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Synopsis

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Before becoming a nurse, the author was working immensely hard for a trading company in Japan. However, a crucial encounter with a certain gentleman in the company marked a turning point in her attitude to life. This experience and the insight born of it have supported her ever since: "take care of the present, so that you will have no regrets when the time comes for you to die!"
This book is all about sixteen patients in the final stages of their lives, and about the author, who works with them as a terminal-care nurse. The author calls these patients angels, and all the angels left particular messages with her as they took leave of the world and soared away into the Beyond.
One angel leaves the author with a sense of the importance of family bonds and love, which powerfully triggers a turning point in the author's relationship with her husband. Another angel, who took his own life, causes her to wonder whether it really is such a shameful act to determine the length of one's own life.
"Just like birds, people who are on their deathbeds leave a feather behind when they depart, and all those feathers are the last messages from the angels," says the author. Living one's life to the full – this is the art of overcoming the fear of death and leaving behind a beautiful feather for those still living in this world.

Submitted by Keiko Fukano

Category Level

Non-fiction
Poetry

Editorial Review

This is one of those books that make much play of the notion of 'tearjerker' as their selling point: more margin spaces than actual words, a number of photos of peaceful scenery, and a beautiful cover – this was my first impression when the book fell into my hands, to be honest. But I cried. I cried repeatedly while reading this book. Each word is quite hard to chew upon, only because the book represents the author's actual experiences with people who could not escape the fear of death but had to face it. Experiencing the patients' deaths was hard-going enough, even though they were not the author's relatives or friends, still more so analysing, digesting and transcribing it all!
Japan is known as a country of long-lived people, and how to handle a person's death is beset with a mountain of problems. "What is the situation in other countries? In Africa, in Asia, and in South America?" – I wondered. There must be a number of problems in common, at least in the West, due to the advancements in medical science and the aging of the populations: death with dignity, informing patients of their diseases, and the relationships with the families and carers ... etc.
It is, of course, impossible to reach an ultimate answer; however, we can well prepare ourselves for the natural and inevitable course of our life through the author's experiences. This book provides an opportunity for us positively to do so.

Table of contents

• Preface
• Running Angel
• Beloved Angel
• Crying-Out Angel
• Looking-For-Love Angel
• Quiet Angel
• Forgiving Angel
• Patient Angel
• Sympathetic Angel
• One-Smile-Only Angel
• Flying Angel
• No, No Angel
• Reconciling Angel
• Sorrowful Angel
• Little Girl Angel
• Guardian Angel
• Kissing Angel
• Postface - To the Angels

About the Author

Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1965. After working for a trading company in Osaka, she became a clinical nurse as she wished to work in more humane environment. Eventually, medical considerations forced her to leave the job, and she began studying psychology and illustration. She is active in Osaka as a writer and an illustrator, living with her husband.