I could not sleep well last night. During the night at a certain time, our bed room got so hot that all of us woke up sweating. I knew it was a sign for a group of spirits appear to raise the atmosphere temperature high, so that my dad-in-law visited with his family spirits. I had only 4 hours sleep, but I woke up at 6 a.m. and started getting ready for the trip to Navajo Nation.

We usually stayed at the trailer house that used to belong to my husband’s grandparents, but this time my husband’s brother took the room. So, before we left our house, we needed to reserve a hotel. When we visited the closest hotel’s official website, it showed all the rooms were booked and there was no vacancy. When I called the hotel hoping they had one room available for emergency, but it didn’t go well. The hotel receptionist told me they didn’t have any rooms available. I needed to reserve another hotel which is located little bit far away from my in-laws. We were planning to stay there for one week, but the hotel rate was much higher than I expected. It would cost a lot for one week stay. So, I just reserved only for 2 nights; for tonight and tomorrow night. I was not sure how long my brother-in-law would stay in the trailer house at this moment. My husband and I decided to negotiate with his brother about the trailer house so that we would not need to stay one week at the hotel.

***

My husband was in a shock state and exhausted, so I drove most of the trip. Two songs from the car radio sounded like messages from my dad-in-law. For some reasons, especially the first song played more than three times during the trip. Don’t you think it weird? I think these are definitely messages from my dad-in-law.

The first song was Anna Kendrick’s Cups (Pitch Perfect’s “When I’m Gone”).

The lyric goes like this.

When I’m gone

You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone

You’re gonna miss me by my hair

You’re gonna miss me everywhere, oh

You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone

***

The second song was Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

It is a long song, but this part of the lyric stood out for me today.

Goodbye, everybody, I’ve got to go,

Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth

Mama, oooh

I don’t want to die,

These songs almost made me cry, but I wanted to concentrate on driving. If I cry, I would have kept on crying and it would have made my driving vision narrow. I tried to think about some good and fun memories about my dad-in-law.

***

We arrived at the hotel around 8:30 p.m. the sun was still out. Even though we were exhausted, we wanted to go see my mom-in-law. After checked in, we jumped in the car and headed to my mom-in-law’s house. My brother-in-law and his wife and daughter were already there with my mom-in-law. They were watching moon with a telescope that used to belong to my dad-in-law. I went to my mom-in-law and hugged her. She started crying. I held my tears. But when we entered to the trailer house and saw my dad-in-law’s clothes, I couldn’t hold my tears anymore. I started crying a lot. He is not here anymore.

It was a peaceful day until night. In the afternoon my husband and daughter went to the ice cream store that was newly opened recently.

In the night, my husband and daughter watched the movie. Since it was an action movie and not my favorite type of movie, I stayed in my room and enjoyed watching my favorite comedy show on computer. At 8 p.m. sharp, I heard my husband’s phone was ringing. I heard my husband answered the phone saying “Hi mom.” Then it went to silent. Then about 20 minutes later, I felt a sudden tight feeling around my heart, as if somebody squeezed my heart. The sudden pain continued just for some seconds and went away. I thought of my dad-in-law. I looked at the clock of the computer screen. It was 8: 22 p.m.

Then 20 minutes later my husband came to me with serious face. He whispered my dad-in-law had not been breathing for 23 minutes now. My husband asked his cousin who lives close to my in-law’s house. By the time my husband’s cousin arrived at my in-laws’ house, my dad-in-law was down on the floor, and my mom-in-law was trying to bring my dad-in-law back by performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. My mom-in-law already called an ambulance and waiting for them to arrive. When all the medical team arrived, they did their best at the site and also they brought my dad-in-law to the hospital.

We decided to leave tomorrow morning for Navajo Nation and started packing.

Around midnight we received a phone call from my mom-in-law to announce my dad-in-law’s departure.

I tried to get some sleep but could not until after 2 a.m. My husband’s phone call kept on ringing. It was from his mom, brother, and niece. Everybody had a hard time to accept my dad-in-law’s departure.

I felt scared of going to Navajo Nation at this moment. Just 2-3 days ago, my husband told me his cousin’s girlfriend was tested positive for Covid-19. They all live in the close distance each other. Also I often hear the Navajo people have been still suffering from Covid-19 and their infection and death rate are still high; much higher than other areas. Besides, my dad-in-law had Covid-19 and died from it. I asked my family spirits if I should go as a whole family or if I should ask my husband to go alone. The answer came back right away. Somebody told me right next to my left ear. The voice said that you should go because my mom-in-law needs me for support.” The voice sounded like my dad-in-law. I asked my family spirits to protect us from sickness, and they confirmed they would definitely protect us for this trip.

Today’s dream: I was in the middle of moving. My husband and I were busy packing items in the moving truck. We had several helpers. Probably they were our friends, even though I didn’t recognize any of them in the real world. I had two children; a daughter and a son. My son was still a new born baby. I went back to the house. My late mom was in our house. She looked young and beautiful. She was wearing nice clothes and putting on makeup nicely. I asked my mom to watch my children and she happily accepted my request. It was amazing that I could see my mom clearly in my dream. I woke up happily.

***

I woke up earlier than normal and went to two grocery stores. When I came back home, my daughter told me my husband was in severe pain from strained back and could not get out from bed. He stayed most of day in bed. In the evening I encouraged him to move around instead of staying still. He agreed and went for a walk in the neighborhood area. After the walk, thankfully his pain got much better. I should have encouraged him earlier so that he didn’t need to waste his off-day.

My daughter had another benchmark test started at 9 a.m. Just like two days ago, the same annoying error message appeared on the computer screen and she could not log in to the test. I needed to do the same procedure as two days ago; called the Tech Support and wait for somebody to pick up the phone and explained the situation from the beginning. Every time when we call the Tech Support, a different person answers the phone and they don’t share the information. By the time when the issue was solved and my daughter could start the test, it was already 10 a.m. so that she had to hurry up and finish the test only for one hour that is one hour shorter than other students. Other than that, our afternoon went by peacefully.

Another hectic moment came back at night. Toward our going-to-bed time, my daughter finally finished her science assignment that is due today. She needed to draw some diagrams and take pictures and post it on the file. When she took pictures from my cell phone, they didn’t appear clearly. So I took out a printer and tried to scan the pictures. But for some unknown reasons, my printer app was completely gone from my PC, even though we just used it within the same week for my husband’s work paperwork. Due to the rainstorm, the Internet was on and off. I had a tough time to download the printer app from the manufacture’s official page. By the time we finally fixed the issue of the printer and my daughter scanned the pictures and submitted the file, it was already past 10 p.m., which is considered as “the middle of night” for us. It was a long and tiring day. I hope tomorrow will turn out to be a good one for us.

I chatted with my local friend who moved to another city two months ago via Zoom app. She seemed to be enjoying her new life in a new area. I am happy for her. We had a really good time on chatting and our 2-hour flew away quickly. I appreciate her for being my close friend. It was so cheering and fun to spend time with her.

***

My husband has suffered from back pain since last Saturday. He must have been still exhausted from recent trip. He needed to drive 8 hours all by himself on both ways of the trip and he slept on the couch at his parents’ house. He could not sleep well during the visit due to extreme concern about his dad. So many reasons for him to get feeling sick. I keep giving him Reiki healing energy. I hope he will get well soon. 

It started off from a hectic morning. My daughter had a benchmark test at 9 a.m. When she tried to enter the test page, an error message appeared. It said “your computer does not have the test requirement. Your computer is Windows 8, but the test requires Windows 10 and above.” It was weird because her computer is Windows 10. Also, she has been using the school supplied computer since last year and she never had any issues on tests.

I called the Tech Support and they put me on hold for a very long time due to the high volume of calls. I needed to wait more than 2 hours. By the time I finally got hold of the Tech Support, the test was over. Unfortunately the Tech Support man could not help us without the test page opening.

We needed to try again at noon. I needed to call the tech support and wait for somebody to pick up the phone, and explained the situation from the beginning.

It was very frustrating but finally the second tech support person fixed the issue. After 3 p.m., I finally could get back to my original routine, away from the hectic computer error.

Today was the last day of Obon. I thought of my late mom. Every year on August 15^th, we used to go to the local beach to see our ancestors off back to the Spirit World. At our local beach, the community people prepared a small wooden boat for our ancestors. The people put small letters, vegetables, and snack for our ancestors on the little boat, and push the little boat onto the ocean. After said good-bye to our ancestors, we are not supposed to turn back. We have to go straight back to our house without turning back and stopping by anywhere. I don’t know why, but I always remember about this traditional custom that my mom taught me. I hope my mom is doing well and stay being happy in Spirit World, even though I know she has been.  

***

Last night I went to bed early to take some nap and woke up at 11:30 p.m. I could attend the Reiki share group with European people at midnight. There were 56 attendees. Among them 5 people including the teacher were Japanese. There were a variety of Nationalities in this group. The Reiki teacher explained in English, then three interpreters in Russian, French, and Italian followed.

As usual we started off from self-healing and followed by Shuchu-Reiki. We had 8 people who wanted to receive the healing energy. I felt calm and peaceful energy for most people while sending healing energy.

The host announced my Reiki teacher’s upcoming teaching trip to Italy and Ukraine was postponed for everybody’s safety.

We sent a birthday wish and good thoughts prayer to the Reiki originator; Mr. Mikao Usui. He was 156 years ago; born August 15^th 1865. I sent my appreciation for his contribution to the world.

The Reiki teacher shared one of the Japanese traditional habits. We say a quick prayer before and after meal. We say Itadaki-masu “戴きます” before we eat, and Gochisou-sama-deshita “ご馳走様でした”　 after we eat.

Our teacher explained like this.

“Itadaki” can also written in “頂きます.” “頂” means the top of the mountain. By using the word Itadaki, we express our appreciation and gratitude to the food.  

 “chisou” 馳走 both means “run” and “run.” So it means running around. In order to make one meal, there are so many people running around behind the scene. After we eat, we thank all the people and all the living creatures for their hidden effort and lives.

He concluded that this teaching can be applied to everything in our daily life. Every event in our daily life is an integrated work from many people and living creatures’ efforts and so, we should show our gratitude and appreciation to them.

I always respect my Reiki teacher to explain things very well.

From today my husband got back to the regular work routine. My daughter studied hard to catch up with her assignments. Her school assignments and tests are getting harder and much more complicated than last year. I see a huge gap between elementary school and middle school.

I personally had a peaceful day. I have completed email replies that I had accumulated for these past two weeks. I also completed lots of house chores that I had accumulated Now my sewing machine area and email boxes are finally cleared up.   

My husband and daughter went for a restaurant to cerebrate my husband’s upcoming birthday. i was happy that they had a good time there. I stay behind the house, because I really don’t feel comfortable of eating out at a restaurant. I enjoyed eating my homemade healthy lunch at home.

***

Today’s dream: I was in a swimming pool. There were many other people whom I don’t know in the pool. Somebody told me to show them how I can dive into the pool and how I can swim. So, I went to the diving board and dived. I could dive perfectly and beautifully. Then I swam fast in a beautiful swimming form. People praised my diving and swimming. Then I woke up.

My family and I went to the consultation appointment at the orthodontist office. There we had an uncomfortable experience. I expected to meet the orthodontist himself, but a female worker came to talk to us. She said she could not have the consultation because my daughter still has 2 baby teeth left. It seemed their receptionist was wrong about their rule. When we made an appointment, we told the receptionist about the baby teeth. The receptionist told us they could still have the consultation and give us a rough estimate of the fee and duration based on the examination. The female worker was not nice and never sincerely apologized on behalf of the receptionist’s mistake. I was disappointed for our visit being in vain. We just wasted our time and energy. I didn’t like the experience, but from next time I will be more careful on making an appointment. And of course I will stay away from this orthodontist’s office forever.

Right before I sleep, I always say a nice prayer and express appreciations to my family spirits. There are still lots of things that I can appreciate. I appreciate their constant support that my family and I can stay healthy and happy, and all our belongings are well-protected. I appreciate everything I am provided.