xakyの日記

９月１１日に、妻の祖母が亡くなりました。哀悼の意を込めて、この日記を書きました。

Y's grandmother passed away Saturday morning at 4am, on the inauspicious date of September 11, 2004. The hospital called Y’s father at 2am to tell him her final moments were approaching, and he called his brothers and sisters so that they could be with her. Only one uncle made it in time.

The hospital contacted the funeral parlor who sent people to the hospital. She was thoroughly bathed and cleaned, then wrapped in white drapes and sent to the house where she was laid on a mattress in the main tatami room on the first floor. Then, she was covered with blocks of dry ice for preservation during the two days in which she would remain in state, and another white quilt draped over that. The funeral parlor staff set a small table in front of her with a golden cushion in front of it. On the table were a white candle in the shape of a lotus flower, a bronze "bell" that looks like a bowl and is struck once during prayers for the departed's soul producing a deep reverberating tone, a small portrait of Y’s grandmother in her happier days, an ash bowl, a spiral cone-shaped incense stick that burns for 12 hours, and a cup of purple and gold incense sticks. All of those who wished to pray for her sat on their knees in formal "seiza" style on the cushion, bowed deeply to the body, burned one incense stick (taking one with the right hand from the cup, lighting it with the candle, transferring it to the left hand, blowing out the flame with a brisk wave of the right hand, returning the stick to the right hand and planting it upright in the ash bowl), put both palms together quietly and prayed, then rang the bell (although that's an option for the more devout Buddhists, who also have a string of red prayer beads wrapped around their right hand when they pray). At the edge of the table was a bowl of rice with chopsticks planted vertically in the middle, a famous funeral symbol (which is why it is considered bad luck to plant one's chopsticks in a rice bowl at any other time). There was also a smaller table beside this on which were placed small dishes of food, and a basket of fruit on the tatami matting on the other side. The idea is that the soul of the departed will partake of these dishes, which are the same foods the family eats during their normal meals. This continues on a smaller scale for all departed family members. For example, the grandfather's altar always has a tiny dish of something in front of it which is regularly replaced.

The house was a flood of activity by the time we arrived at 4pm. Family members, neighbors and acquaintances were coming and going, Y's parents were running around serving guests, preparing the funeral arrangements with the master of ceremonies, a personable man of forty or so who spoke in a casual and comforting tone of voice. We would see him continually coming and going between the funeral hall (called "Heaven Hall") and the home, arranging all aspects of the affair.
When guests arrived, they would first pray at the temporary altar for Y’s grandmother, then offer a condolence telegram and/or a condolence gift. The gifts are wrapped in a ceremonial white paper with the words "[presented] before the spirit [of the departed]," along with the name of offerer and written in a light gray ink only used for funeral gifts to symbolize sorrow (the idea is that the offerer's tears of sorrow falling on the paper have diluted the normally black ink into a lighter hue). The contents are usually towels, dried seaweed, or some other gift. Incidentally, after 49 days (this number also varies according to the school and sect of Buddhism one belongs to, Y's family belonging tothe Buzan sect of the Shingon school) , the soul of the departed is said to have finished its journey to heaven and is then referred to as a "Buddha."

Condolence telegrams, called "koden" (literally "incense telegrams," meaning a message offered in lieu of incense burned at the altar for the departed's soul) are ordered through the telephone company and, depending on how much one spends, can be as simple as paper or as ornate as velvet-wrapped wood backing with a ceramic ornamental flower plate which can be detached and used in the home, or even a lacquer board encrusted with mother-of-pearl and surrounded by an ornate stylized "rolling clouds" pattern. The message inside is usually short, one or two lines, so you can see how your message was far longer than the normal ones (but Y’s father insisted on preserving the integrity of your message and having it read at the funeral on Sunday).

On Sunday, the wake was planned for 6:30pm at Heaven Hall, so most of the day was spent like the previous one, preparing arrangements and entertaining the stream of mourners. I had a chance to see some family members I had only met once at our wedding party, and neighbors I had never met before. All was not sadness, of course. During the conversations and meals, which were held in the very same room as the grandmother, many hours were spent reminiscing about "obaachan" (grandma) and how caring and selfless she was. These moments often brought Y to tears, since she was so close to her grandmother, as it did nearly all of those present, myself included.

At around 1pm on Sunday, the master of ceremonies brought my rental clothes, a simple black double-breasted suit. I had brought the same black tie I wore for my grandfather’s funeral. Then, at around 4pm, he called all of those present, the closest family members to the tatami room for the transfer of the body to the coffin, a perfectly rectangular box covered in an elaborately embroidered white cloth. The ritual required all of those present to take turns ceremonially "washing" her body by gently rubbing her face, arms and legs with a moist towel. First the top quilt was removed, the dry ice blocks were removed, and we could see her arms clasped together in front of her in prayer. As several of those present touched her limbs, many were surprised to feel that she was as cold as ice, but this was, the MC explained, normal to preserve her. Then, Y’s mother and the other women helped to fix her makeup. She had a very peaceful expression. All of us helped to carry her into the coffin by holding onto special straps sewn into the bottom quilt. Her head rested on a foam cushion within the coffin and was thus slightly elevated. She was wrapped in a white shoal. Then, the MC explained it was time to dress her with everything she would need on her voyage to heaven. A white cloth sash was draped around her neck with a ouch in which money was placed, a gray kimono was draped over her, and some of her favorite clothes such as a coat and a bag were folded and placed at her feet in the coffin. Her hat was placed near her head and a straw "halo" (only for women) was placed behind her head. Y's parents also placed the message plaque which everyone had signed for her 88th birthday party (her happiest moment in her last years) on top. Near her neck, I placed one of the paper origami cranes from the wreath she had made to wish for my success in my orals and to protect Y when she had an threatened miscarriage, which met with Y’s father's approval. Finally, the lid was closed and a window was opened near her head to allow visitors to see her. On top of the coffin, a ceremonial short sword was laid to complete the equipment she would need on her journey. Then, the coffin was carried away into the hearse and we wouldn't see her until the wake that evening at Heaven Hall.

Although the wake wasn't scheduled to begin until 6:30pm, it is customary　for the "chief mourner" -- Y's father (chief organizer of funeral　arrangements) in this case -- and all of the close relatives of the departed to arrive at least an hour in advance. There were about 40 people assembled at Y's house at 5pm, so Y’s father hired a small bus to transport them to the funeral hall. When we approached, there were large vertical banners written in large stylized calligraphy near the corner of the road leading towards Heaven Hall, as is the custom, announcing "S family funeral," the first of many announcements we would see. Y sat at my side in the bus, a faint smile flashing through gray clouds of sadness, just like the autumn sun that occasionally reflected from the tiny decorative mirror tied to her tummy beneath the thin fabric of her black funeral dress. The outwardly directed mirror is an old superstition intended to keep the spirit of the deceased from taking the soul of the unborn child away with them as they leave on their journey into the next life.

When we arrived at Heaven Hall, the MC was there to greet us and direct us inside. There were two funerals planned for the same two days as Y's grandmother's. The other one, having been reserved earlier, was in the main hall, so we needed to use the smaller annex. Outside, dressed high against the front wall of the annex were three giant floral funeral wreaths with the Chinese character meaning "mourning" at the center [see picture], along with the name of the offerer. These are the highest rank of floral wreath, usually reserved for corporate contributors (in this case, the presidents of companies the grandfather dealt with or the president of the neighborhood chamber of commerce) who are usually the same people sending the mother-of-pearl encrusted telegrams. Individuals usually offer the floral arrangements that make up the funeral pyre inside the hall behind the coffin, just like the one we arranged on your behalf.

One disadvantage of the annex, for older people and foreigners who aren't used to sitting on their knees, is that the ceremonial stage where the central mourners assemble closest to the coffin is on a tatami-matted platform where people are required to sit in "seiza" style for minutes at a time throughout the ceremonies, the instances of which I will shortly elucidate. I won't go into an elaborate depiction of the funeral pyre since you can look at the picture I sent earlier but I would like to briefly explain some of the iconography. The two stylized white plant-shaped figures on either side of the coffin symbolize lotus flowers, and if you look closely at some of the small colorful wreaths arranged further outside on either end, you may see "peacocks" with spread plumage. These are apparently "birds of paradise." There are also two tall thin wooden boards planted vertically on the right sides, on which are marked the departed's "kaimyo," his or her Buddhist name in the afterlife. On the table where the priest would officiate over the ceremonies directly in front of the coffin at the center were placed incense, a bowl-shaped bell and hammer, just like the altar at Y's home I described earlier, and a golden cloth surface where scripture parchments would be unfolded and recited. In front of the funeral pyre, on the tatami-matted platform were arranged about 40 flat blue square cushions arranged in four rows of 5 on either side of the platform so that people seated in one section faced the people seated in the other section and could alternately look at the funeral pyre or at the general guests seated in chairs in the rest of the small hall. At the threshold between the platform and the audience was a small table with a special incense box covered in red lacquer and comprised of two compartments, a smaller one on the right side containing a mix of sawdust and incense grains and a large one on the left filled with ash and a burning wood cinder in the center. There was an identical box near the priest's table at the front of the platform. These boxes are for "shoko" (incense burning) which is the primary method of offering ritual condolences and prayer during the ceremony. At one point during the priest's chanting of Buddhist scripture, the shoko box was presented to the person sitting at the front row on the left side, closest to the priest. At this point, everyone was required to sit in "seiza" style on their cushion, slide the box directly in front of them on the tatami matting with both hands, bow deeply, pick up a pinch of incense with the tips of one's fingers from the right side, raise it up for a moment to heart level with fingers still in a pinching position but upturned to heaven, sprinkle it onto the cinder on the left side, and repeat twice, place both palms together in prayer, pray, then slide the box over to the next person. Once all the main mourners on the platform had completed this, the MC softly announced that tie the general audience could also begin the shoko. People lined up in two rows in front of the shoko table and, one by one, approached the table, stood on a special mat which had the user-friendly instructions "stand here for shoko" printed on it, conducted the shoko ritual and returned to their seat. However, each time someone finished shoko, they bowed twice, once to the central mourners on the left side of the platform, and once to the central mourners on the right side to show their condolences to them. In return, the central mourners were required to acknowledge these guests by bowing back, preferably seated in "seiza" style to show formal respect. Those who couldn't keep up the position were allowed to sit cross-legged instead. During all of this, Y was seated at the front row of the general audience since it would have been too difficult for her in her pregnant state to sit either cross-legged, never mind in "seiza" style. I found myself in the strange position of having to bow to her when she approached the shoko table the following day at the funeral when there weren't enough people seated on the platform and I was called up to perform my duty as central mourner. You see, Y's father had thought it would be better for me to be seated next to Y in the front row to comfort her and monitor her just in case, and this is indeed what I did during the wake, but during the funeral -- and perhaps Y’s father also wanted me closer as well -- I was on the platform seated closest to the general audience.

When the priest was called into the hall, the MC asked everyone to close their eyes and join their palms together in prayer. I heard a high-pitched bell being struck solemnly at long intervals approaching to my right, the ruffling of clothes in front of me, and then the bell receding slightly to
my left as he sat down in front of Y's grandmother as she lay in state in her white coffin. The MC then told us to relax our hands and I saw the priest's back covered in a gold and black embroidered coat with a gold collar and sash, and shortly cropped silver hair. He intoned scriptures in a monotonous tone, pausing occasionally to punctuate the reading with a deep reverberating tone from the bowl-shaped bell on the table. After 15 minutes, the central mourners began shoko and then the general audience as I explained above. The whole wake took about 45 minutes from beginning to end.

After everyone had completed shoko, the MC told us to place our hands together and close our eyes once again as the priest departed the same way he came. The MC announced that the ceremony was officially concluded and reminded everyone to attend the funeral the following morning at 10am. After this, one of Y's uncles invited everyone to go upstairs to the second floor of the parlor where there was going to be a special dinner.

As you may have understood by now, a Japanese funeral involves a lot of hospitality towards the guests in addition to the ceremony arrangements proper. Hosting a catered meal held in the same building, directly above the departed's casket on the first floor, symbolically means celebrating her life and cherishing good memories. I had a chance to mingle with many family members I had not seen in a long time, others I had never met before, and friends and neighbors of Y's father and, of course, her grandmother. Y and her big tummy naturally drew some attention, and people were genuinely moved to see her there. Some, especially the grandmother's elderly neighborhood friends, told us how much she had wanted to see her great-grandson. That is, indeed, one of the saddest things for me since I remember her lamenting -- on the last day we talked to her in the hospital -- how she should have tried harder to "hang on" so that she could live long enough to see him...

But of course, all was not sadness. Laughter rang through the second floor dining room that evening as people reminisced and joked, filled each others cups with beer, juice and tea (actually, I was called upon my Y's mother to "do the rounds" and fill the cups of people she introduced me to, which involved more sitting in "seiza" style with each formal introduction), and enjoyed the various appetizers and small dishes the S family family had arranged for them. Although custom dictates that one seat at the corner be reserved for the priest who is also invited to eat, this is more than often only a symbolic gesture (like Elijah's seat), which the priest rarely takes advantage of, being busy preparing for the next funeral.

After dinner, which promptly concluded at 9pm since this was the time limit of the parlor reservation, the closest family members (aunts, uncles and a few others) boarded the mini-bus back to the S family home, leaving some others to sleep on the second floor of the funeral parlor. Y's father explained to me that it was customary for someone to "keep watch" over the body of the deceased, making sure that the incense never burned out. In fact, the spiral-shaped incense stick I described earlier is made with that in mind since it burns for 12 hours. Since all of the family members could not sleep in the parent's house, the others slept in the grandmother's house. Everyone went to bed very soon after returning home since they needed to wake up at early the following morning...

We all awoke at 6am and the closest family members sleeping in Y's parents' house had a simple breakfast at 6:30am. By 8:30am, this group, the group that had slept in the grandmother's house and some ten or so neighbors had gathered outside, all dressed in black and white. Many of the men-folk were nervously smoking cigarettes and rocking their weight from side to side, hands in their pockets, looking just like penguins about to dive into the ocean.

We boarded the minibus just like we had the day before and returned to Heaven Hall where we were greeted by the few cousins who had stayed the night there. Once again, we were more than an hour earlier than the beginning of the ceremony but such was the custom it seemed. Indeed, general guests began streaming in soon after 9:30am. Nothing had changed from the day before on the platform and the funeral pyre, Y's grandmother still lay peacefully in her white coffin, surrounded by messages of love and condolence as well as the symbols of Buddhist enlightenment.
The only difference in the hall was a live organist at the back of the room, instead of the piped music the day before, playing a medley of ethereal melodies in strings, including "Autumn
Leaves."

I already explained that the funeral ceremony (actually called "parting ceremony" in Japanese) was nearly identical in format to the wake, so I won't describe it again. However, there were a few differences. To begin with, the priest was accompanied by a young female assistant (perhaps his daughter) in a saffron-yellow garment, who sat at his left and chanted accompanying choral variations of the scripture read by the priest. Second, the scripture reading was far longer than at the wake. I could make out some snippets of information from time to time within the arcane Buddhist language: prayers for her soul to travel safely and decisively in direction of Heaven. At one point, the priest paused, rang the large bell, pulled out a gold and black crepe parchment and slowly unfolded it on the altar table. I later learned that this was a particular ceremony in its own right, called "shonanoka" (literally, "the first seventh day") formerly conducted - as the name indicates - seven days after the funeral but today, conducted at the same time. In modern times, it has become possible for relatives and friends in far removed places to fly in for the funeral but most people can't afford to do it twice in the space of seven days. In the past, of course, any person who would be attending a funeral would live in close proximity to the home of the deceased and returning seven days would have been easy. The tone of this shonanoka liturgy was a pitch lower and more solemn than the rest, but it only lasted five minutes. Then, the priest returned the parchment to his sleeve pocket, and the MC announced the beginning of shoko. As I explained before, this time I was on the tatami-matted platform.

The final difference from the wake was the reading of condolence telegrams at the end. You may recall me telling you that your message was the first and longest one to be read. The way it was translated into Japanese, the only cue that it might have been from a non-Japanese person was the reference to "God" in the singular. Of course, the final signature confirmed any suspicions listeners had when they heard "R.B., father-in-law of obaachan's granddaughter Y, Washington D.C." The next few telegrams were a third as long, and then seven more were just one sentence, with the MC concluding by saying "there were many others" which time constraints prevented him from reading...

When the "parting ceremony" had finished, everyone was temporarily ushered outside of the hall, and some people took pictures of everyone lined up in front of the annex. Then, the MC called us back inside to pay our last respects to Y's grandmother before she was transported to the crematorium. All of the chairs were cleared away, and the coffin lay in the front of the hall, now entirely opened, revealing Y's grandmother, a faint smile on her lips even though she had spent all of that time trapped in a box. There was also a tin full of white chrysanthemum blossoms near on a little table near the head. The MC asked the closest mourners to gather around, then gave a basket full of purple irises and pink lilly blossoms to one of Y's uncles, who in turn asked us to take some. All together, we covered her body with flowers, and finished with the white chrysanthemums around her face. Then, the MC asked all those present to put a hand on the coffin cover as we closed it. The men were asked to become pallbearers, and we carried the coffin outside into the back of the waiting hearse. As the hearse door closed, Y burst into tears and I was hard pressed not to lose my composure as well.

Normally, Y would have followed the other mourners into the two waiting minibuses and taken the 45-minute journey to the crematorium where she would have witnessed her grandmother's "departure" on her journey as she was released from her mortal coil. However, since we also had
a 2-hour train ride back home to N city in store for us that evening, this would have just been too tiring for a woman less than three weeks shy of delivering a baby. So, Y resigned herself to be accompanied by me in a taxi back to her parent's house. After picking up two lunch boxes from a convenience strore near Heave n Hall, that is where we were to wait for a telephone call from Y’s sister telling us when the minibuses were 10 minutes away from the family grave where the urn would be buried and the religious portion of the ceremonies would be concluded.

Kumiko called us at about 1:30pm, and we walked up the road just in time to see the buses arrive. Y’s mother was carrying a large enframed photo of the grandmother, decorated with black and white ribbons, in front of her, and she was followed by a forlorn-looking Y’s father carrying a huge basket of fruit, and behind him, uncle Y’s uncle carrying a green cloth-emboidered box with the funeral urn containing pure white bones. Behind them were famiy members carrying other elements of the funeral pyre, such as the two huge thin vertical boards with the grandmother's "kaimyo" name and flower bouquets. There was also a box of incense, a bucket of water and a bag of rice. The priest led the group through the little dirt path into the forest, past a neighbor’s garden, and to the family grave where I had paid my respects to the S family ancestors many times in the past. This time, an extra weight was in my heart as I realized we would henceforth no longer look up at obaachan as she sat on her chair supporting her back in the living room. From now on, at new year's time, and with little Leo at our side, we would be looking down at her from "the other side."

When we arrived at the grave, the priest was chanting as a stone lid was being replaced over the space beneath the main grave where the green box had already joined the others lying motionless for time eternal. Flowers were arranged around the main gravestone and some of the others around it, along with the portrait, and the fruits that obaachan used to love. Uncle Y’s uncle handed out incense sticks which we all took turns depositing in the small stone "incense altar" at the foot of the main grave, along with a pinch of rice grains to be sprinkled at the ledge of the base, after which we said a final prayer. Others ritually washed the graves with water scooped with a bamboo ladle from the bucket. Within the space of a few weeks, obaachan's name would join the other ancestors chiseled onto the headstone and into the stone memorial plaque standing separately behind the graves.

We boarded the buses one last time to Heaven Hall where a concluding dinner was planned on the second floor. There was sushi and tempura and other tasty dishes, and all of those present seemed to make even more effort than the day before to be merry and kind to each other, in celebration of a full and wonderful life. Before leaving, according to custom, all non-family guests were given a take-home gift bag probably containing crackers, cookies, small towels or some other gifts.

And thus concluded all the ceremonies… Y's parents were busy counting all the participant rosters and taking notes of the telegrams and contributors in order to balance their accounts when Y and I returned to the house. They had more work to do before they could truly sit back. Only then, in the silence of their home empty of all neighbors, guests, family members, and now robbed even of the warmth of obaachan's presence, as the cool autumn wind whistled through the rushes outside, would their mourning truly begin.

In loving memory of obaachan,

xakyの日記

もう一つの日記

目覚め

昔の写真

Obaachan’s funeral

「もう一分」の抱擁

紺色の緊張感

合格！