Terumi Okaku, 23, a student at a university in Kyoto, is still plagued by feelings of guilt and loneliness after the suicide of her mother four years ago, thinking she might have been responsible for her death.
Okaku took a leave of absence from the university for one year but returned to resume her studies on Oct. 1.
Her 57-year-old mother committed suicide in a Tokyo park in March 2003. Her father's necktie was around her mother's neck and beside the body was a hand-knit dark muffler Okaku had presented to her mother when she was an elementary school student.