Actress Rie Shibata appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi), which aired on September 17th. She spoke about her memories of her mother, Sumiko, who passed away in January of this year at the age of 95.
Shibata appeared on the show wearing Sumiko's kimono that day. She displays a photo of Sumiko on the dining table and thinks of her mother every day, saying, "I probably remember her more than when she was alive."
According to Shibata, Sumiko was "a lively and mischievous person." She worked as an elementary school teacher until she was 54, and continued to work as a "tea teacher" at elementary schools and nurseries until she was 90. Many people, including her students and neighbors, attended the "farewell ceremony."
Sumiko had goals and continued to work hard until the very end. "When the carrot of what she wanted to do was dangled in front of her, she was the type of person who would run with all her might. I think that's amazing," her mother said, admiring her.
"I thought that as people get older, they start to think, 'This is good enough for me,' or 'I'm tired, so I want to take it easy.' But my mother wasn't like that. She was the type of person who would say, 'Next I want to do this, and then I have to work hard now to get there.' I thought that living a life like that (like my mother) was the right thing to do as a human being."
