Went back to home town for friend's 23rd anniversary of his death. A
monk who used to be our elementary school teacher was waiting for us at
his temple, where our friend rests. Familiar faces, each somewhat
rounded and wrinkled, gray hair, less hair, etc. started showing up.
Even 2nd grade teacher was there, too. How she looked short and tiny
once we had looked up her face.
Put fire on the incense, some were busy babbling, some were putting
flowers, everybody lined up in front of his grave as the monk teacher
started chanting, incense in each hand. Gave incense to him, bow and
pray as we always do.
Some more babbling, then we all went to visit his parents. His younger
sister had a girl baby about 8 months ago, and the house was partly
filled with baby stuff. We all, about 16 of us, gave him another
incense, followed by sipping green tea, talking about fishing, local
gossips, etc. Nothing exciting but some toned down chats in the room,
thinking there was nothing we could do to ease their pain of losing him,
yet after 23 years. Or our existence would have reminded them of it.
We said good by to them and moved to a small local restaurant. Everybody
got old for sure but the each nature were still the same: jocular one,
clown one, quiet one, loud one, caring one, etc. Obviously it brought
back memories to the teacher, reassured in a way that we were still the
same although the physical changes were undeniable. Everybody smiling,
talking and joking about the old days. Maybe it was such fun because we
were free from irritation and agony from everyday work and life, simply
went back to where we had once was. Memories only glamorized,
inconveniences forgotten, we were not so naive easily be hurt by harsh
words, even such acts were comfortable to some of us, confirming what we
were by witnessing the familiar scenes.
After the party, I looked up the sky, air was
crisp, bright stars above us. Then I though we could let him go now. The time he had gone has
been longer than the time he was with us. His parents have a grand
child at home. We have lost some of the other class mates. Some of us
lost a parent, in-laws, married, divorced, re married, have baby,
addition to family by marriage, and so on. His death is one of the
events happened to our life, and not that shocking anymore. The scar is
healed although you can see a slight mark of it. It's time to move on.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
Walking around Aoyama Cemetery. It's surreal that cherry blossoms are falling and covering graveyards, and its beauty, ephemeral, tranq...
-
New blue hat and awesome carrot salad from Daylesford for lunch at Farmers' market at UN University in Omote Sando. And do you see rese...
-
Overheard a conversation between two senior ladies on the bus way back to home from work. One lady said she was worried about her daughter n...
1 comment:
Perfectly stated about the events surrounding our short existence on this earth. Thank you.
Post a Comment