A Prayer For A Warm Sunny Day

12 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment

by Ai Kanoh in English Posts, Family, Life

My grandmother passed away on February 7th, Tuesday, which is five days later my grandfather’s death.

I just describe for my record.

We don’t know why and how that could happen. She was just recovering from burn injury. In the morning of the day, her doctor reported that the result of her examination shows that she was going to die in a day or two. But she was watching TV and talking to my mother and even walking down to the bathroom by herself. It was difficult to believe. In the last moment, she suddenly lost her breath.

Two of my grandparent’s photos are in front of the Buddhist altar next to each other in their small house. We ask to nowhere why, now and then, but no one knows an answer. The priest lightly joked “I couldn’t prepare two different speeches in front of the same family in such a short notce.” A staff of the ceremony hall said “This is the very first unusual case I have ever encountered in my professional life.” A staff of the crematory said hello to my cousin’s little daughter, “Do you remember me? We met last week, too.” While we were having lunch in the ceremony hall, my cousin brother joked out, “Am I having a deja vu? I think I had the exact same lunch box last week.”

Everyone is still puzzled and shocked. My bigger aunt thinks after all my grandmother thought that she was the only one who could take care of my grandfather even in an afterlife. It could be so. After my grandfather’s death, my grandmother was on her bed actually telling my smaller aunt, “Grampa is calling me.” For God’s sake, why did he try to pull her in, why on the earth did she listen to him?

We don’t know who could influence the timing of her death; is it her will, is it God’s will, or is it my grandfather’s will? Or it’s a mixture of all, or maybe no one’s? In the confusion, I think I started believing in an soul and an afterlife. It all makes sense now.

But we try to get into the phase that we don’t question why anymore and accept things as they happened. We had a very small funeral with close family. Everyone cried, everyone had many vivid memories of her. She was one of women who were meant to be born as a mother. She took care of literally everyone; her husband, three daughters, the daughters’ husbands, the daughters’ husbands’ siblings, friends, grandchildren, grandchildren’s wives and kids. She was worried about everyone surrounding her. We wonder how she could do, and whether any of us could ever live like that. She had so many friends, too.

She expected me a lot. I was the only girl grandchild of her and she had so much dream on me. I wonder how good I was as her granddaughter. I might have dissapointed her being away from home. She wanted me to be a master of dressmaker or a kimono maker. She also trained me to be a master of tea ceremony, a good cook, or a decent wife with all these skills. I tried, but they didn’t interest me in deep after all. Although she kept complaining that I didn’t come back to Japan so often, I knew she was also very proud of having a grandchild working in India. She wanted to visit me once, but she was already too old to travel abroad.

We have to live life without her. All of us. We all have to be a little stronger.

I don’t know how to conclude here, so I don’t try to make a conclusion yet. On the way to Narita airport leaving my family behind, I saw the electric board on Nozomi Super Express showing the weather forecast of tomorrow. Without checking the actual forecast, I just started praying for a fine sunny day in Aichi tomorrow. I think I will always pray it will be a warm sunny day in Aichi that will make all my family a little happy and peaceful every day.