I’m Shiho, living with my husband Akira and our first-grader daughter Sakura. One summer day, my sister-in-law suddenly dumped her 3-month-old baby, Cocoa, on me so she could go to the hair salon, and then took off. To make matters worse, she didn’t show up by 1:30 p.m. as promised. That meant leaving Sakura out in the scorching heat on a brutally hot day…! I made sure sleeping Cocoa was completely safe and sprinted to pick up Sakura. But when I got home, my sister-in-law flew into a rage and started attacking me.
Her words kept looping in my head, weighing heavily on my heart. Maybe there was another way. If I had just thought it through, I might not have put little Cocoa in danger. The more I dwelled on it, the more crushed I felt under the weight of my mistake.
Yet my husband made sure to hear my side of the story first, rather than just listening to his sister. That meant the world to me. Knowing he was in my corner gave me all the strength I needed.