The woman sitting in the reception of the hotel may seem familiar. She looks like a grandmother. She carries on her lap a little brunette doll of a girl. Her face is impassive, she sings in a low voice a lullaby of her childhood in the Osaka dialect.
Here we come and magically, her face suddenly comes alive. She gently puts her granddaughter down and she throws herself into my arms.
“Banessa! Ohisashiburi!”
”Okasan!”
Madam Maman. This is the way I have called Mrs. Sano for almost twenty years. It is a Japanese tradition that required me to call her in that way when I started living with her. The ties that bind the heart made the expression stay despite the years and the kilometers.
All the people in the lobby turn to look at us.
What is this foreigner doing in the arms of a Japanese grandmother? What past connects them? Could it be that this stranger was born as a result of an affair with a French man?
They scrutinize me. No, this stranger is really a foreigner. They do not understand anything.
How could I explain to strangers the filial link that exists between us? How could I tell them that our relationship of friendship has turned into blood? Is there for everyone on this planet the hope of a second mom or of a second dad? Why are these links thicker than water? Why do they persist despite the years?
They cannot be explained; they have to be experienced. With much emotion. With much magic.
It is with immense joy that I have seen my Japanese mother again this weekend.
It is with great pleasure that I saw her wonderfully enjoying her new role of grandmother. She’s still the same active, energetic, fundamentally practical woman who makes me laugh with her Kansai expressions.
The woman sitting in the reception of the hotel may seem very familiar to any passers-by who crossed her but for me, she is essential and it makes me wonder how I could have spent so much time without her.