May has begun with heavy rain.
Yesterday, as I had promised in my blog, I worked rather hard.
That said, when I look back, most of the actual work was done by those around me.
What I did was simply to assist them.
And if I were to put it differently, that “assistance” was, in fact, guidance—sharing what I know.
Before I knew it, I had become the oldest member in the department.
Leaving aside the question of knowledge, I have, at the very least, more experience than anyone else here.
Everyone around me is a junior colleague now, and there is no longer a senior close at hand to rely on.
I offer guidance not only to doctors but also to laboratory technologists, from a pathological point of view.
This, too, is part of passing on what I have accumulated through my own experience.
What I pass on are things that have been caught in the sieve that is myself—
things that, to me, hold a certain truth and value.
The size of that sieve may be debatable, but it was filled, over time, by countless mentors who threw in a mixture of stones and sand—
all the experiences I was fortunate enough to receive from those before me.
At the time, I did not fully understand what I was being told.
Yet what remained has become part of my flesh and blood, shaping who I am today as a pathologist.
Now, in turn, I find myself gradually passing on what has remained on my sieve to those who come after me.
What they choose to keep—and how much of it—will be entirely up to them.
After all, what I pass on is only what remained in my sieve, and there are countless other sieves in this world.
To have even a small chance to entrust something to the next generation is, I think, a quiet kind of happiness.
I sometimes feel that my own “closing chapter” as a pathologist has begun,
but I hope to bring it to a graceful end, little by little.
Time, after all, is shorter than we imagine.
・・・
Vocabulary for Learners
- sieve：ふるい 比喩的に「経験や価値観で選別するもの」
- assist / assistance：手伝う／手助け 控えめな関わりを表すニュアンス
- guidance：指導、導き 押しつけではなく支えるような教え
- accumulate：蓄積する 経験や知識が時間をかけて積み重なること
- flesh and blood：血肉、身についたもの 単なる知識ではなく、自分の一部になったもの
- entrust：託す 責任や価値あるものを次に渡す
- graceful end：有終の美 穏やかで品のある締めくくり
- closing chapter：人生やキャリアの終盤 “end”よりも柔らかく余韻のある表現
