, being suddenly confronted with the word 'marriage', I was not in the situation to be able to say 'good for you' openly.

I rang my eldest daughter's house immediately, but her reaction was one of unconcern: 'Namie finally told you? I think it's ok (the idea of the marriage)'.

Actually, my eldest daughter knew about it already. Elder sister and younger sister- there was an age difference of 3 years, and my eldest daughter had married when she was 18 years old, and already has 3 children. For Namie, she (the eldest daughter) understood her better than me, and they had been talking about marriage together (= discussing/gaining advice).

I felt a little upset because she had not said anything to me (= Namie had been talking about marriage with her sister, and not with her mother), but I was very happy that the two girls have a good relationship (helping eachother out). Despite the fact that they were far away from eachother, one living in Tokyo and the other in Okinawa, and despite the fact that they were both living 2 separate lives, I was able to rediscover the strong bond between the 2 girls.

By the way, my eldest son, being a man, didn't interrupt with either of the girls' businesses- he is the type of person who looks over them from a distance.

I merely reported the news of Namie's marriage to him by phone. At first he didn't seem to believe it and said 'huh?' in a comical tone, but soon after said 'She's stupid. What is she thinking'. But even so he seemed to have regained his composure and said 'It's ok. It's the partner she found herself'.

My children don't interrupt eachother's lives much. They each live life at their own pace. I think siblings should be like that. They're each walking their own path in life, but their hearts are closely bound together.

After obtaining permission from the office manager, the marriage had officially been decided to take place. She is still young, and even more, she is a celebrity who is at her prime in the show business world. If they look at celebrities as 'products' (= commodity), clearly, from the stance of the office, the marriage would have been objected. However, the manager treated Namie as a 'human' and as a 'woman', and not a 'product'. He acknowledged the marriage, as well as the need for some time off time for giving birth and child-raising. I am full of gratefulness for his decision and his understanding. And of course, Namie would probably be feeling the same thing but even moreso than me.

1 week before the announcement of the marriage, the manager called and reported: 'October 22nd is Taian (=lucky day according to a 6 day Japanese calendar), so we will enter her name in the family register then'. And I also received a call from SAM saying: 'Please allow me to marry Namie'.

I replied 'She doesn’t know anything about being a wife, and she can't do much, but ? (=hard to translate. something like 'thank you, and please take good care of her',)' doing nothing but lowering my head on the phone (continuously bowing to show respect, even though it's a telephone call).

He replied kindly: 'I know. Please don't worry'

In actuality, when I heard that the person she was going to marry was SAM, I was not all that surprised. At the Tokyo Dome concert I was introduced to him by the manager as Namie's dance teacher, and often saw him backstage in Namie's dressing room, so from that time, somewhere in my mind I thought maybe it's the person that Namie likes.

That reminds me- SAM was watching earnestly from the corner of the stage whilst Namie was dancing (I suppose at the actual concert).

SAM’s age is by far greater than Namie’s- rather, his age is closer to mine, and my first impressions of him was that he is very mature, speaks very little, and is a honest, hardworking person.

Since the marriage had been decided I talk a lot to my eldest daughter. Maybe it’s because when Namie was young she was very small and slender, but her ideal partner was a man who was big and strong. For instance, sumo wrestlers. Namie had been a big fan of Takanohana and Wakanohana. She was such a fan that when she entered the show-biz world, she said ‘Maybe now I can get to know them somehow!’

Whilst Namie was in Okinawa, the Okinawa Actors School was her love. She did not have a boyfriend, and when her older sister was doing things like writing love letters and giving gifts to her boyfriend, Namie would say ‘How stupid…doing things like that’.

I have not even heard anything about Namie’s first love. She was a child who had no glamour whatsoever. She was the youngest and most spoilt. Still more, she is living alone in Tokyo. She longs for company by nature, so I thought she would make a boyfriend. I saw an article in a magazine that stated she was dating a young man before SAM, and I thought ‘she finally found a partner’.

However, as for marriage, I thought vaguely ‘maybe around 30 years old’ . Okinawan people normally marry early, and in particular women typically marry by 25. Our family, myself included, married early. But Namie is in Tokyo, and is working in show business. I thought Namie’s marriage would come a little later.

Rather, I thought that sharing a room with someone would come before marrying. Namie is a kind of girl who hated doing things the conventional way, so I thought she would not marry straight away, but instead first live together with the person she liked (convention in Okinawa = to marry, but she thought Namie would not stick to this convention).

This is slightly off topic, but the apartment that Namie and SAM are living in at the moment – it was originally where SAM was residing, but Namie wanted to stay as close to him as she could and rented out a different room at the same apartment. When I heard about this, I said ‘What a waste of money- why don’t you live together?’, but of course it’s only because they are now married that I can say this.

Chapter II
Namie and SAM visit Okinawa

With the sudden announcement of Namie and SAM’s marriage, it seemed like newspaper extras were being published in Tokyo. In Okinawa such things did not happen, but there was quite a big fuss. The news spread over the radio, and I received endless calls from friends late at night congratulating me and asking me: ‘is this for real?’

Namie called immediately as well - ‘It must be very busy over there. I’m sorry. There might be journalists and mass media coming wanting to interview you, so you had better hide somewhere for a while.’

I did not like the idea of having to hide when I should be celebrating over the marriage, but when thinking about all the disturbances that might occur to my neighbours, I asked a friend who owned a hotel nearby, and stayed there for the time being.

Actually, during this period, there was even more merry news within our family.

My eldest daughter gave birth to her 3rd child in September. In the same period my eldest son became engaged, and things were getting busy with the preparations.

When I think about it, when I divorced about 20 years ago and had 3 children to look after, nothing was going right, and I was lamenting day after day: ‘why do all these bad things have to accumulate?’ No matter how hard I worked, living would not become easier, and there were times when I thought ‘if only I didn’t have children…’ and I even thought about suicide.

During that time, the one thing that I depended on was fortune telling. It wasn’t as if I was turning to God only in times of trouble, I was simply filled with anxiety about my future, and wanted to something to lean on.

I had fortune tellers in town do things like read my palm, and strangely the results were all the same: ‘You are suffering right now but during your final years you will definitely get better. From your mid 40s to 50s, you will have good things happen to you.’ I had 5 fortune tellers read my future, and all 5 of them said that.

If that is the case, all I can do is believe. No, I did not tell my children about this, but I made this fortune telling my strength to live on. I thought ‘right now I may be suffering but things will get better later… I have to be patient until then’.

By the way, my eldest son had plans to have his wedding 2 months after Namie entered her name into (SAMS’s) family register(*look below for explanation). Unlike Namie, he is a man, and his partner is Okinawan, It is customary for Okinawan weddings to be grand, so my eldest son’s wedding was supposed to be a lively event with 100 or 200 people, ranging from friends and neighbours. However, he said ‘Namie is not having a wedding, do I don’t think I should either. She’s not very fussy about things like that, so just do the entering into the registry’ and refused to have a celebration.

I think that part of the reason for this decision was that if he held a wedding, Namie would come, and if that happens, everything will become chaotic (obviously not because Namie is a trouble maker, but because everyone’s attention will turn to Namie!).

Certainly as her mother, I cannot just be overjoyed about her marriage. I wanted to go and visit Namie as soon as possible and sort everything out with her, but unfortunately there is too much of a distance between Tokyo and Okinawa.

Eventually, the first time I met her after the ‘registry entering’ (nyuuseki is the word, by the way) was in November when both Namie and SAM came to Okinawa.

They came all the way to Okinawa to stay for 1 night and 2 days, which was quite a tough schedule (taking into account how busy they must be). I felt more nervous than happy, and I couldn’t sleep much the night before. That day, I went to pick them up from the airport. To tell you the truth, I only just got my license.

In Okinawa there aren’t any trains so a car is an essential item, but I had been working all the time so I didn’t even have the time to go to driving school. Also, even if I got my license I would not have the money to buy a car, so I have come to this age without having a license.

After remarrying, I had a bit of time and money to spare, and my husband recommended me to get my license, so I made up my mind. I was basically starting to learn it from 50, and my reflexes (or sports ability) are slow, so it was hard to understand (grasp the concept). I was so bad that I passed my final exam only on my 5th try. And here I was, a complete beginner, transporting Namie and SAM by car. If you think about it carefully, it’s quite scary isn’t it? If by any chance we did get involved in an accident, it would have been irreparable.

Anyway after all that, the newly weds arrived at my home. As for dinner, after thinking about it for a long time, I decided that there is no point in serving nothing other than my specialty of Okinawan stew, which I prepared the night before. It’s like cabbage roll (boiled cabbage with minced meat inside) with boiled tomato and miso soup with pork and vegetables (*sorry, I am not sure exactly what this is).

However, I had heard that SAM does not like meat, so I had taken out all the meat. I was extremely anxious about whether or not it would suit his taste, but I was relieved because he said ‘it’s delicious’ and ate it delightfully.

That day, after the meal the two of them slept early probably because they were tired. The following day Namie said ‘I want to eat the spaghetti that you make because I haven’t had it for a while’, so I made the meat sauce that she used to eat for lunch when she was little, and even SAM said that it’s delicious and ate it all up in a second.

After finishing their meal, on the way to escorting them to the airport, we visited an Okinawan tourist attraction, the Gyokusen cave, and went on a field trip to a limestone cave. Even though Namie and I were raised in Okinawa, it was the first time we went ot the Gyokusen cave. It might sound surprising but that’s what it’s like being a local (she is saying that if you are a local of a particular area, usually you do not visit the tourist attractions there). The person who drove the car was SAM. Maybe he became worried after seeing me drive the previous day and didn’t want to give me control of the steering wheel…

That reminds me, at the same time I was going to my training school (for driving), Namie was going to a training school in Tokyo. However, like it was said in the news, there was a problem because she received special treatment (being a celebrity), and after that she became pregnant and married, so she won’t be able to get her license for a while. Namie was regretting it (and slightly upset), but because of that, after seeing me with my license, she was overjoyed, and worried for me by saying ‘Be careful when you drive, and don’t cause any accidents, ok?’.

English translation : Federerexpress.