A Grandmother and Her Cat:
A Story in Photos

By Caroline Golon

Photo credit: Miyoko Ihara

For the last nine years, Japanese photographer, Miyoko Ihara, has been taking photos of her grandmother, Misao Ihara, and her white, odd-eyed cat, Fukumaru.

Misao and Fukumaru share a special bond and go everywhere together. Although Misao is 88 years old, she still works in the fields, planting and weeding under the sun, with Fukumaru always at her side.

“When I see the way my grandmother is living her life, I really feel that she has a kind of strength that my generation simply can’t match,” Miyoko tells Nippon.com. “She gets up with the sun, and goes to bed when it sets. She loves her cat and the vegetables in her field like her own children.”

Fukumaru, who Misao found abandoned in a shed as a kitten, is almost deaf. In recent years, Misao herself has become hard of hearing too. Yet the two understand each other perfectly.

Their endearing friendship is captured in a photo book, Misao the Big Mama and Fukumaru the Cat.