Aki-Essays: Mother's Day for my grandma; Tamayura (5-11-09)

My mother, 62, and I were standing in crowds of a train car heading to the Fukaya station in Saitama prefecture from the Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo. Out the windowpane, the sky was gradually falling into the twilight on May 2nd (Saturday), the day before the beginning of my four consecutive holidays. The transit was taking about one and a half hours. After I had been seeing two young guys occupying the seats right before me, my mother was finally allowed to sit down on a separate seat--I was done as well shortly later. We were going to a hospital to see my maternal grandmother, 87, after she suffered a brain stroke, infarction, about 15 days early on the day.

I had not seen my maternal grandmother ever since she was accepted by her son, my uncle, in exchange for her assets and moved to Fukaya from a neighborhood around the Ikebukuro area. She lived there until shortly after her husband passed away in 1998.

On one of the four beds in a hospital room, my grandmother didn’t meet even part of my perception about her as a cheerful elderly woman, with a tube inserted through her nose, being haggard and unconscious. After making a quiet word, “See you soon,” to her, I, with my mother, left the hospital to go back to Tokyo on the same day. (Meanwhile, I would sacrifice my free time in the form of an overnight trip to Yamanashi prefecture, having scheduled the trip for two days later on this day, for her birthday (May 5th) and Mother’s Day (May 10th). So I would still have a day off for myself before the Yamanashi trip.)

Later, in the morning on Wednesday (the last day of my consecutive holidays), the call from my mother notified me that my grandmother had passed away. I was supposed to work from the next day on, so our talk had us settle on Friday (May 8th), hence I would see the face of my grandmother after work even just for as short as thirty minutes in time before cremation, which was slated to take place on the following day (I would work on the day).

Having taken the arduous transit again, I solely arrived at a mortician’s building, about ten minutes from the Fukaya station by cab. Being guided to the main room for “tsuya”, a part of the funerary ceremony, by the staff, I lit two incense sticks and placed them in a small pot and made a silent prayer to the photo of my grandmother likely at the age of somewhere about 40, and the coffin behind. Walking past the portrait and opening the small doors of the coffin, the face of my grandmother was neatly made up and therefore looked even more beautiful. Yes, she was beautiful. In the other room, some visitors of the yet-ended tsuya were remaining and talking with each other, including my mother and her sole younger brother.

My maternal uncle, his wife, and their daughter used to live on the second floor of the duplex of my grandparents (who lived on the first floor) in Toshima ward. But in the wake of a spat on something trivial between my aunt and the family of the first floor, the family of the second floor decided to move out and followingly took out a mortgage on a newly-built condominium in Fukaya. And later, my grandfather drew his last breath some days after an accident--tripping over short steps--and my uncle chose to take care of his mother in Fukaya.

Even considering that my uncle inherited assets from his father--stepfather to be more accurate--and mother, I respect his solid determination and dedication--he has completed looking after his mother although she had lived her remaining life at a care facility not far from his home. If he hadn’t accepted her, my mother and I might have had to nurse her and end up looking for nursing facilities in Tokyo.

Inconvenient cases of this kind have actually been happening in other households, yet.

A fire at a care facility “Tamayura” in Gunma prefecture in March this year made a death toll of ten elderly dwellers due to lack of preparation for emergencies and divulged the shortage of care facilities in Tokyo.

Tokyo has a cap on the number of registered care facilities while the national administration has been going with a policy of asking each household to look after their own aged members in order to curb the budget. But looking after a senior family member at home could mean asking the income earner to quit his or her job, therefore despite the limit on the number of facilities the household would likely result in knocking on the door of a care facility, even one that is not registered and/or located outside Tokyo.

In fact, it is reported that Tokyo’s Sumida ward had recognized that Tamayura had not been registered, but had supported facility admissions for the citizens of the ward who had been on welfare. Furthermore, it is also reported that Tamayura had operated in a way similar to that of private nursing homes which charge higher fees.

Six out of the dead ten were Sumida ward citizens of the kind. If Tamayura was a registered facility, precautionary arrangements with fire extinguishers and the resistance of the building to the development of fire would surely have been more adequately made according to the regulations. But unfortunately, hundreds of private care facilities like Tamayura have been operating with poor safety standards although there are other facilities which are not registered but well considerate to their customers. (For these contents I have relied much on the blogs of Mr. Wataru Suzuki, economics professor at Gakushuin University.)

After talking with other visitors, I made a quiet message, “Good bye,” to my grandmother and carefully closed the doors of the coffin.

My aunt gave me a ride from the funerary place to the Fukaya station, and we exchanged some words.

“How deep had my grandma’s dementia progressed?”

“When my husband asked her, ‘Can you understand me?’ at the care facility, she in a wheelchair responded as ‘I can.’”

When I was very small, although my memories are vague, I and my relatives, perhaps all on my mother’s side except my father, were flocking together and they were saying to me something like, “Look up! Look up!” under bright ceiling lights despite me being made even more shy, in the living room of my grandparents’ home.

When I was in high school, I cycled to their home for a room tidy and quiet enough to allow me to be tutored. I took a private lesson on a major subject or two, math, English and/or Japanese, once a week during each period when I needed to study harder. (The custom of employing a tutor started when I was preparing for the entrance exams of high school.) My grandparents had operated a Chinese restaurant, which was located ahead of an upward slope near their home, together. Even after they retired, at my every visit they bothered to cook things like omelet-rice and/or fried chicken. My grandparents packed them and my role was to bring the foods to my mother.

But ever since my grandmother moved to Fukaya, the locked home has never lit its inside lights for me. There were no hints of life from the inside everytime I dropped by it.

I hadn’t made a visit to her ever since, as I haven’t had personal contact with the family of my uncle since my childhood and it would take a considerable time to get there. My mother had seldom been to Fukaya too, probably because of the distant location, and is now regretting the negligence afterwards.

On Saturday (May 9th), the day of cremation, I was working at a hospital in Tokyo as a radiographer, where aged patients were hospitalized and about ten licensed care workers faced someone’s important person every day.

Today (Sunday) is Mother’s Day. Hey grandma, mothers are receiving red carnations. Can you see?