Mayonaka no Door (Stay With Me), which was Miki Matsubara’s first big hit, was one of the first songs in the city-pop style that was popular in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s.

She had a steady career as a singer, songwriter, and composer for twenty years. But when 2001 came around, she just disappeared.

Matsubara stopped making music for a while, and it was not clear why. But nobody knew at the time that she was fighting a losing battle against a disease that would kill her, and they had no idea that she would never come back.

Miki Matsubara Cause of Death: What Happened to Miki Matsubara?

In late 2000, Miki Matsubara was told that she had late-stage uterine cervical cancer. She died on October 7, 2004, when she was 44 years old.

She had been sick for four years and had been trying to get better. But on December 14, 2004, only a few months after her death, the news was made public.

Matsubara’s cancer was so bad that she was told she only had three months to live, so she spent the last years of her life treating it. She also stepped out of the spotlight and stopped making music for a while.

It is known that Matsubara sent emails to her friends and coworkers soon after she got the news. She did not say that she was sick, but she did write that she was ending her contract and would no longer be working. The message said:

“I cannot continue my music career due to an uncontrolled thing. I canceled everything, like my telephone, cellphone, and email. So, you don’t have to reply to this. I hope you will have a wonderful life. Miki.”

After he sent that last email, Matsubara stopped talking to anyone. She then deleted her email account and even cut off the phone line to her house.

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Matsubara thought that “the way she was living her life” was the cause of her illness

Miki Matsubara did, however, tell her family why she had to change her life so quickly. She wrote this in a letter to her brother:

“I have got a favor [to ask]. Please forget about the years of my life singing and making music. I can’t help but feel that the way I have been living my life has brought about my sickness…I must find a way to reset myself.”

Some fans say that Matsubara’s words in the message were taken out of context. Most people think that she was admitting that she didn’t like her music career.

In addition, a documentary showed that in her last year, she burned some of her favorite musical scores and records because she couldn’t deal with how little time she had left to write music.

Matsubara’s father said that in her last days, she told him that she did not “want to die” and that she still had “so many things” she wanted to do.

“[Miki] had always been independent, but in the last six months of her life, it was almost like she turned into a baby who wanted her parents’ love,” her father said.

Miki’s husband read her last email to her family at her funeral. It said: