The sunset

She was 97 when she died three days ago. She was once a nurse who took care of my uncle when he was hospitalized for a serious bone marrow inflammation and was on the verge of leg-loss. Watching her dedication, my grand mother liked her. As was often the case with a woman of the time, grandma wanted to get her married with someone she thought was "proper and decent" young man. It was almost her hobby to act as a go-between.
There was(is) a temple in Jougashima-iland (城ヶ島) where my grandpa had a villa. My grandma would spent every summer there, together with her children (later with her grandchildren... including me, over 10 of us children altogether!). The son of the head monk of that temple was a young, gentle and intelligent guy with glasses of Harold Lloyd. She decided that he was the right man to be the husband of an angel who saved her son's left leg from chopping off. As a go-between, she introduced her to him. They soon fell in love with each other, got married, had 4 children, (one of whom grew to also succeed the temple now as a chief monk. So three generation monks.) She, a housewife of the second generation monk, always said she had been "as happy as happy can be", with "ideal" husband and children. She appreciated grandma taking trouble of bringing her that fortune all her life. She never failed to send gifts, all the seafood in it, twice a year to grandma, to my father after she had died, and to my mother after he died. She never forgot the favor other people had done her. When I last met her it was with my father more than 10 years ago. My father asked me to take him to visit the place and people of his nostalgia. They met for the first time in 20 years. She grasped my father's hand firmly and cried... Now they both are gone.
I went to attend her funeral yesterday with mother. We got there 1 hour earlier. We, mother and son, sauntered along a beach near the temple, reminiscing the time when we spent here, when she swam in the sea with me desperately clinging on her back. She was young. It was almost being lost in the mists of time... Long, long time ago. We were once here for sure.
The sea was now calm. The sun was setting red over a distant lighthouse, over the horizon, painting clouds milky orange, as if to regret the irreparable past.
The funeral was simple. We didn't even have to wait for the monk's chanting to end before offering incense (焼香). It might have been by the grace of her son cum head monk who presided the funeral....the living over the dead. The dead over the living? I'm not sure any more. It can't be separated... If there is the line that separates the two, we are walking toward it... Day by day, steadily. We just do not know when.