It started off as a good day. I spent all day with my parents. My parents looked happy to have me back to their house. It was as if three of us time-traveled back to our younger years when I was still a small child living with them in the same house. I felt good about my visiting them by myself, instead of bringing my daughter with me.
***
They started hiring a professional house helper since last June, when both my parents had to be hospitalized and have a surgery for their cancer. I never met nor talked with the helper in person.
Today I finally could meet her and got to know her personal life. She was 58 years old. She is happily married. She and her husband have four boys, and all of their sons are grown up. She works efficiently and has been helping my parents a lot. I appreciate her sincere and polite attitude toward my parents. We exchanged LINE address, so that we can communicate for the future.
***
While I was talking with my mom, I got so emotional, but I was still successful to hold my tears back. I didn’t cry all day today.
In last month; December 2019, my mom’s health condition had been very, very bad, to the point where she thought she would die. That pushed her to do whatever she had to prepare for her death.
First, she bought a funeral dress for me so that I won’t need to worry about the funeral outfit.
Second, she specified her preference of her own funeral in details. She wants her funeral to be very simple in a minimum scale. She doesn’t want to invite a whole bunch of people; just limited to only small number of adults whom she was close to. She doesn’t want to invite any children and young people, because attending a funeral is tough for them. She wants to have a back ground music of Hawaiian aloha relaxing music. She wants all the attendees of her funeral to be happy, as she will be released in the safe place in spirit at the time of her funeral.
Third, she mentioned about their new grave.
***
My dad gave me more detailed information about the grave.
They recently bought a new gravestone and the land for themselves. It was real recently as of last month; December 2019. The cemetery is located on the street across my graduated elementary school. It is also located on the street across my dad’s company.
I was in a complicated feeling to hear this news, due to two reasons.
The first reason is about my mom’s preference. It is against of her preference.
In my last visit of Japan, my mom clearly mentioned she did not want to be buried in the graveyard. She asked me to take the same procedure of her father. Her father; my maternal grandfather, was the last person who held his family name. He had three daughters, and all of them married and changed to their husbands’ family names. He didn’t have his family grave. My mom decided to keep his ashes in the ossuary of her favorite temple. Since 1981; the year my grandfather passed away, my mom has repetitively paid for the following 10 years’ renew fee to the temple. My mom told me she recently paid for another 10 years’ renew fee. After my mom passes away, she wants me to let go of my grandfather’s ash. The temple will take care of it as a group ash. So, her preference was to keep her ashes in the same temple with her dad for the first 10 years, and after the 10 years, just let the temple to take care of it as a group with others.
Obviously my mom was not happy for my dad’s purchasing their new grave. As his daughter, I know my dad always decides everything without discussing with my mom or us; his children. He has been a typical autocrat in this family.
They also bought their “戒名”. It is pronounced as “Kaimyo”. It is a Buddhism name engraved on one’s gravestone. There are some ranks in Kaimyo. My dad bought theirs at the highest price. He didn’t mention the exact price, but I guess it costed them more than two million yen for their Kaimyo. As for purchasing Kaimyo, I have my own opinion, but I am going to refrain from sharing it here to avoid offending some people. All I can say here is I am not going to buy my own Kaimyo.
***
Purchasing a grave is good and bad.
My paternal side’s family grave is located in his hometown, where is in the isolated rural area. I don’t remember how I can get there. All I remember is it takes many hours to get there, through several public transportations. Or another option to get there is by a car, but unfortunately I don’t know the address. I don’t remember the direction at all. And I don’t know my uncle’s or my cousins’ contact information. My dad prohibits me to contact them anyway. It is a long story that I will share in some other opportunity.
So, the good thing is now my parents’ new grave is located in their current hometown, which is easy access to me.
However, the bad thing is the new responsibility. My brother and I, and additionally our decedents in the future, will automatically bear the responsibility to keep the grave. Somebody has to take care of it, by occasionally visiting it, cleaning it, and paying for the renew fee. Again, in my personal opinion, I don’t want to be buried in a grave because I want my decedents to be free from any responsibilities. But it is just my personal opinion, and I am not going to argue about this with anybody. I respect everybody’s different preference and opinion.
***
Another biggest news for me was about my condominium. When I left Japan twelve years ago, I could have sold it with around five million yen according to the realtors at that time. My parents prevented me from selling it, because they feared of my getting divorced and coming back to Japan. My parents bought it off from me and paid the remainder of my mortgage payment of five million yen on behalf of me. We changed the owner name from me to my mom’s name. Since then for 12 years, the condominium kept vacant. On the latter half of last year 2019, they finally put it for sale, but no luck in selling it. Last month, December of 2019, they decided to sell it in a very low price to the realtor company. I was shocked at the sold price. It was only one million yen, which is amazingly low price. However, all in all, I am glad that they finally got rid of my condominium. For the past 12 years, they had been paid the land tax and monthly management fee for the vacant house. Now they are completely free from all the responsible payments. I felt relieved to hear this news.
***
My dad has been in the process of tidying up of his real estates. He used to own many real estates in different areas, to the point where no other family knows about it. Starting last year, he has sold many of them. At this moment, he shrank down to only three real estates. I appreciate him for simplifying his real estates.
***
This trip was different from my previous ones. In my last visit of March 2019, my dad was not ready to talk about his death. He got mad at me to talk about his death and inheritance. Now he has changed from last visits. He openly talked about his death and our inheritance.
I mentioned about my brother. Before I moved to America 12 years ago, my brother asked me to sign the document that I would discard my right of inheritance. I didn’t sign it because it was against of my parents’ preference. My brother has not changed about his desire. Even recently he asked my mom to omit me from inheritance sharing. He wanted to inherit everything all to himself, not sharing it with me. I talked about it with my parents. Both my parents want my brother and me to share equally. They firmly told me not to discard my right of inheritance. I was glad to hear this from them. I never could talk openly with my parents about this topic.
***
My mom’s health issue started in June 2016. My mom begged my dad to stop smoking inside the house. My dad rejected my mom’s request. After their long discussion, my dad finally agreed to smoke only in the second floor. He agreed not to smoke in the first floor, where my mom stays almost all day in the kitchen and living room. That was what I heard from my mom years ago.
Sadly my dad didn’t keep his promise. Right after we had dinner, my dad started smoking in the living room on the first floor. I got after him about his breaking his promise. He yelled back at me.
My good day ended with a terrible argument with my dad. I am sad that my dad is not supportive for my mom. If he really loves her and cares for her, he would have completely stopped smoking long time ago. I am sad to know how stubborn and selfish my own dad is.
three wisdom 