Narration of a Japanese writer and journalist about the last years and the death of his elderly mother, a widow who is cared for by her four children, especially women: Shigako, Kuwako, and daughter-in-law Mitsu (author's wife). The story is emotional, delicate, full of lyricism, overturned in small details, as a testimony of this natural law that sees in the family the scope of the unconditional. Halfway between an essay and a novel -according to the author himself-, the first two parts (Under the Cherry Blossoms and Moonlight) describe family anecdotes of the octogenarian mother; the third and last section (The face of the snow) reflects the days of death. The differences between the Christian mind and that of Buddhism are clear (they believe in the afterlife, which they calmly face, but do not know very well what it consists of); all seek to ease the pain of separation from loved ones.