Book discussions and mystery stew meetings weren’t our only club activities; the Easter & Pentecost bazaar was also a huge task. But this year, I was chosen to be the head of the executive committee and I didn’t really get to participate in the bazaar.
Last year, when I was just a regular committee member, I helped out the head of the committee because I saw how busy she was and felt sorry for her. Then this year, it was my turn to fill that position.
I was incredibly busy. I discussed poster designs with the art club, made pamphlets to hand out to our neighbors, had meetings with the chorus club, and ordered eggs for the egg hunt. I had to write an easy-to-understand description of Easter on a pamphlet for children and others unfamiliar with the holiday. In the end, I came up with:
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Easter is a festival that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The first fifty days of the Easter season is called “Eastertide,” and the fiftieth day is called “Pentecost,” which is the day that the Holy Spirit descends onto earth. Our academy celebrates these important events by holding a charity bazaar every year in June.
We paint eggs, a symbol of life, and hide them in the courtyard. Then, there will be an egg hunt for all children to participate in.
Please visit our bazaar and café corner at your leisure.
There will also be a donation box. Donations will be given to the Red Cross, retirement homes, and others who desperately need these funds.
Jesus Christ lives.
He is of eternal life.
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I emailed parents asking for their assistance and donations, arranged the stage rental for the courtyard, and completed many other arduous tasks all for one reason: to thank Mr. Shiraishi, the chairman of our school.
Mr. Shiraishi is Itsumi’s father. He runs a general hospital, a commercial building, and all other sorts of businesses in addition to this academy. In other schools, most students normally don’t know their school chairman by face, but Mr. Shiraishi is different. He regularly comes to school to talk with the students and visits every semester to check on our grades. He even allows good students to undergo special training, letting them sit in on other classes, and makes sure the professors are performing at their best.
Mr. Shiraishi’s motto is that “school administration is the ultimate service industry.” He believes that it is his obligation to elevate students’ moral consciousness and academic abilities.
Mr. Shiraishi also actively participated in school functions. Out of all the school events, the one he helped out with the most was the Easter bazaar. In fact, he planned every detail of the event himself. “This is our chance to teach our neighbors about Christ’s love and spirit, and to give back to the community,” he said.
And I myself am personally indebted to Mr. Shiraishi. For a long time, I had wanted to sit in on a human dissection. My father couldn’t perform dissections or surgeries in his tiny clinic. But since I decided to become a doctor, I thought I should watch a dissection at least once. Last year, when I became a member of the executive committee, I volunteered to report directly to Mr. Shiraishi. The first time we ever met face-to-face, I requested to sit in on a dissection. I figured he would say that “this isn’t child’s play,” and prepared myself for a curt rejection.
“Understood. I’ll let the chief of surgery know. Please contact my hospital any time you’d like,” Mr. Shiraishi said instead, consenting immediately.
That next week, I was standing in front of an operating table with the professor and interns of an anatomy class. I wasn’t holding a scalpel, of course; I simply watched from the side. But I learned so much more from studying the organs in person than just looking at a diagram or picture. The brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and arteries were silently removed and cut open. I was worried that I’d feel sick or go into a state of shock, but I was surprisingly calm. Perhaps my brain didn’t connect the body in front of me with the concept of death. The tissue wasn’t something grotesque, but a precious material critical for making advancements in the medical field.
When the dissection ended, I was sure of only one thing.
Souls do not dwell in the human body.
I looked at the body from head to toe, in the spaces between brain cells, in every chamber of the heart. There is no space for the soul to exist. Joy, sorrow, anger, and jealousy are emotions that occur in the small organ we know as the “brain” and are predominantly controlled by the amygdala, limbic system, and the neocortex. Humans do not exist because they have souls. They live because breathing causes oxygen to travel throughout the body, secrete physiologically active substances, create blood flow, and maintain their metabolisms. The dissection made me realize that life is nothing more than a simple physiological function.
Even though I am enrolled in a missionary school, I was never a Christian. I don’t believe in a “God” or any other unscientific being, nor do I assign meaning to the Holy Spirit or Eternal Life. I only believe what I see. However, if people find solace in the existence of God or souls—especially those who are ill and rely on these entities for hope—I feel I must seriously try and understand these things for my future patients.
I changed drastically after the dissection. It made me contemplate life—what it is, how one should die, what is God, what a doctor should do—and reconfirmed my decision to seriously pursue my path.
I decided to head the executive committee to try and repay Mr. Shiraishi for giving me that precious experience last year.