Precious Life
MIYAMOTO Ryudai, Ninth Grade (third year of three grades)
Ainan Town Misho Junior High School, Ehime Prefecture
A precious life that is equally given to each individual will eventually end someday.
This fact makes me feel the irreplaceable value of life.
However, such precious life is treated poorly in reality. Over 500 days passed since
Russia launched a military invasion against Ukraine. Casualties are ever-increasing in
both countries. On TV, I have seen many people crying as they lost their family members,
friends, or someone they care about. Each time I saw such scenes, I felt a tightening in
my chest. Their peaceful daily life suddenly ended and they were forced to spend uneasy
days with death near at hand. They could not have imagined that such days would
continue until today.
One day, I talked about this war with my family. "Why did they start a war after all?"
"Isn't there anything we can do?" "I hope that this war will end soon." We each expressed
various opinions. However, we cannot understand the actual terror of a war. What we said
were merely the comments of outsiders living in a peaceful world without war. I oppose
war. The reason is that war takes the lives of people. There is little to gain and much to
lose from war. Soldiers going off to war have places to come back and precious family
members, who are worrying about their safety on the battlefields. They have people who
will mourn over their deaths. Therefore, I want the war to end as soon as possible.
I also have precious family members, but a disease robbed me of one of my precious
family members. It was the winter of my 7th grade year. My little sister, who was a 6th
grader, was looking forward to entering junior high school but suddenly had a fever. Her
fever lasted one or two weeks. The period that passed without the cause of the fever being
identified was very long for us. After such period of uncertainty, my sister's illness was
finally identified through an X-ray examination, but she faced the harsh reality of a fight
against the disease. I was totally upset and could not think of what to say to her and could
do nothing but cheer her up.
My sister was admitted into a hospital in Matsuyama. During the first one to two
months, she stayed the hospital alone. Considering the anxiety caused by the disease and
the loneliness of staying alone, I wonder whether I could have held out. I am proud of my
Justice Minister's Award
sister who had completed what I could not have done. After that, my mother decided to
attend my sister at the hospital. I felt discomfort regarding life without my sister and my
mother and I missed them, but I put up with the situation considering that my sister was
suffering more than me. I was looking forward to going to see my sister a few times a
month. She was delighted to see me but looked sleepy, probably due to the loneliness of
staying away from home and the fatigue from fighting the disease.
I became an 8th grader and enjoyed a school excursion with my classmates. On the
night of the day when I returned home from the school excursion, there was a call on my
grandmother's cellphone. It was a call notifying my sister's death. We hurried to the
hospital in Matsuyama. I was overwhelmed with regret and sorrow and only kept crying.
My sister died without experiencing any days at a junior high school, which she had
looked forward to strongly. I learned the seriousness and agony of losing someone very
important, like a family member or a friend, and suffered the sense of loss of not being
able to see that person any longer.
Alife equally given to each individual is not light by any means and cannot be replaced
by any other person. So is my life, your life, and the lives of the many people lost in war.
Not only soldiers but civilians, such as young people, elderly people, and small children,
all had life equally. My sister, who looked forward to joining a basketball team at a junior
high school, also had life. I want you to know the existence of people who could not live
despite their wishes. I want my thoughts to reach people who are considering killing
themselves. The number of people who committed suicide last year exceeds 20,000. I am
surprised at this number. Even if you have a serious worry that makes you forget the
happiness of just living, I want you to live through your life that was given to you. Look
around you. There must be someone who cares about you. There is surely someone who
would mourn over your death.
I am committed to cherish every single day in life more than anyone else. Not only
human beings but all creatures have a precious life. We should not kill any of them
carelessly. I am keeping five goldfish and many killifish and I have come to feel them to
be members of my family while taking care of them sincerely. We should cherish all living
creatures. A life ends eventually, but I treat any life with the attitude that I would like to
grow together. No one can tell the future. There is a possibility that we may die in a war
or due to a disease or a traffic accident. Therefore, I would like to cherish each day. As I
learned the significance of life given equally to all, I feel happiness of just being alive. I
would like to become a nurse, who works to save life, in the future.