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.

The international flight to Japan arrived at 3:25 p.m. We arrived one hour earlier than their scheduled arrival time.

All the passengers needed to wait for a quite long for our suitcases come out in the turntable. The custom process went through simple and fast. When I finally came out from the airport, it was past 5 p.m.

From there, I needed to go through the tiresome process before arriving at my final destination.

I needed to wait in the long waiting line of limousine bus, walk to the JR station with a carrying suitcase, buy a train ticket, and climb up and down a whole bunch of stairs to the station ticketing area to the train platform. From the closest train station, I took a taxi to my parents’ house.

I arrived at their house around 7 p.m. When I entered the gate and walked through to the entrance door, my dad was there opening the entrance door for me.

My mom was sitting at the dining table chair. She apologized for not walking to the entrance. She looked very sick and exhausted.

I naturally hugged my mom and dad. They seemed to be very happy to see me again.

Before my departure, I told my mom not to worry about my dinner of my arrival day. I was planning to buy something, such as a bento box on the way to my parents’ house, but I didn’t have any opportunity to buy anything. I was exhausted anyway so that I didn’t have any appetite for dinner.

After took a bath, I had a glass of sake, and went to bed.

My pocket Wifi has arrived at my parents’ house in the morning. The setup was easy and simple. Before I fall asleep, I sent a message to my husband and daughter through LINE that I arrived safely.

It was a long tiring day. I left my house in America at 4 a.m. and I arrived at my parents’ house at 4 a.m. in Arizona time. It took me 24 hours from door to door. I truly realized how far I moved away from my parents’ house.

I am glad I arrived safely.

My family and I work up at 3:00 a.m., and left for the airport at 4:00 a.m. They gave me a ride to the airport. It is usually the opposite. I give my husband a ride to the airport for his business trip. This time is the other way around.

I took two flights; one domestic flight and one international flight. Both flights were almost empty. I could comfortably use the vacant seats all to myself.

While waiting for the international flight at the gate, the workers kept calling a passenger. His name was “Michael Jackson.” His name was called more than five or six times. I guess everybody thought exactly same as I did. “He’d better hurry up and go see the worker now.” 

The flight from America to Japan is always tough as the airplane proceeds against the wind. It takes longer than the opposite direction. From America to Japan, it takes 12.5 hours, but in opposite direction of from Japan to America, it takes 9.5 hours.

In the international flight, I watched three Japanese movies.

First movie: コンフィデンスマン. It was a comedy movie of fraud group. It was a funny movie and I laughed a lot.

Second movie: 今日も嫌がらせ弁当. It was a movie of a mother and a teenage daughter. This movie made me cry because it talks about the relationship of a mother and a daughter. It was a pretty good movie, and I liked it very much.

Third movie: 町田君の世界. The main character is a boy who is a high school student. His pure and kind actions stimulated the people around him into a nicer and kinder way. I liked this movie too.

I enjoyed watching these movies, but from time to time, my conscious traveled around here and there, thinking about this trip to Japan. I cried from time to time in the airplane.  

It was a super busy and tiring day.

I woke up 5:20 a.m., and left for the grocery store. After I came back with a whole bunch of grocery for my family during my trip to Japan, I organized the food neatly in the refrigerator, the freezer, and the food cabinet.

I prepared breakfast for my daughter and escorted her to the school bus stop. After that, I cooked some stock foods for them for the week that I am away from them. I kept them in the freezer.

I made some phone calls with the travel agency and purchased a round trip airplane ticket to Japan departing tomorrow and coming back one week later.

I did some research about cell phone and Wifi that I can use during my trip. I decided to purchase a pocket Wifi that I can rent in Japan for one week. It was my first time to use the poket Wifi, so it took me some time to read through their procedure and prices.  

In the early afternoon, I went to my daughter’s school to escort her to the library.

After came back home, for just one hour, I talked with my Japanese friend through the online chatting app. I mentioned her about my flu. I seldom catch a cold, but I recently caught a flu and just recovered from the symptom. My friend told me it was understandable. We have such an unexpected and huge discharge from our body as a part of process of life transition. I agree with her. I am facing at one of the baggiest life changing transitions.

After the conversation with my friend, I quickly drove to the library to pick my daughter up.

Then I cooked dinner for everybody.

After dinner, my family and I went for our regular exercise walk.

After the bath, I finally finished packing for the trip.

We all went to bed at 8 p.m., but nobody could fall asleep right away. We all were feeling nervous about my trip to japan. Since my daughter was born, I was never away from my family, even only one night. It will be totally new to all of us family of my leaving away from my family for one week.

My daughter and I cried for a while for feeling lonely and anxiety of missing each other.

At the same time though, we both knew we would be okay. We will grow mentally through this experience.

I have been thinking of my mom for this past one month. I kept sending her a message through LINE app. Although I saw all my messages were read by her in LINE app’s feature, my mom hasn’t replied back to me since December 25^th; Christmas Day, where she sent me a short message, that she has been very sick.

I could have called to my parents’ house. My dad would answer the house phone. I could not do so, because I was too scared to hear from my dad about the serious health situation about my mom.

***

This morning my mom changed the situation.

When I woke up, I noticed one new message on LINE app. It was from my mom. She said she would call me at 10 a.m. in her time, which will be 6 p.m. in my time.

I got so scared to hear from her about what was going on with her. But at the same time, I knew I should know the current situation on what was going on with her. I have to face the truth.

***

At 6 p.m. in my time, I was on the phone with my mom.

As soon as I heard my mom’s first voice, I could not stop my tears falling down on my cheek. Her voice sounded very weak. She said she has been very sick. She was feeling she would not live long due to her cancer.

Previously in last year, whenever I offered my mom to visit and support her, such as in August and September of 2019, she would always turn down my offer. This time was different though. When I offered my visit and support, she instantly accepted my offer.

I realized how bad her health condition was. I am scared to face the fact, but I have to do so, for both of my mom and myself.

I went to the Vietnamese restaurant with my friend. There, we ate Pho; Vietnamese noodle soup. We enjoyed their food a lot.

As usual, my friend and I had a good time together.

I feel comfortable spending time with her. We have many things in common, such as in the same hometown and sun sign.

She is planning to move to a different city in next summer of 2021. I am definitely going to miss this get-together time with her.

My daughter’s sick is still there. She has lost her appetite for three days. All she could eat was small amount of fresh fruits; some oranges, raspberries, and apples. She has been almost fasting for three days.

Her coughs got much better. She seldom coughs. She still have mild fever. This morning she said wanted to be absent from school today.

I too felt sick, so my daughter and I stayed in bed almost all day.

This morning both of my parents visited in my dream. They said they missed me a lot.

In my recent dream, it is always the same situation. My dad is actively moving but my mom isn’t.

I haven’t heard from my mom for almost one month. I am scared to call my dad at home. I am too scared to hear any bad news about my mom.

Yesterday I spent almost all day with my daughter. She asked me to lay down in bed with her while she was taking a nap. Although she had a high fever, her body got chill feeling and was shivering. I kept warming her up. While I was close to her yesterday, I started feeling sick.

During the night I woke up from the sore throat and coughing. I didn’t have a high quality sleep.

And easily imagined, I woke up feeling sick.

The fact that I caught a cold was shocking to me.

I seldom caught a cold in my life up until now. I hardly ever had a cold nor a high fever in my childhood. Even in my adulthood days, I seldom got cold. I always appreciate it was thanks to my female hormone.

Now that I am in the process of menopause, as my female hormone has getting lower, I am much more easily getting sick than before.

I still have a confidence that my cold won’t get too bad. I know I can get over it quickly.

Last night my family and I went to the planetarium. We went to see the leaser show of Stranger Things. We are big fans of Stranger Things so that we could fully enjoy the leaser show and the songs.

The only downside of the laser show was the location and the show time. It was 1.5 hour away from our house, and the show time was 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. We seldom go anywhere in the night.

When we finally were back home, it was past 10:30 p.m.

We quickly took a hot bath and went to bed. My daughter was so tired that she could not fully dry her hair. She fall asleep with the wet hair.

***

This morning she woke up feeling sick. It was clear the cause of her sickness was sleeping with wet hair.

She had suffered from a high fever and chill feeling all day long.

I feel guilty about her getting sick. I should have insisted to completely dry her hair before letting her into the bed last night. At least we learned the lesson in a hard way.