When Parents Die, the Lights, Gas, and Water Get Cut Off — A 75-Year-Old Mother’s Desperate Search for a “Third Option” for Her 43-Year-Old Hikikomori Daughter
日本語(original) | English version | 繁體中文（台灣）版 | Tiếng Việt
Hello everyone. This is Akira.
The other day, I read an article on PRESIDENT Online that left a deep impression on me.
It was the story of a 43-year-old daughter and her 75-year-old mother.
The mother has considerable assets, yet she cannot sleep at night.
The reason is simple.
“After I die, who will handle the procedures for this child?”
Ms. Miyama Yuki (pseudonym) has a mild intellectual disability.
She stopped attending elementary school and, even after moving on to junior and senior high school, she could barely enter the classroom. Every time a new teacher arrived, she developed distrust, and even when a special support class was recommended, she ultimately chose to shut herself in her room.
Now, she hardly speaks to anyone outside her family.
The only person she can talk to is her psychiatrist, whom she visits occasionally.
Thirty years have almost completely taken away her ability to handle “social procedures.”
Even after her husband’s death, the mother continued to care for her daughter alone.
They have savings of 41 million yen, and the couple’s pension is 260,000 yen per month.
Yuki herself receives a disability pension of nearly 70,000 yen per month, most of which she has saved (currently 12.6 million yen).
Money is not the issue.
However, the mother’s only anxiety is “what will happen after I die.”
“As long as I’m alive, I intend to take care of everything. But after I’m gone, who can I entrust my child to…?”
Yuki has an older brother who is two years her senior.
He is kind and cares about his sister.
However, he has his own wife and children, and he is busy with work.
It would be too much to leave everything to him.
The expert then suggested creating a “Things I Want Done” list.
This included changing the names on utility bills, hospital admission procedures, and post-death arrangements.
The plan was to clearly divide what the brother could realistically handle and what would be too difficult, and entrust the difficult parts to a third party, such as a guardianship support company.
If one asks a guardianship support company to handle post-death procedures as well, it is said to cost around 2 to 3 million yen at the time of contracting.
It is important to choose a reputable company where the deposited money is managed separately by lawyers or trust banks.
Additionally, once Yuki turns 60, another option becomes available: a care house.
She would have her own private room, three meals a day provided, and access to a large communal bath.
Since it is a facility for independent people, the rules are minimal.
If her intellectual disability is mild and she can manage daily life to a certain extent, admission is possible.
If her care needs increase, it may also be possible to move to a special nursing home.
While reading this story, I found myself thinking about something.
This society treats only those who can keep running as “normal.”
Those who deviate from the discipline and training of school — attendance, relationships, grades — are gradually pushed into the category of people who “cannot handle procedures.”
The disciplinary power of modern society that Foucault described is still quietly at work today.
The distrust Yuki felt toward her homeroom teacher in fifth grade, and the push toward a special support class, were precisely part of that mechanism.
Her long period of hikikomori is not simply “laziness.”
I believe it was her body’s defensive reaction to the overwhelming exhaustion of trying to maintain human relationships.
When the brain becomes completely exhausted, people choose to “do nothing.”
In that space, a sacred blank is born.
It is a painful kind of blank, different from Kuki Shūzō’s “ma” (empty space) in “iki” or Dōgen’s “shikantaza.”
What the mother is desperately searching for now is a quiet system that prevents that blank from turning into “death.”
Instead of leaving everything to her son and burdening him with guilt, she is trying to entrust difficult parts to a third party.
Rather than forcing family ties to carry the weight, she is trying to protect her daughter through the cold distance of money.
This may not be an affirmation of weakness, but rather an acquired non-action — a way of continuing to live while carrying one’s weakness.
I feel that care houses carry a similar meaning.
They do not force “independence.”
They are spaces where one can simply continue breathing, with only the minimum rules in place.
If Yuki feels that “she cannot live with someone else,” then perhaps such a blank space is actually more suited to her rhythm.
When you heard this story, how did you feel?
If something were to happen to you, who would you ask to handle what kinds of things?
Or have you already begun preparing to simply continue breathing quietly in that sacred blank, without relying on anyone?
Akira
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