♯7 Nodding with meaning, or just a noise

At the fifth visitation from Umi's first visitation, we decided to try one thing during the meeting with our father to confirm whether or not the noise he uttered was a nod or an irrelevant sound.  We went silent for nine minutes until the end of visitation.

Our father suddenly smiled, and kept uttering noise on his own, like "un, un," "eyain, un, enn" in front of us who were silent.

At the following visitation of Rika alone, she only said, "Good morning," wondering what would happen if there was no stimulation from the beginning, and watched his reaction in silence.  If he starts uttering noise that sounds like nodding when Rika is silent, that is a "noise" with no relevance or meaning.

The Detention House probably did not want anyone to recognize that our father was uttering "noise" without meaning, and warned Rika that visitation would end if she did not talk.

If we keep talking, however, a noise that sounds like nodding always overlaps at some point, like "un, en, in," and they could lie, claiming that "communication with his family is successful."

During subsequent visitations, we observed our father's appearance through talking to him and going silent.  We soon realized that there was no relevance or meaning in the noise he uttered though it sounded like nodding.

♯６ ”Impossible….” Increasing anxiety

The defense attorneys requested partial release of visitation prohibition for us; however it was only accepted for the second daughter ‘Umi’(This is her pen name.).  She was able to meet our father on August 17, 2004 for the first time as a family member.  Since communication between defense attorneys and our father was never successful, Umi was supposed to explain the background of selecting defense attorneys, etc. to him.  Defense attorneys told Umi to be prepared, saying, “He is probably not malingering.  He may be truly ill.  He might not understand even though it was Umi.  Please be prepared.”

Even though the defense attorneys warned us about our father’s illness, she did not believe he was ill.  She believed that her father would respond in some ways if she as a daughter went to see him.

Partial release of visitation prohibition was requested again for us, and Rika was finally allowed to see him as well.  After that, visitation was also allowed to our younger siblings.  Similar to Umi, Rika also believed that her father would understand her.

We remembered to always take our notebook to keep a record when we visited him.

In the beginning when visitation became possible, we just kept talking to our father since we had longed to see him and there were so many things to tell him. He nodded, smiled, and appeared to be listening to our stories.  As we kept talking to him, however, we became anxious and started to feel what the defense attorneys were saying to us might be true, suspecting that he might not recognize us but he might be just smiling irrelevantly and uttering some “noise” that sounded like nodding.  As we repeated visitation, such feeling of discomfort and anxiety rapidly grew more and more.