Meeting is merely the beginning of separation
Tokyo Vice“Meeting is merely the beginning of separation” is presented as a Japanese proverb, following a brief remembrance of loved ones who have left and will not return. Its placement makes the saying more than a general observation: it gives language to the grief of losing people who remain missed and remembered.
Wording and Context
The proverb appears after the lines “Those whom I loved and who have left and will not return” and “You are missed and remembered.” The sequence moves from absence, to continuing remembrance, to a reflection on separation. It does not identify the people being mourned, leaving the saying to connect the personal tribute with a broader, unnamed experience of loss.
Meaning and Function
The expression treats separation not simply as an ending but as something already bound up with meeting: to encounter another person is also to enter the possibility of parting. In its position near the beginning of the book, the proverb gives the preceding remembrance a concise, reflective close and establishes loss and memory as ideas through which the book may be approached.
