Goodbye To My Japanese Grandmother

Life is pink, I realized. This was the first thought I had when I saw her laid out on the floor. I realized that her blood had stopped, and everything was stagnant. Despite this, she looked like how she did in life.

It is an eerie feeling when time ceases for someone’s voice.

She wasn’t my real grandmother, but in some ways, she was my only one. Before, when we’d say goodbye to her, my sister and I would wave and say “Bye Bye B!” She’d laugh, wave slowly, and say it back to us. “Bye Bye B.” I think she liked it because they said that often in the 80s here in Japan.

When I saw her face, her expression wasn’t what stood out to me. She could have been just sleeping then. But what I noticed the most were her hands. A pale yellow, a singular shade that extended all the way to the tips of her fingernails. The hands of the alive don’t look like that.

“Okaasan, okite kudasai”. These words were whispered by her daughter, my long-time friend. Mom, please wake up.

I thought I’d be scared to see her, but as I felt her body through the sheets, she felt soft. I remember her feeling like that when I hugged her last.

I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to touch your face one last time, Taeko. They told me I could, but I shuddered, and adamantly said no. Part of me felt it was disrespectful to you. You couldn’t tell me no, or say “Hai hai, that’s enough.” I had called her just two weeks ago, and I could still hear her voice.

I took out a pen and paper. I wrote my final note to her. I didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t much I could have written. I scribbled out just three words: Bye-bye B. And I laid it on the altar.

She stayed in the apartment for two days. I arrived there on the last day. As soon as I walked into the apartment and saw her laying on a futon, I burst into tears. Her face was covered in a transparent blue fabric. I could just make out the features.

After prayers, the two strangers that were from the funeral home took her on a stretcher to where her body would spend its last moments being a body.

When we got to the funeral home, she was covered in black kimono fabric with pink cherry blossoms on it. Two young ladies dressed her. They looked like airline attendants to me. The kimono cloth turned out wasn’t for wearing, it was to cover her as she was bathed.

Her hair was washed and her face was shaved. It almost looked relaxing. They gave her what looked like a head massage. The soap bubbles were lathered between the fingers of the women, like how the staff at Lush do it.

“What type of lipstick should she wear?” They asked the family.

“Natural please.”

Her mouth was open, agape. Like a fish in the supermarket. They washed her whole lifeless body as we sat and watched. Patches of purple marked her hands, legs, and feet. The only part of her skin that looked alive. The black cloth turned purple.

She was placed in a big black bath that sparkled gold, decadent in her final moments. The family members were given a wooden ladle. They were to make a line of water from her feet to her chest.

I was called. “Reylia, you too. All the family.” I picked up the ladle and dunked the wooden head in water, filling it up. I poured the water over her as tears poured down my face. The four-year-old granddaughter dabbed the water from her dead grandmother's face with a tissue.

So many compliments in death. I kept hearing kind whispers about how soft she was. How clean she was. How her feet looked so good. I found it ironic that the person who should have heard it didn’t have ears to catch the vibrations.

This is the last time you can touch her if you'd like. If you want to do it, do so now, please. I couldn’t bring myself to touch her face, even one last time.

Though it was just the second day, I felt that even death becomes commonplace. I could now walk past the body, stare into her face without crying.

The brothers laid her in the box she would be cremated in. The box she was lowered in was beautiful. It was trimmed with white lace and adorned with Japanese silk fabric. It reminded me of a shiromuku, a wedding kimono. It glittered and shone in the light from the altar, and was the centerpiece in front of a spectacular wall of flowers. They seemed so alive as well.

Her fingers were twisted with the juuzu, the prayer beads. She had chanted many times with those beads in life.

“She's not moving, is she?” Asked the little granddaughter.

They began to fill up her wooden box with the things she loved in this life. Mochi, some rice. Sweets. I didn’t pay attention to those things. “What about ice cream?” I asked. “She loved ice cream.” The brothers nodded, “Of course.” Then a small emptied container of vanilla ice cream was brought and was gently placed inside as well.

Her daughter kept touching her face. Tapping it, feeling her. “She’s so soft yet.”

Can there be something more than this? I wondered.

We stood in the room, all filled with family. And we were all given the flowers that were on the wall. They weren’t just for decoration. They were also at the pre-burial. We would fill the box up with these extravagant flowers. Lilies. Chrysanthemums. Orchids. We would fill the box up to the brim with all these beautiful objects of the earth. In the end, we could barely see her face. The box pooled over with flowers. They would also be cremated with her. I could barely see the ice cream container, with its gaudy label: VANILLA.

The cremation hall was in the next building. Hardly fifteen steps away. Seeing that was new indeed. A white marble square room. At first glance, it could have been the lobby of a fancy business building. Thassos White marble, with a wall of 5 small metallic doors that resembled elevators. We could hear the echo of each sound. The clinks from black high heels. The slight cough from an older member. The sound of Taeko’s picture frame being placed in front of the oven.

Taeko’s coffin sat in front of door #3. Next to each metallic door were little lights. I couldn’t help but think of the street lamps I saw when I was in London. There was only one on the one at door #1.

The clink of metal was cold and hard. She was placed on top of metal tracks. Prayer and chanting rang all around. A constant ring. I felt it was what we all leaned against. That rumbling, unifying chant.

The chant started when the staff announced it was time. Clink went the metal. And the chanting began and raced till the end. The box was lifted onto rails and lifted into the oven. The doors slammed shut. The little light flickered on, and the chanting stopped.

After two hours and lunch, we were back. Back to where we had left her. I had taken a short walk beforehand. I needed to see some green and some life. Anything that wasn’t black. The rain had finally stopped as well.

This was the part that I had dreaded the most, and the part that I was most curious about. It was the first time I would have to perform this at a funeral.

The chopsticks the staff were handing out were both white and black. I was given the chopsticks and was gestured towards the table where the box once was, where the flowers once were, was she once laid. There was just a layer of white ash on the table now, sprinkled with a variety of bones.

The family members were to pick out the bones with the chopsticks and place them in the urn. I picked up the bigger pieces robotically and placed them in the round bowl. I shuddered. There was so much white. So much ash. Could this all have been her? I thought of the graves at Pompeii. All grey ash.

The staff had fished out the most important bone, the nodobotoke. The throat of the Buddha. Where she may have once spoken with. It was placed carefully in a different box.

As I stood off further from the group, her daughter tapped me on the shoulder. “Look,” she said and gestured towards the table. I shuddered. Taeko’s skull was still mostly intact. I could see the bones that framed her eyes and the rings of the nostrils. The staff noticed this, “Apologies,” she said politely and took it in her hands. She crushed the skull between her fingers and then placed it back on the table. “It must have been hard to pick up.”

On the way back, I kept thinking of her. Of the memories. Of how long I had known her. Of her power. Could some of it have ricocheted to me?

My head was filled with thoughts of death, and how difficult these past few years had been. Could there have been a purpose? I felt myself move how I would normally move, and even that felt strange to me. But I knew that in the wake of deep sadness, we are called into tangible things. But I felt unworthy of this grief.

When we got home, everyone stumbled into the narrow hallway. Slipping off all the black clothes we had donned ourselves with. Food was placed on the table for the living to eat. It felt almost Eucharistic in nature.

The brother placed the urn on the family altar. Takeo’s picture frame was placed in front, along with the little jar with that one special bone. He smiled as he placed them down and looked at me comfortingly. He looked back towards the face of his mother.

“Okaeri, Okaasan.” Welcome home, mother, welcome home.