Remembrances
I got the word from my brother in Japan last week that our mom’s ashes are back. It’s been two years this Friday since she passed away by herself in the hospice in the middle of the pandemic. Like my father, who has been deceased for over 20 years, she donated her body to medical research. Because of the pandemic, they informed us it would probably take two years for her remains to be returned whereas it was about a year for my father.
My mom was frail but her mind was fairly sharp until about when the world shut down with the pandemic in the spring of 2020. Her caregiver who came to help twice a week ended up stealing her bank card and drained mom’s bank account. It was naturally shocking and devastating. That’s when she started to show signs of dementia and quickly decline. That summer of 2020, she fell in her apartment and was hospitalized. She never went home after that.
Remembering that time is painful as I felt so helpless. There was really nothing I could do other than to call her every so often. When she was home, we could at least see each other via FaceTime as my mom was more tech savvy for her age. The rooms in the hospital and the rehab facility she subsequently stayed in didn’t have a phone, so I had to call the nurse station to let me talk to her. When my brother called in March of 2021 to tell me her passing was imminent, I had to apply for a special visa to enter Japan so I could go see her. After a whole month of waiting and finally getting to Japan, I had to quarantine for two weeks during which time I went through my mother’s belongings to vacate her apartment. And I only got to see her twice in the hospital because of the restrictions due to COVID. Though I had hoped she would pass once she saw me, she lived for another 4 months making it past her 93rd birthday.
Even though I’m still feeling young and healthy in my early 60s, I do notice different signs of aging. I have more gray hair, my knuckles are swelling on my hands, and many other subtle differences. I’m keenly aware that I have less years ahead of me than I have behind now. While I’m very grateful for my health and vitality, I can’t help but to reflect on the remembrances in Buddha’s teaching: I am of the nature to grow old; I am of the nature to have ill health; I am of the nature to die; all that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change… There’s no way around these truths although one may argue science could change that. Yet the last of the remembrances says, “my actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.”
Decision I made more than 40 years ago to leave Japan to come to the U.S., and all the decisions I made since then yielded the hard reality that I was not able to be with my mother as she made her transition. Sometimes I wonder, “what if?” Could I have chosen differently that might have given me an opportunity to help my parents in their late years. Yet the ground in which I stand is where I now live so far away from home, and I must find solace in remembering I have lived a good life so far regardless.