ODATE, Akita -- Nineteen-year-old Chisato Okawa has higher brain dysfunction, which causes decreased memory and concentration, but that hasn't stopped her from singing to her own guitar accompaniment at local events and other occasions.
"Why was I born? Who I am living for? I can't help but think that way," she sings.
Okawa started her current activities a year and nine months ago, and now has eight songs. They include "Wakatteru yo [I know that]," in which she frankly asks herself about the value of her own existence.
Born in Odate, Akita Prefecture, in 1998, Okawa performs under the name Chisato Hikigatari, with hikigatari meaning playing the guitar and singing.
When Okawa was 9 years old, she was said to have only three months to live due to acute lymphatic leukemia. Two months after that, she also suffered a cerebral infarction. She survived after a four-month battle but there were aftereffects, and she was diagnosed as having higher brain dysfunction in the summer of her second year in high school.
Okawa had come across a guitar during a music class a year before the diagnosis. Unable to remember even what she was about to say, she had trouble continuing to do things, but she kept playing the guitar for 10 hours a day and learned chords.
When she wrote music, Okawa could reveal her true self.
"I like what I am now. I wish I could think that way," she wrote in "Yume" (Dream), the song for which she first wrote lyrics. She put into the words her wish to be what she is, despite her disabilities.
This year she plans to visit children's institutions and other facilities more frequently. "Music saved me. It's my turn to help someone else," Okawa said.
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