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after death, what becomes our family |
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Father-in-law is an interesting man. He laughs a lot. Like now, when he offers a snack: "Do you want a senbei?" he asks son, only grandson, now on the verge of fourteen, the age of the "adulthood" ceremony in Japan--or so my wife informs. Grandfather removes a chunk of thin, white and porous material that, yes, looks like a rice cracker except it is paler, with a spot of malevolent green about the size of a penny. Son waves it off with a gentle "No," and an uneasy giggle. It is, afterall, from the top of grandmother's skull. |
| Today is Sunday. Wife's last day off of a week of day's off after the funeral. She's been busy taking care of paperwork with her father. "I think he's going to become an alcoholic," she said to me the other night. "All he does is sit around drinking now. He eats very little, and nothing good. I think taking care of my mother was the only thing that gave him motivation. Now he has no motivation." Her spirits have been way down--further than I've seen in a long time, and that's pretty bad, because she is depressive and constantly pessimistic at the best of times. Talking to her, trying to comfort her, didn't really help. She even asked me what I do to stay positive. "I play games. I go to the gym." "I don't like games." "I know. But what do you do?" "Nothing." "Right. That's what we (meaning me and our son) see." "Why do you play games?" "Do you want the nice answer or the real answer?" "The real one." "Because I don't have a sex life. This makes me angry and miserable every day. So, I play games. It helps." Not a hint of emotion crosses her face. Why should it? It's been like this for eight or nine years now. We continue talking. "How about some music?" I suggest. I put up YouTube on the TV. After a bit of thinking and searching, I find a video of 1989's nostalgia. That was the year I graduated high school, so I figured it might be fun. She brightened noticebly. "I know this group!" She said this again and again. Ten minutes later, the video ended, and we watched the one for 1990. Now she doesn't recognize the groups. "That must be when I stopped listening to music." It's amazing we got married. That's the year I really turned on to music, especially grunge and thrash. We did the video music again last night, and it really seemed to help her. I told her she needs to listen to music. It's important. She's agreed that she might try, considering that she does have an iPhone but doesn't know how to use it much. That first night after the nostalgic videos, she cried a lot in bed. I asked her if she wanted to sleep with me, but she said no. I came to her despite what she said and held her. She cried and cried, telling me I should go visit my mother in America and morn my grandmother who died last year. I want to. I really do. But I said nothing, and just held her. This is what we do--what we should do. |
| "I am sorry," I say the milky eyes and gaping mouth behind the breathing mask. I am sorry you are trapped in this dying body. I am sorry you are trapped in this body of pain. I am sorry you cannot speak. I am sorry you see but cannot wake. I am sorry for the unrelenting rhythm of the machines that pump her body alive, and most especially the machine that forces her to breathe. I step back from the hospital bed. Wife says, "You can say more." No, I can't. "I don't want to scare her," I say by way of explanation. "The last time she saw me, I had a beard." Wife's miserable face smiles a little. We both suspect mother with her open eyes sees nothing--or sees, but doesn't understand. She has been this way for three days. Three days, perhaps. It is is a blur. It was Saturday night when I came home from work and we got the call from father: "She hasn't eaten anything today and won't get out of bed." Wife and I drive to their house. It is only ten minutes away. We have our new car, the best car either of us has ever had. We never have luck with buying cars. The last car we bought, we bought just as the big earthquake hit northern Japan setting off the tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Now this. Wife and father hurry up the narrow stairs. I wait at the foot of the stairs, listening. It is a small house, and even a smaller room where mother is. There is a lot of raised voices, questions to mother who has trouble understanding. I go up the stairs to see what is going on, but as I put my weight on the rail, one of its fastenings comes from of the wall in a tiny shower of white plaster--or is it asbestos? I try to shove it back into the wall and hope no one notices for now. Mother's face is sunken even further. A death mask, really, among the pillows. She catches sight of me. I smile and stroke my beard. She smiles back, but quickly fades. We have all already decided she must go to the hospital tonight. She was scheduled to reenter on Tuesday, but that's no good now. We can see that. Father wants us to call an ambulance. Wife says it'll take too long. We can take her in our car. She is a stick figure, she has lost so much weight. 20 kilograms total, now. Father makes to carry her down the stairs on his back. He is almost 80 years old. We warn him off. I will carry her down. I will carry her down the stairs. I am terrified of breaking her. She looks so fragile. I am terrified, but I must do this. It is the only thing I can do to help. I wrap my arms about her and, as gently as I can, lift her. It is awkward, and I so afraid she cannot breathe. Turning to walk down the stairs is difficult, the stairway is so narrow. One step at a time, her labored breathing and moans in my ear, the brittle bones of her ribs beneath my fingers. As terrified as I was carrying our infant son, crying, up and down those same stairs, trying to get him to sleep so his mother and grandmother could get some rest. She is sweating, I can feel it. This is tiring her. "Please hurry," I say, urging wife and father to get the doors open and the car ready. They scramble, but it all feels too slow. It is terrifying getting her to lay down on the seat. Afraid of breaking her. Afraid we have broken her. We are in. We drive. It is ten minutes to the hospital, but there is a lot of traffic. Wife is driving. I am in passenger seat, my arm stretched back over the seat, holding mother's hand. Father is in the very back, behind her. Wife and father are arguing about the fastest way to get there, about hospital procedures. I am looking at mother's face, catching her eye, trying to give her reassuring looks, squeezing her hand ever so gently, wanting her to feel safe. She has stopped moving. "Please hurry, but be careful," I say to wife. We get to the hospital. I go inside the emergency doors and tell them to hurry. Wife is in the back seat, cradling her mother's head, pleading for her to wake up. Crying. No response. The orderlies get her out of the car and into a stretcher, wheeling her inside. We get father out of the backseat. He doesn't seem to understand what is going on. Waiting room. Doctor: her heart stopped, but we got it going again. She is unconscious. He talks to father. He talks to wife. I try to follow what they are saying, but it is difficult: lots of unfamiliar words. I can only guess what is going on. Wife looks sad and stressed, trying to get father to understand what is happening. |
| "Can I tell you something? I mean, it's probably not good to say." "No, go ahead. Tell me. It's okay." He is looking out the window. "I don't feel sad." I let his sentence hang in the air between us. My hands on the steering wheel, on our way home after cram school. It is dark outside. 9:30 p.m. What can I say? What I want to say is: I understand. She wasn't really that active in your life. As if reading my thoughts (which is entirely possible, I'm willing to admit, simply because he is so damn much better at reading people's emotions than I), he explains: "All my memories of her were of her sick." She was sick for eight years. Lung troubles. Myriad doctor visits, bags of medicines. And almost all my memories of her were of her cooking or being tired. We never talked much--how could we? Father was always there talking, though no one was listening. My Japanese has never been that much. And we just had very, very different lives. But I could, and did, make her smile on occasion. She is dead. She is not here. Son is. Wife is. Father is. I am. |
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