I have known Akiko for over a year now. We immediately became very good friends and I feel very lucky to have met her. She, of course, is a highly dedicated individual and focuses much of her life in helping and caring for other people. I have noticed that she has a very strong nurturing compassionate way with people that are close to her and to her patients. I know that she has a very important position within the work she does. What I often see is her excellence at dealing with people and her way of doing it. Though she is very gentle and loving she also has a drive and an ability to make fast and decisive decisions which some can find strong, however to those that do it is often a needed push for them to look at something about themselves or to understand something. This is what makes her such an extraordinary person, there is a kind of duality of softness and love accompanied by decisive strength. A person like her is born to be in the position of harnessing her powers of kindness towards healing where sometimes one needs to be stern and decisive to be the most caring to ones patients.　This too applies to her friends who search her out for advice and help in many areas of their lifves.

Akiko is one of the most important people in my life because she accepts me as I am. She knows I am changing and making new steps many of which she herself has travelled, but always she accepts with an open heart. Her judgment of people is often
exceptional and clear and she holds back her opinion till others have expressed theirs and listen carefully and fully to each one rather than trying to enforce her expression. In this way people respect what she has to say because it comes from a unique objectivity. Of course her deep training has changed her but perhaps to be less concerned what others think of her and more concerned with being as effective as she can be in her work and in her life. I look up to her as a kind gentle friend who has trodden a long difficult journey and now has found something special and wise within herself not from the outside. This therefore makes her deep. Her care does not come from an emptiness but from a compassion that is in her heart. I cherish my friendship with her, and although she won't admit it she is very good at numerous more things than people know: piano, cooking, gardening, organizing events and parties, the list is endless and in Japan she is able to bridge the gap of language for numerous people each day in translation to perfect English from Japanese and visa versa. This bridging
further makes her the centre of our lifves here in Japan and she will, to the end of her days be a woman that is truly loved by the people around her.