Today November 29th is the anniversary of my maternal grandfather’s death. He passed away when I was 11 years old, so it has been 38 years.

I still clearly remember the morning.

My grandfather had been in the hospital for many months. He was surviving with all the tubes. It was the matter of time when the family decided to stop the tubing treatment and let him go. My grandmother passed away when my mom was a baby. So, it was the decision of my mother and her two sisters.

Those days my brother and I had spent our days busy in folding 1,000 Origami cranes for our grandfather’s recover. It is the Japanese traditional way of prayer for somebody. We folded cranes all day whenever we had time. Our futons were surrounded by many origami papers and cranes. We didn’t know the morning was the X-day when they decided to stop the treatment

My mom came back home crying. She could not say a word to us at first. Instead, she started cleaning up the origami. Then she finally told us we don’t need to fold cranes anymore.

With her word, my brother and I realized our grandfather was gone.

***

It was my very first death that I encountered.

My grandfather visited me in my dream and even in the funeral. I could see him clearly and vividly.

He was smiling. He said he was back to his original hometown. He said he had a good life and didn’t have any regrets. He felt light and happy. He wanted me to celebrate his return. He made me happy. I started laughing out loud whenever he made me laugh. I sang songs out loud whenever he asked me to do so, because he didn’t want me to cry for him.

I told everything to my mom about what I heard and saw from my grandfather.

My mom didn’t believe me. She called me a liar. She was so mad at me. She scolded me badly until I cried. I wondered why my mom could not hear and see my grandfather.

***

Now I know the reason.

When we are very close to the person who has just passed away, our emotions are in the way for the departed spirit to contact us. I was still a child, and I was not trapped by my emotion, I was open. So, I was the only one whom my grandfather’s spirit could contact with.

This memory with my grandfather is still one of my important ones. It was my very first death that I encountered.

My grandfather visited me in my dream and even in the funeral. I could see him clearly and vividly.

He was smiling. He said he was back to his original hometown. He said he had a good life and didn’t have any regrets. He felt light and happy. He wanted me to celebrate his return. He made me happy. I started laughing out loud whenever he made me laugh. I sang songs out loud whenever he asked me to do so, because he didn’t want me to cry for him.

I did so. And I told everything to my mom of what I heard and saw from my grandfather.

My mom was so mad at me. She scolded me badly until I cried. I wondered why my mom could not hear and see my grandfather as I did.

***

Now I know the reason.

When we are very close to the person who has just passed away, our emotions are in the way for the departed spirit to contact us. At that time I was still a child, and I was not trapped by my emotion. I was spiritually wide open. So, I was the only one whom my grandfather’s spirit could contact without any issues.

This memory with my grandfather is still one of my important ones.

In my dream of this morning, I was with my mom in my parents’ house in Japan. My daughter was with us. My mom threw up several times in front of us. After she threw up, her face turned to be very healthy. It seemed her throwing up was detoxing. She got rid of everything unnecessary in her digestion system.

I willingly cleaned up her mess. While I was cleaning, I never thought her vomited substances as disgusting. I was filled with love to her. I was willing to do anything for her to support her. My mom felt my deep love so that she just received my support with appreciation.

My daughter and I also cleaned the entire of their house thoroughly. When their house got very clean, both of their faces lit up. They now looked very healthy and active, and not to mention, very happy. My parents thanked my daughter and me for our support to them.

With this dream, I woke up feeling happy.

I knew this dream had a good message to my parents and me. The Internet research of my dream said it was a good sign for all the troubles or worries would be solved and turned to be good. Or it could be a message of financial abundance.

***

In the real life, I communicated with my mom through LINE. I was happy to know both of my parents are doing fine.

***

Today was Thanksgiving Day. I cooked Thanksgiving lunch for my family. I cooked oven grilled Turkey breast with gravy sauce, mushed potatoes, pickled vegetables, steamed vegetables with dip sauce, and miso soup.

It was peaceful and happy day. I appreciate my family to be with me.

In the morning I read a local news about a head-on style collision. It was a shocking news.

It happened early morning of yesterday. The police reported the collision time as 5:59 a.m. The accident location was in the freeway of our neighbor area. We use the freeway in a daily basis.

A local woman crossed over the center line and collided head-on to the vehicle driving in the opposite direction from the front. The woman was pronounced as dead at the scene. The victim who was hit by the woman’s vehicle was transported to the big city’s hospital by a rescue helicopter. Within a couple of hours of arrival, he died in the hospital.

I feel sorry for both victims’ sudden deaths. My condolences go to their family and relatives.

This morning after my daughter left for the school bus, it started raining. I walked to the bus stop and delivered an umbrella to her. I decided to wait for the bus with her.

While waiting, one old man came close to me and started chatting with me. He is a grandfather for two young girls.

He has helped the school as a volunteer for these three years. So, he is familiar with the school and students.

He has volunteered at my daughter’s class too. He shared his experience as follows.

According to him, her class is considered as a real bad one. There are many bad-behaved students in class. Only four students are well-behaved and listen to the teacher. Of course my daughter is one of the good ones. He is impressed at my daughter for her always passed in spelling tests and reading comprehension tests in such a noisy and restless environment. He believes that her class teacher resigned because of the bad students.

I was shocked to hear his experiences. I didn’t know her classroom was really bad.

That being said, I would not worry about her though. I survived my elementary school days in the very loud classrooms but I could learn necessary information at school. I know my daughter will be fine.

I am impressed with my daughter doing great at such the noisy environment.  

In the morning my friend took me to the mountain hiking.

Our destination was a church located 40 minutes’ drive away from our area. The church was built on the surface of a steep mountain. It is open for public so that we can enjoy hiking the uphill trails surrounded by a whole bunch of angel statues.

I never came here nor knew about this place. I felt like I were a tourist who came to a new area. It was a fun experience.

***

In the afternoon, the maintenance man came to our house and switched the cooler to the heater. He said it would start getting very cold with rain starting from this week. Our winter will finally come to our area.

This evening I went for a long distance walking with my friend. We walked 6 miles. It took us 1.5 hours. It was a very nice walk.

During the walk, I mentioned about our house rent increase and our wish to buy a house soon.

My friend gave me a ray of light in house hunting.

She mentioned about her friend. Her friend is her neighbor across her house. The woman and her husband bought the house three years ago as their vacation house.

It is common in this area. Many rich old people who live in east side of America buy a vacation house in Southwest area. They spend summer in their place and spend winter in our area. It works perfect for them. They enjoy beautiful summer in their area. Their summer does not hot as our area. On the other hand, their winter is harsh with lots of snow. So, they spend winter in our area where it seldom has snow or very low temperature.

Sadly for them, they recently decided to get divorce. They are now in the process of divorce. The woman told my friend that the couple is planning to sell their vacation house.

My friend is not sure in details of when they will put their house in the market. But she is sure they will sell the house.

My friend’s daughter once visited their house. She said the inside of the house was nicely remodeled and well taken care of.

I was delighted with the unexpected possibility. If this house is supposed to be ours, I hope every step will go smoothly for us.  

Today my daughter had a wonderful surprise.

She received a birthday card from her Japanese friend. The card was her handmade and contained her kind message to my daughter.

I hope they will keep their friendship even after they become grownups. It is rare to meet nice friends.

They share the birthday month.

We went to store and bought a cute birthday card for her. We will give her a wonderful surprise back. We hope she will enjoy my daughter’s birthday card with her drawings.

I woke up feeling happy. I remember my family spirits were with me in my dream. They told me not to worry about the rent increase. They also told me not to take it personal. They reminded me that the previous rent amount was lower than the market value and that we could stay for almost six years with the good rate. We should appreciate for that. It was a gift from my family spirits. My mind got calmed and refreshed.

***

Back to the reality. The issue still remained. We will have to seriously think about our house. We have to take some actions to buy a house so that we will not need to worry about a sudden leave notice or a rent increase notice.

I thought about the neighbor house with a swimming pool for sale that we recently went to take a look. I checked the realtor’s website to see the status. It says “the house is accepting backup. The owner has accepted the offer but still accepting the house tour and offers from others.”

I called the new realtor whom we met at the house for sale. She was nice and easy for me to talk. She told me the house is under contract. She is the one who is dealing with the purchase process and the process is going well. She does not think the owner will accept any more price offers from others.

During the conversation, she was helpful to give me lots of information for house hunting. If I buy a house, I would like to buy it from her, not from the mean one.

I mentioned about current situation. She looked up the information of our current house. The owner bought this house with $165,000 in 2009 and tried to sell it with $171,900 in 2010. Nobody bought it. That was how the owner decided to rent it out instead of selling it. With the information, the realtor thinks the owner probably wants to have the same price for the house.

Considering other information such as the house’s age and lot size, the realtor does not think the price is the reasonable. Besides, the house does not have any remodeling or upgrades. The roof needs to be replaced soon. There were many cracks inside and outside of the house, so the walls need to be taken care of too. Unfortunately though, the realtor cannot offer us a free estimate until the owner decides to sell it.    

Some realtors’ websites estimated the house’s value as $111,000 or $118,000. There was a huge gap between what the owner wants and the realtors’ estimates. The owner will not accept these price range.

***

My husband and daughter really like our current house and want to buy it. If we buy this house, we won’t need to deal with a moving process, and that sounds brilliant. In my first five years, we changed our residence five times. We hated the moving process.

To me though, this house is not my ideal house. I want to have the entrance door facing to east, but this house is facing to west. I want to have the kitchen sink facing to a window and have the natural sun light, but this house’s kitchen is facing to bedroom. Even in the day time, I need to turn on the light while I cook.

I asked my family spirits for advice.

They told me to forget about the neighbor house with a swimming pool. As for the other option, buying the current house, they told me “do not rush!”   

I shared the messages from my family spirits with my husband. He agreed on their advice. We decided to wait for a while.

The post office now offers a prior notice email of the upcoming letters and packages. Two days ago, the notice email included the scan data of the letter from the realtor.

I got uneasy. I instantly knew this was not a happy letter.

The realtor is the representative of the house owner that we are renting. The owner can do anything, such as kicking us out or increasing the rent, as long as they notice us one month prior.

I had spent these two days feeling uneasy. If the realtor were nice and friendly, I would casually ask her what the letter was for. Unfortunately I cannot do so. If I asked her, she would reply back to me in her usual cold voice tone to wait for the letter arrive. She is not nice.

***

Today the letter finally arrived. I was right about my intuition. It was not a happy letter.

It was a rent increase notice. The letter was straightforward. It does not contain any greetings or nice wordings.

The letter said they will raise the rent by 12.5 % from January of next year. The letter asks us to sign the official document of the rent increase agreement and send it back to her. The letter also says even if we don’t send the agreement document back, it is considered we agree. Otherwise they have rights to terminate rent contract; which means we will have to move out by the end of next month.

I was shocked.

I wish the realtor was little bit nicer than doing this. I wish the realtor at least let us know in advance by a phone call, prior to the official letter. Instead, the realtor just sent out the cold-hearted letter all of a sudden. The letter was intimidating and threatening. I felt the disadvantage of being a tenant.

As for this realtor, she was nice and kind at the beginning. At least I thought so. However, my husband warned me to be careful with her from the beginning. He knew she would change her attitude right after we made a contract.

He was right. The realtor completely changed her attitude from nice to cold-hearted. After we signed the contract documents, any communications with her, including the conversation over the phone and the text messages, were unpleasant. We have been living in this house for almost six years. Whenever I needed to communicate with the realtor regarding the house, I would ask my husband to do so. He didn’t like communicating with her neither. That was how we have survived from dealing with the not-nice person.

Maybe it is the sign for us to move out this house. But then, where should we go? We don’t have any opportunities yet to find another house.

Before I slept, I asked my family spirits to talk to me about our residence in my dream.

Today it rained all day long. It was one of the rare day that rained from morning. It was cold as the lowest temperature of 2 C (35.6 F). Still, it was not bad as Navajoland at all. Their lowest temperature had been already -10 C (14 F). 

***

I watched the movie “Indian Horse (2017)”.

This movie is based on the Richard Wagamese’s non-fiction novel “Indian Horse”. It is about an Ojibwe boy who survives the Indian residential school system to become a star ice hockey player.

In one word, this was a tough movie to watch through. While watching, the memories in my deep inside flooded back to me. My soul still remembers all these terrible and unfair deeds in the past lives.  

The scenes in the school where the nuns and other school faculties treated the Native boys and girls in an abusive and cruel way. They were denied everything they received from their parents and grandparents; the mother tongue and the culture. They were forced to become a Christian.

In the movie, even after the main character boy got out of the school and became a star ice hockey player, he went through the unfair treatments from the public and society. After many Natives went through this kind of unfair treatments, they ended up becoming an alcoholic to escape from the mean society.

It was painful for me to watch this movie through. My husband left the movie in the middle. He could not watch through. He didn’t say much, but I understand how he felt.

I remember both of his grandparents often told me about their own experiences in the boarding school. They went through the unbelievable and shocking experiences, just like being described in this movie.

This is my sincere hope that the Native ancestors who had been treated improperly in the society are now all in the safe and peaceful place; aka, their original spiritual homeland. They deserve all the bests. I know they have been watching over their dependents very well from the spirit world.

I want to contribute to make this world to a better one. I have been praying for it every day. My contribution might be small, but I believe everybody’s positive thoughts does count.