Memories. I remember that when my son was little, he reached out to each and every child he encountered trying to make friends with them. I remember him running around the park, the wind-blown cherry blossoms at his elementary school entrance ceremony, and padding around barefoot in Kyoto. And the feeling of his tiny little hand clutching mine.
Somehow it all seems like a dream.
Even though it goes without saying that he was not here before he was born, after he was born, it seemed so natural that he was here and would be here.
Now, that is something really perplexing, isn’t it.
When trying to distance myself and look at this, I realize that this emptiness in my life — this loneliness — can not be filled by anyone.
Sometimes when out I’m walking about town, I’m taken aback when I think I’ve heard someone call out, “Papa.”
With tears in her eyes, my wife said, “Though we raised our son to be able to live and work in a foreign land, and knew that some day he would be going off to study abroad, I really wasn’t emotionally prepared for him to go.”
As parents, we have such foolish thoughts: here we are during the cold weather in Japan, and we’re worried about whether or not our son is freezing somewhere in Canada. On rainy days, my wife and I are wondering if he’s getting wet, and when we’re having something nice to eat, we’re wondering if our boy is going hungry. But we’re the ones who decided to cut away our bound-up feelings and allow him to go abroad to study and realize his dreams.
This feels as bad as if I had cut off a part of myself.

Why should I have to feel this way for allowing him to study abroad?

That’s because our son went off to Canada.
Canada is a vast, big sky country, and I wonder if the people there will enable him to make his leaping start in the world.
Canada is a nation in which people from all over the world gather, and it is ripe with hidden potential.

For sure, I have never been to Canada myself.
But, in the nature and culture of Canada, I think we can find hope for the future of humankind.

I want to transcend any language barriers.
I do not speak English. So this letter is also something that I had translated.
English is like a passport for communicating with the world.

My son’s dreams are also my own.
Without being fenced-in by the confines of a small world.
While he’s young, he ought to go down the road he believes in and do the things he wants to do.
I want him to spread his wings in the world.
And I want him to be able to live a life without any regrets.
That is my dream for him.

Canada will surely make his and my dreams come true.
With that thought, we decided to entrust our son — our most precious treasure — to Canada.