Former Japan Boxing Federation President Akira Yamane’s Wife Reveals: “I Was a Man Yamane Until Death
Wife of former Japan Boxing Federation President Akira Yamane, who passed away in January of this year after a battle with lung cancer, pays tribute to the man...
I cried a lot when I went to the temple to lay his ashes. It was indescribably sad, but now that everything is over, I feel that I have to do my best to live.
Tomomi, the 28-year-old wife of Akira Yamane (84 years old), former president of the Japan Boxing Federation, who passed away on January 31, spoke again about her current state of mind as she reached a milestone with the laying of his ashes in early April. (All statements in parentheses are those of Ms. Tomomi.)
It was on November 29 of last year that the Chairman’s battle with cancer began. He was found to have stage 4 kidney cancer, which had metastasized to his lungs. On the way home from the diagnosis, I remember shedding tears with the Chairman at a coffee shop we stopped at together. Even so, the chairman chose anticancer drug treatment instead of palliative care in an effort to beat the disease.”
During his battle with the disease, he did not change his way of life. He kept his trademark “Borsalino” hat and sunglasses in his hospital room and greeted every visitor with a well-dressed appearance.
However, even Mr. Yamane, who had fought a hundred battles, continued to struggle against his illness. Yamane, who had never said, “I’m in pain,” even when he broke a bone in his leg, sometimes expressed weakness.
“Once, when we were alone in the hospital room, she suddenly said, ‘Mom, I’m sorry I got such a big illness. He had never apologized to me before, so it remains in my memory. We began to shed tears together in mid-January.
In the last days of her life, Tomomi’s stepdaughter, her second daughter, also came to the hospital room. She was too weak to speak, but she said, “I am so glad I am my father’s child. I’ll be your father’s child even if I’m born again,” she said. He was nursed by his family and passed away peacefully.
He was a man who was willing to overcome pain and hardship because he was a man, and he never gave up on living until just before he passed away. He was a ‘man Yamane’ right up to the end of his life.
