This 180-page collection is Ichika’s masterpiece. Structured as a series of letters to her past self, it moves backward through time, from the day of the funeral to her earliest memory of her mother humming “Sakura Sakura” while washing dishes.
The most quoted passage comes from Letter No. 14, titled “So…”:
“I don’t have a mother anymore, so I have become the keeper of questions no one can answer. What was the name of your first doll? Why did you keep that chipped teacup? At what moment did you realize you would die? I search your old calendars for clues, but all I find are grocery lists and doctor’s appointments. You wrote ‘buy tofu’ on the day they told you it was stage IV. Is that bravery or denial? I don’t have a mother anymore, so I will never know.”
The book sold over 300,000 copies in Japan alone and has been translated into seven languages. It is often shelved under “Grief Memoir,” but Ichika rejects the label. “This is not a handbook for healing,” she wrote in the afterword. “This is a map of staying lost.” Seta Ichika - I Don-t Have A Mother Anymore- So...
The most beautiful completion of Ichika’s sentence is this: So I will never let my friends feel what I felt.
Ichika knows the specific loneliness of an empty house. The way holidays become just another day. The way other people’s casual mentions of "my mom said" can feel like small knives. And so she has made it her life’s quiet mission to ensure that no member of Afterglow ever feels abandoned.
When Ran pushes people away? Ichika waits at her doorstep with warm milk. When Moca hides her sadness behind jokes? Ichika laughs with her, then stays an extra hour. When Tsugumi doubts her worth? Ichika lists every single thing Tsugumi has done for the band, from memory. This 180-page collection is Ichika’s masterpiece
She is the mother she never got to have. And in that role, she has healed not just herself, but an entire circle of friends.
In 2023, Ichika collaborated with sound artist Ryoji Ikeda to create a 45-minute audio piece exhibited at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. The installation consists of a single empty chair, a rotary telephone, and a loop of Ichika dialing her mother’s number — which has been disconnected — and leaving voicemails.
The audience hears her voice crack, laugh, weep, fall silent. She talks about the weather, a dream she had, the cherry blossoms, a recipe she finally got right. “I don’t have a mother anymore, so I
One voicemail goes: “Mom, I don’t have you anymore, so I’ve started talking to your apron. It doesn’t answer either. But at least it smells like you — no, wait. That’s just the fabric softener. I bought the same kind. I’m sorry. I’m trying to trick my nose.”
Critics called it uncomfortable, even invasive. But audiences sat in silence, often weeping. Some left their own voicemails on a secondary line installed for public participation. The collection of these messages — strangers speaking to their dead — became a separate exhibit titled “So We All Speak to the Empty Room.”