I was once a young wife who loved playing jokes, and enjoyed making plans on how to trick my husband every year on April Fool's Day. I once created an "Onion Chive Boy" by putting a petit onion carefully onto a thin young chive plant with a long stick. But my husband, who specialized in agricultural machinery, laughed at it.

Once when I was living in the States, I rang up my best friends, Judy and Bell, from the public phone right in front of their house, and said "Oh my god! Hide [my husband] just passed out," and then rang their doorbell right away. They were speechless with amazement, and the tears coming out from their eyes and their ardent hugs made the day an unforgettable one. Since then, we have made it a habit of talking on the phone every April Fools Day even after I returned to Japan. "Do you remember what day it is?" "Of course I do."

This year, things went quite differently. At the end of last year, I broke my neck. Terribly, or perhaps thankfully, I was discovered to have cancer. It had spread to my neck making it very fragile and causing the accident. But were it not for the accident the cancer would have progressed considerably and I may not have been able to live another year. In this situation, I was unable to make even the smallest jokes for April Fool's Day.

Then, I received a wonderfully big card from Judy that said "Today is April 1--April Fool's Day. We all remember your jokes on us." As I'd already informed them about my injury and illness from the very beginning, I realized it was an encouragement and a wish from them and it really touched my heart.

Today, I'm fighting desperately against the illness. It has suddenly taken a wife and a mother away from the daily lives of a husband and children, who are also struggling very hard against an unfamiliar lifestyle, nursing, and uneasiness. For the last four months the intravenous drip injection on me has almost never been taken off. Looking at those tubes hanging down into me, and remembering the time when I was watching and having a hearty laugh without any anxiety at the jokes on the BBC, I get a bitter feeling. I now realized that there might be someone who felt unpleasant or who felt sad by watching it.

On my diary for the April 1st this year, I've written like this; " Because of the illness, I couldn't make even some clumsy jokes this year. I'm going to get well and make lots of witty jokes next year."

Translated by Maiko Noda