by Junko Tabei
The End
ABOUT JUNKO
by Masanobu Tabei, November 2016
It was indeed shocking to see my wife take her last breath right in front of me; however, we felt more like “The time has come,” as it had been four and half years since her cancer was found. In other words, we calmly accepted her death rather than fall into unstoppable lamenting, just to describe our reality.
When she was diagnosed with stage III peritoneal cancer, we discussed and decided to enjoy our life to the fullest without restraining much of what Junko wanted to do, either workwise or as a pastime, while simultaneously accessing the best medical treatments available to her. There had been a period of remission thanks to chemotherapy, so she was able to enjoy her daily life without serious problems. She took commuting trains herself and went abroad to climb mountains in more than twenty countries even after the cancer was diagnosed. But gradually, the side effects of chemotherapy made her limbs numb, and she regretted not being able to climb 5000 and 6000ers anymore.
In October 2014 cancer metastasis was detected, this time as a brain tumour. Junko continued with her normal life, mountaineering, hiking, delivering speeches and being interviewed for magazines and TV programs, without exposing the return of her cancer to anybody. Only five of us – myself, Noriko and Shinya, Junko’s long-time secretary Minako Yoshida, and Setsuko Kitamura, who went to Everest – knew this secret. Junko asked us to zip our lips tight about this fact. She never liked to make people worry about her, and she continued to chat with them, like “I have plans to go to so and so mountains,” always looking forward, business as usual.
Her inner strength and care for others had not changed at all since we met in our twenties. It was on the top of a mountain when we spoke to each other for the first time. Sometime around 1965, she happened to have followed the same route after I finished the South Ridge of Ichinokura-sawa. I had brought a can of cooked sweet azuki, and I made instant azuki-sorbet with ice collected from a nearby snow patch and offered her some. I could tell by her face that she thought it was yummy. Having read Junko’s book in later years, I found that she was actually impressed, saying, “I was surprised that he carried that heavy food in his backpack.” That surprised me since it was simply my normal way to take something tasty as a part of mountaineering pleasure. I did not mean to woo her through this particular action.
To be precise, I had known her before we met. Female climbers are a regular part of the scene today; however, it was an outstanding feature to see women climbing rock at that time. In particular, the cutting-edge ones were extremely few. Imagine an era when many mountaineering clubs openly advertised “No women allowed.” So, I had been aware of Junko, naturally watching her, like, “Yeah, she’s out there, climbing hard again.”
Being in my early twenties, I was yet to be interested in women as I was totally into climbing – nothing else distracted me, neither cars nor cool-looking clothes. Junko was just like that, too, she said to me later, to the degree that she considered people who did not go to the mountains as not human; she also chose not to vote at elections just to save the time for climbing. Thus, in retrospect, we, the like-minded, met.
Still, we did not shorten the distance in our relationship with the snap of a finger. Instead, time fermented our closeness, along with the range of our conversations that varied from climbing to more diverse subjects like families and life; in a couple of years we had no need to confess our feelings or propose. We knew that both of us were thinking “Life together with her/ him would be as good as being natural.”
We thought of our marriage as positive and beneficial, not simply a legal obligation. Many of my married buddies whined about their marriages as failures, with comments such as, “I can’t go climbing as much as before,” or “I used to go to yakitori-bar three times a week, now reduced to one,” or “I can’t ride my motorcycle anymore.” Those stories disappointed me because I had the idea that marriage should be a new way of life in which the two help each other achieve something a bachelor life could not offer.
When I was sixteen years old, I had spinal caries that pushed me to the edge of life or death. Tuberculosis patients were abundant then, and a patient in the next bed could suddenly die. That was not a rare case. I was horrified at this phenomenon, and I felt powerless and desolate. At the end of the day, however, it occurred to me that I should survive and live with some established goals in my life.
Junko was also a person who became so into climbing that she must have had the spirit for challenge. As a matter of course, I had never dreamt of her being a housewife, not even for a second. We had a two-year-old daughter, Noriko, when Junko went to Everest. And it was me who requested, “Have a child first, then go to Everest.”
Mountaineering inherently comes with risks, so the person who climbs and the ones who send them off both need to understand and be steadfast about whatever could happen. And people who have family they care for and protect become cautious about taking risks. I, too, used to take chances, hopping past the crux on a rock-climbing route with one heck of a daring move, as it would have been me alone to suffer the result of a fall. But once I had family, this attitude was excluded from my options.
By then, Junko had been successfully pushing more difficult routes with male climbers on Tanigawa-dake and in the Northern Alps of Japan. It was not hard for me to believe in the possibility of her climbing Everest based on her skill and judgment, but I still wanted her to stay conservative on top of her high-quality ability.
I was often questioned if I, too, wished to go to Everest, as I was also a climber, but that was not the case. By then, a man on Everest was not that unusual, so I thought that for Junko to challenge being the first female to climb Everest was far more interesting than me going, especially in terms of spending the family’s limited money.
When she returned home after the success, she was treated like a rock star overnight. Her face was frequently in the media, and she was running around all over Japan with the sirdar Ang Tsering for speeches and other invitations; she did not come back to our house for more than a month after landing on Japanese soil. I still recall my puzzled feeling that society was making such a big deal about her having just climbed a mountain, albeit the big one, so much so that people would whisper, “Oh, Tabei-san is out there,” or “Wow, she bought eggs.”
At that time, Junko often said, “We shouldn’t get stuck up. Don’t let our feet be carried away by the fame and flattering words. Keep standing solid on the ground – it’s the same as in mountaineering.” But the reality of life was not that simple. Journalists swarmed our home, and Noriko came to hate people who carried cameras. Our son, Shinya, who was born after Everest, also tried to avoid the label “Junko Tabei’s son.” In his rebellious years, one day he came home and announced that he had quit high school.
I, however, never minded being seen as Junko Tabei’s husband. Interestingly, people might have thought that it was out of my control to do anything I would like to do; they often sympathized with me, like, “You have a hard life taking care of home and family while she is away, don’t you?” Thanks, but no, those were totally unnecessary worries.
Probably due to my work for Honda, I took interest in motocross in my private life, and attended competitions a couple of times a year. I even went as far as Mexico to join a car rally race, and I also enjoyed piloting a dinghy yacht, and so on. In other words, I played hard in the mountains and at sea as well. As Junko’s expeditions usually lasted a couple of months, one summer I took advantage of the time and travelled with Shinya to the United States to ride a motorcycle across America, with him in the sidecar.
It was most likely that my wife felt she could go to the mountains without conflict since I was doing my own things, too. Usually the wives who leave their husbands behind for their hobbies worry about things like, “Is he cooking all right and eating well every day?” or “What if he just stays lazy at home doing nothing?” We had no such concern. When Junko announced h
er goal to climb a 7000er, I would send her off cheerfully, “Go ahead and enjoy!” and then set myself up for the States to ride my motorcycle.
When I suggested that Junko cut down on some of her work after her cancer relapse, she resisted. “What are you talking about? Are you trying to take my pleasure away?” Despite her determined spirit, she started to show fatigue at home as time passed by. It became more frequent that no sooner had she said hello when she arrived home than she lay down on the couch to rest. She confessed her fear of being hurt by bumping into people when she walked through a crowd, so I began to drive her to wherever necessary, making the back seat more restful as discomfort increased with water-retention in her chest.
In July 2016, when the pain of her side effects from chemotherapy began to outdo the cure, we decided to stop the therapy after discussion with the doctor. It was the time to make a choice.
Junko was admitted to hospital on July 25, with the event Mount Fuji for the High School Students of Tohoku Earthquake scheduled for the next day. After having 800 millilitres of fluid withdrawn from her chest in the hospital the next day, we headed to the Fujinomiya trailhead.
It was in this state that Junko spoke to the teenaged students: “You will certainly get to the summit if you keep going up one step at a time. Ganbaro! (Let’s have a good fight!)” And there she went, Junko resuming her hike, though at a slow pace. Regrettably, her condition was far worse than she expected, so the 3010-metre mark was the highest she could reach, and that was her last mountain. Not being able to move around as she had hoped, and having worried the people around her, she appeared quite shocked. Nevertheless, she still concerned herself incessantly with the future summers of this event in order to fulfill the original goal of getting one thousand students to stand on the summit of Mount Fuji.
That was when Shinya, who is in the outdoor activities business, encouragingly said to her, “Rely on me!” Although I have never heard my wife make demands for certain things on our children, this project was an exception. She openly verbalized, “I want this project continued.” I jumped in to tell Shinya not to take his mother’s words too seriously, as in “inherit the legacy,” but rather to think more lightly. My wish is for him to simply continue after his mom, in hopes that he finds his own meaning or enjoyment in the project.
At about that time, Junko was mad at me for trying to reassure her any longer with the phrase “Ganbaro.” She was beyond the point of fighting her cancer. “Why do I have to do more while I have been doing my best?!” she said. Those were her honest feelings, and from then on, our tone of conversation changed to “Let’s enjoy….” So, we increased the feeling of enjoyment in our life and let the fight subside.
On October 4 Junko moved to a hospice in Kawagoe after she did a radio talk show interview on the way there. “Eat well. Be kind to each other, family is better off that way,” and so on, she kept advising us even from the hospice bed. Nearing her last week of life, her vocal system was impaired and she could not speak well anymore. Six days before passing, she wrote a letter to me, “Otousan (“Daddy,” a Japanese way of calling one’s husband, especially after having had children), forgive me if I wasn’t able to speak anymore as I’m getting weaker. Don’t be upset, sorry. Although I also wish to talk to you kindly, I cannot do that anymore. Your gentle face makes me happy.” She used to say like a mantra, “Illness doesn’t necessarily make me a sick person.” This was not the case anymore in my eyes; at this stage, she looked very sick.
Two days before her death, Junko took a piece of paper and scribbled, “I am not a sick person” in letters almost too difficult to read. Half jokingly, I replied, “Not a delusion?” against which she talked back, “NO!” And she drew something like a picture of a mountain in the upper space of the paper. I asked, “Everest, is it?” and she nodded. She must have badly craved to jump out of the bed and run up the mountains she loved.
A few days before drawing the mountain, about five days before she died, Junko also wrote something like this, even with her signature: “Everyone, thank you so much! Thank you! Thank you a million times! Junko Tabei, 2016-10-15.”
While these words may also include her family, I believe she meant to straightforwardly express her gratitude to all the people who supported her to live a full life as a mountaineer, who enjoyed and embraced the mountains to the best of her ability.
A SON’S TRIBUTE
by Shinya Tabei
October 20, 2016, 10 a.m. – my mother stopped walking. She had climbed mountains and hiked around countless places of the world until that moment. Although we knew for certain “the day” would come, as she had been fighting cancer, we were not ready to say goodbye. In the end, her condition worsened and she could no longer even sit up on the bed. So, we, my father, sister and I, took turns caring for her around the clock.
I had a very precious time in the last days of her life.
Since I was born to “Junko Tabei” as the baby of the family, there was little time to share affection; in fact, I likely bothered my mother more often than not. However, in her final days, I was able to show her that I cared, and I did so to the best of my ability. I helped her brush her teeth; I rubbed her skin with a warm cloth – these things made me extremely happy. In a way, I had her all to myself.
A few days before my mother passed away, she and I, alone in a private room of the hospital, spoke about the many things I could not say before, everything I had wanted to tell her for so long.
Among them were the words, “I love you so much, Mom,” to which she replied, “Very much the same from me. I love you way more than I like the mountains.”
That was my last meaningful chat with her.
How badly I had upset her in the past, and worried her about my behaviour. I am really grateful for our final conversations, to have reached beyond the earlier years.
About a week before my mother died, I was by her side, using the hospital room as my office. I thought she was asleep, then all of a sudden she raised both her arms and bellowed, “Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!” She must have been dreaming. “All right, everybody,” she continued, “gather here, please, and let’s eat onigiri (rice ball).” Her conversation continued, as though with her friends, “No way we’ll split the group into different routes. We’ll absolutely go together.” She was hiking even in her dreams. That was my mother, a person who truly loved mountains.
In July 2016, she climbed as high as 3010 metres on Mount Fuji for the event called Mount Fuji for the High School Students of Tohoku Earthquake. She wholeheartedly encouraged the students as she sent them off for the summit. That was her last outing in her long career as a mountaineer.
“Mountaineering is not a competition. For your mom who has no athletic talent, the first mountain I went on was great fun, and inspiring, too,” my mother said.
On October 19, I had a work commitment that could not be cancelled, so I left for Fukushima. I dropped by to her ward first thing in the morning and I said to her, “I’m going to Fukushima just for a night.” She squeezed my hand so hard and nodded as she was not able to speak by that point.
After my work, I stopped briefly at our Numajiri Lodge in Fukushima then left there early the next morning. I arrived at the hospital at 9:40 a.m. My mother passed away twenty minutes later. She had been waiting for me to send her off.
I am very grateful to have been there when she left for her final trip. Though her physical presence is not on this earth anymore, my mother is still, and will always be, alive within me.
She asked me to do three things, so I will pursue them as I promised her I would.
1. Let as many people as possible know the wonder of Mother Nature.
2. Continue the program Mount Fuji for the High School Students of Tohoku Earthquake until it surpasses the original goal of one thousand participants.
3. Protect and take care of my father and sister.
I also wish for people to know about the full life of Junko Tabei and that she was part of the early g
roup of women who challenged the high peaks of the Himalayas many decades ago.
Thank you for the countless heartwarming emails and messages we have received regarding my mother’s passing. Please continue connecting with us the same as before.
Lastly, thank you, Mom.
October 23, 2016
Illustration by Setsuko Kitamura
COURTESY OF SETSUKO KITAMURA
BEYOND MOUNTAINS
by Setsuko Kitamura
At the end of 2016, during this book’s making, we had a memorial to say goodbye to Junko Tabei at the Showa Women’s University Hall in Tokyo, where she had graduated fifty-five years earlier. Tabei passed away on the morning of October 20, 2016, after four and half years of fighting with cancer. She was seventy-seven. The memorial ceremony was arranged by friends, and a total of 1,400 people showed up to offer flowers. This shows just how popular Tabei was, right to the end of her life.
As an add-on to the Introduction in this book, I wish to highlight Tabei’s activities after 2000, which were even more remarkable than before then. She turned from energetic climber to social activist and began to disclose more of her family-woman profile than she did when she was younger. From midsummer (the peak of her climbing career), to cool autumn (when she transitioned to being a mentor), to the too-early winter (her final stages), Tabei’s life was immensely fulfilling. It is the later part, in particular, I focus on here.
When I met Tabei in 1973, in preparation for Everest, I was quickly drawn to her, the petite woman who spoke clearly to the end of each sentence with a cheerful voice, the woman who was the assistant leader and climbing leader for the expedition team. Since that time, I was not only accepted as a team member but personally shared decades of fun mountain trips with Tabei. Meanwhile, I unwittingly played a role, as a journalist, in observing her growth as a person and in her relationship with Japanese society.