Kiniro No Nobe Ni Utau (Shogakukan Bunko)

[Machine Translation] It was autumn in the San-in region, with ears of rice shining golden and swaying in the wind, shara shara shara singing. Matsue was about to breathe her last breath when her daughter Naoko, her granddaughter-in-law Miyoko, her great-grandson Makoto Azuma, and Fumiaki, a clerk at a nearby flower shop, all came to see her. She remembered her husband's last words at the time of his death. Whose child is Naoko? I believed that if I lived nearly 100 years, everything would wither away, I would be enlightened, I would have no more thoughts to leave behind, and I would be able to leave lightly, but it seems that people do not become light so easily.

稲穂が金色に輝き、風に揺れてシャラシャラと唄を奏でる山陰の秋。娘の奈緒子、孫の嫁・美代子、曾孫・東真、近所の花屋の店員・史明の四人に送られ、九十二歳の松恵は息を引き取ろうとしていた。松恵は、先だった夫が今際の際に発した言葉を思い出す。奈緒子は、だれの子だ…。「百年近くを生きれば、全て枯れ、悟り、遺す思いもなくなり、身軽に旅立てるとばかり信じておりましたが、どうしてどうして、人間って簡単に軽くはならないようです」多くの人の心を受けとめ救った大おばあちゃんが、美しい風景に送られ、今日旅立ちます。