A Wake for a Friend
A wake being an occasion for solemn reflection on the life of the recently departed and this one for a friend, I was not going to post much on it. However, as it differed so greatly from those I have attended before the panic and the bad feelings these left with me, I changed my mind.
I got the call informing me off the passing of our previous Kajicho (会長） late Monday evening. His successor was the one who called. The wake was to be held on Thursday night, and if I had the timer, it would be nice if I would. I replied that I had work that night but would attend. In fact, the two nights I now work are a huge part of my insufficient income. But it was a wake and a wake for a friend.
My new suit, purchased for a wedding just two years ago because my other suits no longer fit after two years of Zooming to work from my dinning room table, was an uncomfortably tight fit, the effect of another two years of forced sedentary living.
The funeral hall is not conveniently located. 57 minute by train, 1 hr and 3 mins on foot, 28 mins by bicycle and 21 mins by car. I have been to several wakes in Japan in the past. All involved drinking at the funeral hall and afterwards at a different location. The family of the deceased provide food and drink to the visitors who recall their interactions with the departed. Thus, I did not think going by car or bicycle was the way to go. I opted for a taxi but my wife found that if I took a drain the opposite direction and took a cab from a different station than my trip advisor suggested, it would take far less time. I followed her advice.
Arriving at the station, I see a long line of taxis. As I approached the one in front, back door slides open. Taxis in Japan have a method for their drives to open the passenger door from the drivers seat. However, as I neared, he drove off with the door closing as he did. It has been a very long time since I had experienced this. Was it because as I got closers he saw that I was a gaijin? Or was it because I was not wearing a mask? Or because I was a maskless gaijin? Some other reason? I’ll never know. Did not improve the mood any.
Arriving, I am shocked that everyone is masked! Inside the ceremony hall itself, there approximately 50, all but 6, including myself, were masked. I found where the matsuri group was sitting and sat with them. When our time came to give the offering of prayers and incense, a couple of us wore their matsuri HANTEN over their suits. I thought to do the same but did not know if it would be appropriate. I wish I had brought mine as I wished. After the offering the group slipped out of the hall and stood silently in the foyer. A couple helped a few others who were working reception with recording the offerings given by the attendees. After awhile, one of those who I was most surprised to see wearing a mask, suddenly broke the silence with “MUST, MUST” and handed a mask from the basket of them on the reception table. Is whispered, “Nande?” (Why?) and he practically screamed “RULE”. Not want to disturb my friend’s wake anymore, I put it on. Not only was the one who told me to mask up one who rarely wore one, he is among those I am closest with in the group. I was shocked at how forceful his insistence was. Still am in shock over it, to tell the truth.
A while later, one of our newest members and our youngest offered me a ride home. Seems drinking was not going to be a part of this wake, which at this point suited me. Not sure if yet if there would be a get together afterwards but that those who drove chose not to attend or would go later on foot, seeing the deceased neighbor, we saw the member who survived his own heart attack the year before and who worked reception at the wake alighting from a taxi in front of his house. No get together afterwards it seems.
And that was it. I was home less than an hour and a half of leaving. I did not get to pay my respects to his family, whom I have never met, nor his wife whom I have. Not a word other than the 4 over masks spoken.
My wife was not expecting me home so soon and without having eaten.
He was 68. Older than I thought, which speaks to his fitness. He was not retired. Not young but considerably younger than the last reports life expectancy for Japanese men; 84-85 years as of 2020. Mikoshi, the portable shrines carried at matsuri, Japanese festivals, are not light. The smaller ones are around one ton. For shorter people, like my wife, the burden is not great as they can walk underneath with just their hand pushing up, ever so slightly, against the weight of the mikoshi and the poles that it is carried upon. For taller folk, such as myself and my departed mikoshi carrier, carrying them is no small amount of effort. He was one of the most active in the group, participating in all the matsuri we were invited to. Of course, there were none for three years and few this past year due to panic. The last time we carried together was the Kanda Matsuri in May 2023. He was in the hospital for our own matsuri, the first in 5 years.
To those who offered condolences, thank you. For reasons I myself do not understand, I felt that replying to each individually would somehow be disrespectful. To whom? I do not know. It just didn’t feel right. So I do so here. Thank you.
The question that we must now always ask, did he get the shots? Yes, he did. Did this play a part in his untimely demise? I believe so. I also believe that other recommended (read “mandated”) anti covid measures played their parts. Being forced to abruptly cease most physical activity and not allowed to resume it for more than 3 years is not conducive to good health. Nor is jumping right back into a physical life style afterwards a good idea. Nor is spending almost all one’s time indoors. Nor is being isolated from friends and family, nor hiding behind a mask. For 3 + years.
Even if we choose to believe that none of these share in the blame of his early passing, it cannot be argued that they did not prevent him from enjoying his local matsuri the last four years of his life and all the other events that idiotic, braindead, sorry excuses for human beings forced us to give up these past four years.
This is a story of loss, not just of a loved one, but also of our collective sanity.
There is no reason to respond individually to condolences. The reason being is that as we grow older, and suffer loss, the best way I believe to alleviate it is collectively. I am not even sure why this is. Maybe it is because that person shared a fragment of themselves with us and in so gathering we can present a mosaic of the people that he touched, including us Bare-Faced Plague-Spreaders.
I lost an Aunt a couple weeks back. She had health issues before the pandemic. When the pandemic hit, my Uncle, who as a kid I loved and thought he was cool Uncle, was sadly one of the most isolating people and believed in the catechism of the mask and vaccine. He had asthma growing up, and due to his wife who was in ill health, he did not want anyone close. He even stipulated that vaccination was a requirement for access.
I thought of writing him a couple times, not as a backwards, one legged overweight nephew, but as a proxy for my father. I probably have told you this, but my father had rheumatoid arthritis, He was immune compromised, crippled most of his life, did at times go in and out of the hospital, and spent much of his later years as I am now, in a wheelchair.
Not once in my recollection do I remember my father demanding accommodation for his illness. When we kids got sick, he never handed out masks, yelled "RULE!," or kept us at arms length and self isolated or had us isolate. He attended concerts, sporting events, reunions, restaurants, and all manner of group gatherings. He took his health as his responsibility, reading Longevity magazines, being an avid reader. He was well versed on all manner of treatments and supplements for his arthritis. his short bout with cancer which went into remission was due they think to one of the arthritis drugs he took.
He never would have, had he lived, made accommodation to his disease a stipulation of access. On my end, I would never demand such because who the f am I to demand anything of other people? But for him, he wanted to live life normally.
I did not know my Aunt well. She, my Aunt Paula, and my Mom would get together and smoke and talk each time our families got together in Southhaven Michigan, or again in New Jersey for our larger reunions. And my Aunt Sue was there by mom's bed side in th end when she succumbed to cancer. So when I think of the good days, I remember the sunny summer's of the seventies when I was a kid and mourn the loss of not only the family, but that free time in which we lived without all the mental debris we now endure due to government interventions.
I wish you well as you grapple with these issues.
I believe the same thing--"Rule!"--was uttered in Manchuria in the "Water Purification Facilities" of Unit 731. Obviously, that man you referred to is an empty vessel just waiting to be filled with whatever the media tell him.