A few days ago, I went to the opera. It was “Othello” by Verdi, whose 200th birth anniversaryis being commemorated this year, based on one of William Shakespeare’s famous tragedies. The plot itself may be simple enough, but it made me think a lot in the depth of my mind.

As is well known, it is a story of a man with a villainous mind (Iago) attempting to ruin the life of his friend, a Moorish general in the Venetian army (Othello), the protagonist of the play, motivated by jealousy toward his colleague (Cassio) who was promoted ahead of him. The man who was promoted over him was not directly targeted. He was just used as a means to ruin the captain (Othello) for choosing Cassio for the promotion.

Cassio was made intoxicated and was forced to fight, and then incarcerated. In the meantime, Iago made a false charge that Othello’s wife, Desdemona, had committed adultery with Cassio. Othello believed the charge and strangled his wife to death for jealousy. Soon later the charge was found to be groundless, leading Othello to commit suicide.

Why did Othello believe the words of the villainous Iago? To be sure, the false charge may have been made in superbly tactical language. No matter how it is made, one is prone to lose the capacity to listen to the truth once entrapped. While loving his wife
more than anyone else, Othello was not able to trust in Desdemona’s fidelity.

This common human propensity must be carefully watched. The frequent hassle we get ourselves involved in is caused from this inability to trust people.

We often commit the mistake of misunderstanding the language spoken or behavior observed. This weakness of our mind not to be able to read between the lines or to see through lies worries me very much.

If Othello had been able to trust the pure heart and listen to the appealing words of his beloved wife, such a tragedy would not have taken place. The basic root of the　catastrophe was this inability on his part, not that of the villainous Iago.

The cause of evil resides in our minds incapable of trusting the people around us. It means the inability to trust our own minds. “Othello” made me think of and believe in the innate goodness of human nature that exists in the depth of our soul.

Last week, I drove straight from my mentor’s clinic in Nara to Sasayama city via my mother’s cemetery. It was because I’d just heard about the death of Emiko, whom I met six year ago. She was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

When I heard about her physical problem first, I took her to my mentor’s clinic one time, and I’d since been treating her for five years based on the guidance given by my mentor.

Her doctor had told her to prepare for gastrostomy feeding process because she would soon be unable to eat through the mouth. The doctor kept advising her for four months advising her to consider the option.

Being a remarkable gourmet, she was offended by the words of the doctor and stopped seeing him, and began seeing a neighborhood internist once a month. When I met her, Emiko was not able to talk or even to move by herself at all. Her husband quit working and began taking care of her around the clock, seldom leaving her alone for more than an hour at a time.

The couple kept visiting this clinic, the husband pushing his wife’s wheelchair all the way from Sasayama to Nishinomiya. Emiko burst out crying only once when she met me. After that, she always kept a pleasant smile on her face each time she saw me, although she was not able to talk.

I was wondering what had happened to them when they stopped coming to our clinic about a year ago. During that time, as I found out later, their two sons got married, her mother-in-law had passed away, and her husband had a colorectal cancer operation.

Then I heard that Emiko passed away quite peacefully on the day right after she learned that her husband’s cancer had totally healed.

Despite her hard struggle with inability to talk and move, Emiko was entirely satisfied to meet her end happily as she knew her family was doing well. Her husband and I reminisced in tears about Emiko’s heroic life when we met after her death.

According to her husband, Emiko had actually relished her meals every day until she died at daybreak on March 17th. Indeed!

As I drove to Sasayma last week, the cherry blossoms there were in full bloom as if conveying Emiko’s friendly smile all around. She went at age 66. Dear Emiko, let us meet again somewhere sometime….