Mina shot this picture of a late blooming lotus out at the Tokugawa-en Gardens on the Sept. 16th holiday Monday - another unusually hellish hot day for so late in the season.
Sunday, Sept. 8th
Back to the Vancouver of yore, through the eyes of a younger me. To the house on 35th ave, Nazis on the run, and a stack of someone else's records gathering dust in a dark basement.
A prologue of sorts...
From the time I was around five (right up until we had to move twelve years later) I spent a great deal of time in the basement of the house my Mum and step father 'bought' up on 35th avenue, between Larch and Trafalgar.
In the 70's, the MacKenzie Heights/Kerrisdale area of Vancouver was an insular, rolling patchwork quilt of bucolic suburban houses. Quaint single family homes that mostly seemed the product of a post war development boom, all with grassy boulevards, front and back lawns, and garages or car parks facing rustic, unpaved, gravel back alleys lined with waist high weeds and dented metal garbage cans. The vibe was a bit exclusive...slightly snobby, even. It was quite different from where my Gramma lived, in the family house on 7th avenue in Kitsilano. Regular folk. In the late 60's/early 70's, it was basically a Greek neighbourood, over-run with hippies.
Before the years of endless renovation and misery, our Kerrisdale house had been a modest split level two bedroom bungalow, owned by an unassuming German fellow in his late 50's, who went by the name 'Hans Jolicoeur'. It wasn't clear whether he'd lived there with his family, or by himself. It seems that he was acquainted with the neighbours on the east side, who were also German. As I recall, he struck a kind of solitary figure. For some reason, my step father took an almost immediate disliking to him.
The house was in good shape, and well maintained. The front yard lawn was bisected by a long asphalt walkway from the sidewalk to the concrete front stairs. There were two large squat evergreens centered on either side of the front lawn, a grassy boulevard about a metre and a half deep running the width of our plot opposite the concrete sidewalk, and a loose gravel area between the boulevard lawn and the street where Mum and step father would park their cars.
Out back there was a small fish pond set in front of a wooden garage that had seen better days, and a reasonable sized yard with several fruit baring trees - one plum, two apple, a pear and a large cherry tree. There was a concrete foundation stone for an old fashioned standing bird bath (not included) in the middle of the yard, and a concrete patio on the property's far south-east corner, with the remains of an upright red brick barbeque pit. Behind the central apple tree, and between the concrete patio and garage, there was a five or six metre stretch of top soil for gardening along the two metre high wooden fence that ran from the garage between our property and the gravel back alleyway, then from the alley all the way to the metre high concrete abutment and short fence partitioning our front and back yards to the west. Between the fences and houses on either side, there was almost two and a half metres of buffer zone.
My little basement bedroom sat mostly below ground, and it's single window faced out on the western fence, over which were the old ladies in that creepy turn of the century house. I always thought that property was scary and weird.
The plot of land on our western flank was a wildly overgrown affair surrounded by tall, ancient looking trees, at the centre of which was a run down turn of the century house. It was occupied by two ancient old ladies. Sisters, if I remember correctly. Apparently they had once owned most of the surrounding parcels of land, and had been there when the only other residents in the area were a group of First Nations folk, who apparently 'squatted' where our house was, and would do odd jobs for them - whatever that might have entailed around the turn of the century.
On the other side was the Gruhner house. It was immaculately kept property owned by a retired German couple who'd immigrated to Canada after the war. They had a good natured golden lab named 'Susie' that was always jumping at the green chain link fence when we were in the back yard. Wilma Gruhner seemed kind and friendly, while George was quieter than a church mouse. A big, strapping bald guy, chiseled features and piercing blue eyes, who would invariably avoid any direct eye contact. He'd always have his head down and be working at something or other in their pristine white garage, or in the garden.
At the far side of their back yard, they had a motor home that they'd purportedly take long long trips down through the States and on to Mexico in - though I never recall it moving, or them going anywhere in the 12 years we lived there. It seems that they had an adult son in his late twenties who would come to visit with his wife and kids some weekends, though that petered out as the years passed.
Before my siblings were born, Wilma would come to the fence and invite me over for cookies and to play with Susie. I think I went once or twice.
One time after my sister was born, I remember sitting in their warm living room eating cookies after school one cold winter's afternoon, and catching shit for it when Mum came back. I must have been around seven years old. She had a habit of being out shopping when I'd get home from school, and without a key to get in, I'd be stuck outside sitting on the stairs or killing time in the back yard until she got back. It would start getting cold and dark at around 4:30 in the winter, and I'd frequently be stuck outside for an hour or more.
I guess Wilma had felt bad watching me flail around out there, and decided to invite me in. When Mum's car finally rolled up, Wilma took me outside and made some kind of remark about how she thought it was 'cruel' to leave me sitting out there in dark and cold again and again. It kind of was, actually. Maybe she threatened to call child welfare or something, I can't remember exactly. In any case, Mum was beside herself, said that it was 'none of their business', and that I wasn't to go there ever again. I couldn't help but think that it was an over-reaction. I liked Mrs. Gruhner. Mum should have given me a key, or picked me up. This was her fault - not Wilma's.
From early on I'd been advised to steer clear of the Gruhners. I couldn't figure out why, but as time passed, the truth gradually came out.
Apparently George had an 'SS' blood group tattoo. My step father spotted it shortly after we moved in, during one of their initial encounters. I guess Wilma had noticed that they had spotted the blood type tattoo on George's arm when he had his shirt off while working in the garden, and tried to sell them on the terrible suffering that she and George had to endure in Germany during the war. My step father knew what it was. It seems that as newcomers to Canada themselves (he was Dutch Indonesian by way of South Africa), his family had lived near Victoria, and been neighbours with some other post war German transplants. He said that they'd had a big red white and black Swastika flag/banner hanging up in their house, plain as day. In any case, he knew enough to know what an SS blood-group tattoo looked like.
The 'SS'.
Great.
Of course, as a kid I'd seen enough war movies on TV to know that the Germans and Japanese were the perennial 'bad guys'.
As far as the Germans went, there was Clink and that bumbling fat Schultz on Hogan's Heroes, and Arte Johnson's 'velly intellesting' German soldier on Laugh-In. As for 'the Japs', there was the deranged mini submarine pilot on Gilligan's Island who refused to accept that the war was over, and ended up holding poor hapless Bob Denver hostage in a bamboo cage. I think there was a similar scenario on an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man in the mid 70's.
Alas, 'bad guys' all for sure...but I didn't really pick up on the gravity of what the Nazis were really about until that Thames Television documentary 'The World at War' aired on local cable back in 1974. I must have been seven or eight when I watched that, and it gave me nightmares. It also sparked a lifelong interest in history, particularly as it related to the events of the Second World War. I found it all absolutely fascinating. To this day, I think that series is probably one of the finest running documents of the wartime era ever produced.
Of course, I'd heard my parents talking, and in the wake of watching all of that nastiness, I started to look at 'the Gruhners' in a bit of a different light. They were real Nazis. I would watch George puttering around, and picture him in a black SS uniform rounding up Jews. I couldn't get it out of my head. Scary.
Was it just simple coincidence that the guy who had owned our place was also a German transplant? He was friends with the Gruhners. They were all 'that age'...in their late fifties or early sixties. They would have been in their late twenties or early thirties when the Reich fell. What about the grumpy older guy two doors down from the old ladies?
I'd later learn that in the chaos that followed Germany's defeat in 1945, Canada had been marked a 'preferred destination' for Nazis on the run. They'd purchase new papers and fall in with the diaspora of European refugees seeking to resettle in the west, or come via the infamous Vatican organized 'ratline', and start fresh. New names and new lives. Some would go to South America, and others to Canada. Who 'Jolicoeur', the 'Gruhners' or that guy three doors down really were is anyone's guess. I used to think that one day I'd try to research the deeds on those properties. Do some digging and try to find out who these people really were, then expose them.
Of course, life had other things in store for me.
To this day that whole business still creeps me out.
Anyways, I digress.
(We'll be sure to revisit a lot of this on later entries. The stage is now set, and the world of Olde Vancouver will figure more into coming stories)
Lost and Found
Back in the 70's, the MacKenzie Heights/Kerrisdale area of Vancouver was an insular, rolling patchwork quilt of bucolic suburbia. Quaint single family homes that mostly seemed the product of a post war development boom, all with grassy boulevards, front and back lawns, and garages or car parks facing rustic, unpaved, gravel back alleys lined with waist high weeds and dented metal garbage cans. Even then the vibe was slightly snobby - a bit exclusive, even. It wasn't like that at all at my Gramma's place - the family house on 7th ave, in Kitsilano.
When no one was around (which was surprisingly often), I'd sometimes take a break from drawing, or watching cartoons or Gilligan's Island reruns on the little black and white Philco TV Mum hauled out from California when we moved, and busy myself rummaging around through remnants of my step father's former life. Somehow I'd got it into my young head that there were untold treasures waiting to be uncovered tucked in to dark corners around the basement, and in musty old moth ball reeking trunks and damp cardboard boxes in the garage and storage sheds.
Aside from an old tennis racket, a few musty old Playboy magazines from the early 60's and a jar of coins that I got busted lifting dimes out of to buy hockey cards at the corner grocery across from my school (I got the 'hell and back' treatment for that), the only thing of any interest to an intrepid seven or eight year old was the record collection tucked in under the small bar he'd built in the far corner of our basement rec room.
I suppose there were 40 or 50 albums, which isn't that many, but seemed like an awful lot to an 8 year old who'd grown up with a mother completely devoid of any interest in the arts or culture of any kind. With no older siblings to influence me, I was essentially a 'blank canvas'. My tastes would be formed through trial and error, via what I would be exposed to on TV, the radio, or at friend's houses. At first glance, there didn't appear to be anything cool at all.
As I'd later learn, you can tell a lot about a person from the records they accumulate.
Along with all of the record albums, he had old hi-fi stereo set up. It was a kind of component thing that packed up into an easy to move and carry unit about the size of a small suitcase. The speakers were detachable, and the turntable folded out of the main unit. I can't remember exactly what it was...maybe a vintage Zenith or something. In any case, he'd set it up in a false fireplace nook on the far side of the rec room, and there it stayed, silent and unused. In the ten odd years that he and my Mum were together, I don't think I ever saw him even turn it on, let alone commit a record to that turntable. I always thought that was odd.
I could only surmise that Mum had completely sucked the music out of him.
The only thing we ever heard around the house or in the car was the local easy listening/muzak station. Any attempt that I'd make to change the station over and explore would be immediately rebuffed.
'When you have your own radio, you can listen to what you want'
Even at that age, I couldn't understand why people would willfully play supermarket or elevator music in their homes or vehicles. I was in the third or fourth grade, and it was the 70's - the long hair rock and roll era. I knew that there was something cooler going on than what we were being subjected to.
A couple of little friends had high school age brothers with sprawling record collections. We'd go in to their bedrooms when they were out and go through all of their stuff. Dig out their nudie magazines, puzzle over their water bongs, crank up their records and jump on their beds. Alice Cooper seemed to be a consensus favourite. 'School's Out'.
Needless to say, my step father's record collection was totally devoid of anything by 'the Coop'.
A lot of 'show tunes'. West Side Story, Rogers and Hammerstein, Henry Mancini. A slew of adult contemporary light from the late 60's. Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass. 'Guantanamara'. Some Jazz.
Only one record caught my eye. An original Canadian pressing of Abbey Road, pristine and untouched.
Apparently it had been forgotten by my step father's younger brother on a visit to Vancouver back in 1969. My step father had been a tenant in my Gramma's basement suite at the house on 7th, and I gather that his younger brother had stayed with him for a short time when he was in town. He was a kind of hippy type, young guy. Maybe a rock and roller.
There was an old story about him scoring some weed over on 4th avenue ( old Vancouver's Haight-Ashbury), and my Gramma having a toke, asking to be pushed around like a wheelbarrow, and laughing so hard she peed herself. I think I might *vaguely* remember him being around there, but I was young. Maybe three years old, and fresh out of a bad scene in Los Angeles. In any case, that's how my Mum met up with her second (and final) husband.
Fast forward a few years to that dark basement on 35th, and said forgotten copy of Abbey Road record became my default first record. I'd click on the old hi-fi set when no one was around and put it on. It sounded great.
So...BIG.
I'd play that record over and over. It imbedded itself in my budding young consciousness. All of it. Songs like 'Something', 'Oh, Darling', 'She's So Heavy', 'Because'. Everything on that album, actually (though I tend to think I could do without Maxwell's Silver Hammer). Then there was that coup de grace melody of unfinished numbers on the second side.
Wow.
I loved it.
A 'musical interlude' of fifty-odd years.
The tail end of summer, 2024...Deadbeat City, Japan
A 1944 'Air Objectives Folder' detailing potential U.S. bombing targets in Nagoya.
In the home stretch run up to the autumn equinox, and it's 33C as of 11:00 am. In short, it's still hot as hell.
After week of the archipelago getting the once over a couple of times by a meandering, slow motion monster typhoon that fortunately had largely spent itself before making it over to these precincts, the withering heat is back. It's expected to hit 36 or 37C by mid afternoon again.
Mina was out the door on the cusp of 8 am this morning. She'd been roped in to a day of family service, which entailed an early morning trip out to Costco with Mayumi and Fat Wife to gather materials for the Old Lady's birthday party.
Baba's actual calendar birthday is the 17th, and she'll be turning 90. Of course, due to the perpetual animosity between the resident Fat Surlies and myself, I won't be making an appearance. It's really too bad that things have to be that way, but it's nothing new.
On the few occasions that I'm actually obligated to attend family gatherings (mostly memorial service observations, funerals or the odd wedding), the atmosphere is uncomfortable. The Surlies generally disregard my presence, as if I were invisible. This suits me fine, and I do the same thing. We are careful to stay clear of each other, and avoid eye contact or verbal exchanges of any kind.
During Obon, I got an uncomfortable, probing glare from Surly Sumo Son's sixteen year old step son after the Obon memorial prayers for Mina's late father out at the temple in the village where she grew up in Shiga. That kind of took me by surprise. I used to feel badly for the boy when he was younger, as he seemed to be Surly Sumo Son's scapegoat. I also grew up with a tightly wound step father who could be scary and cruel. Anyways, it was a really creepy, dark kind of look. Really hateful and resentful. It gave me the willies, to be honest. I've never had so much as two words with the boy, but I gather I'm roundly blamed for them having to put up with the Old Lady every weekend. Teenagers can be hateful little fuckers at the best of times, anyways. I know I was.
So, rather than have an avoidable 'dark cloud of awkward' cast over what should be happy proceedings for Mina's mother, I elected to hang back, hold down the fort and get a leg up on the weekly housework. Mina and I will take Baba out for a late birthday lunch a bit after the fact, and I'll make the customary 'O tanjobi omodetto gozaimasu!' (happy birthday!) phone call on her special day. I always make a point of ringing her up on the day.
Scorching weather aside, I would liken this summer to being forced to ride a toddler's tricycle down a lengthly loose gravel road littered with shards of broken glass from smashed beer bottles, and endless nasty dog ends. It's been one physical complaint after another, resulting in the most hours Mina and I have ever logged sitting in clinic after clinic waiting to be poked, prodded and diagnosed.
In early July, I blew out my Rectus Femoris (left thigh quad) stretching before going out to run. Bad move. It swole up like a post-spinach Popeye muscle. Almost a week in, we finally went out to a local clinic, and I was advised to take it easy for an additional week (only utility walking to get from point 'A' to 'B' - no vigorous activity), after which I was told that I could 'gradually' return to my usual activities.
Being impatient, I made a point of jumping right back in, and after running my full 10 km TWICE within the first three days of resuming my 'activities' (in 35C heat, no less), I had blown it out even worse. The result? I've been sidelined for most of the summer nursing a messed up left leg.
As of now, most of the pain is finally gone. I can walk normally, and while I've been able to restart some lighter running, I'm still not back to my full 10 km routine.
I'm also stuck going to the local sports orthopedist's clinic for rehab every ten days. The place is like a monkey house. Packed to the rafters with punters of every shape, size and description waiting for rehab sessions or follow ups from the main doctor.
It's fairly obvious that the majority of them aren't athletes...just a broad cross-section of broken down local people. The head doctor/proprietor seems like a nice enough guy - maybe late 50's/early 60's. Apparently he worked for the local J-League football team (Nagoya Grampus). He can also speak a bit of English, which is helpful. He seems to know his stuff, and after a thorough going over told me that I've 'over worked' my muscles.
No shit.
As they've gradually become over stressed and fatigued, it was simply a matter of time before something gave out.
Perhaps my target 40km a week is bit ambitious considering my age. I can't help but surmise that it must also have something to do with the unusual intensity and length of this year's extreme heat spell (as of this writing, we're at 45 days of temperatures exceeding 35C).
Either way, it's hard to wrap my head around the fact that I'm approaching my senior years.
While the injuries I'm dealing with aren't uncommon for runners, it will take some time to fix. Unfortunately, this means regular visits to the orthopedic monkey house - at least for the time being.
I expect that said monkey house is where I picked up the stubborn summer virus I've been grappling with for the better part of a month. Fortunately Mina's fine, but the bug I got quickly morphed from some minor sneezing episodes into the nastiest ongoing sinus infection/bronchial asthma episode I've experienced in several years.
After a week of suffering in hopes that it would simply surrender to the heat and just dissipate, Mina did an internet search and found an otolaryngology clinic about 20 minutes away, near Kasadera Kanon.
She booked me in on typhoon Saturday, right after the Scrappin' Tweens class. The weather was starting to get wild, and I think I was the last patient in the door before they closed up for the afternoon at 1:00 pm. The doctor seemed good, spoke a bit of English, and was super organized. I was in, examined, x-rayed, treated, and out within 20 minutes.
At first glance, it looks like a tighter ship, and more modern operation than over at my former ear/nose/throat (ENT) clinic in Nakagawa ku.
We'd been going to Taiwanese 'Dr. Chop's for a few years - that is, until he failed to follow protocol and test me for COVID when I went in with symptoms a couple of Decembers back. Careless doctoring. In his haste to move quickly from patient to patient, he cuts corners to save time. I get it. There are loads of people waiting, and more coming in the door all the time. He wants to squeeze them all in, and maximize profits.
(we started calling him 'Dr. Chop' after our first visit years ago, when he barked, 'you want 'chop?!?' at me in broken English. I thought he was offering to perform some kind of martial arts on me. Apparently 'chop' meant 'shot', which was not actually a 'shot' at all per se - but a rehydrating intravenous drip. While I politely declined, we though this was pretty funny, and the nickname ended up sticking)
Excuses aside, this is kind of slip up that ultimately cost Mayumi's husband his life back at the onset of the pandemic.
In any case, that carelessness resulted in Mina getting infected too, and both of us home quarantined for ten days in the busy run-up to the 2022 Christmas/New Year's holidays.
While it was always a virtually guaranteed quick visit over there (in and out within half an hour at most), all Chop ever did was prescribe a shitload of steroids. The easy solution to everything, but not that great for patients in the longer term. A young doctor that I was teaching in the run up to COVID had a look at my prescription before one class one evening, and his eyes almost bugged right out of his head. He described the course of steroids I'd been given as 'overkill'.
After the Christmas '22 COVID debacle, Mina ended up calling Chop's clinic, She put me on the phone and I gave him shit... as politely as I could. I was impressed that he actually made time to speak to me on the phone. I don't dislike him, as such. I understand how busy he is, and that it's a tough job. That said, he's a corner-cutter, and a bit careless. He initially seemed surprised and made excuses in broken English, but finally offered something akin to an apologetic acknowledgement, if for no other reason than to get me off the phone.
We never went back.
So, a new clinic and specialist, another stop on our itinerary every seven to ten days...and another handful of pills to take morning noon and night (not a steroid in the lot, either), at least for the short term.
Then there's the stubborn bacterial skin infection on my chest and back, likely a result of over-sweating...which of course requires more clinic visits, as the local dermatologist can't seem to figure out exactly what it is. He's had me try various combinations of creams and ointments to determine which ones alleviate the problem. None of them seem to work at all.
In short, summer 2024 has been a veritable shit sandwich. The perfect storm, if you will. Poor Mina has been running around hither-tither, servicing the Old Lady (as usual), then picking me up and ferrying me around to all these specialists evenings and weekends all summer long. She really deserves a medal. Several, actually.
I expect that as we both get older, it will be more of this type of shit, as opposed to less.
I taught this rich old lady for years and years, and all she did every day was go from clinic to clinic to address an endless list complaints. Little did I know back then that I would end up caught in the same loop within a decade.
It's depressing.
Japan is a country absolutely teeming with small clinics and medical practices, and they all do a booming business. As the society grays, and the number of seniors grows, there will doubtless be demand for even more. People here are living longer. Oftentimes, too long. With a flatlining birthrate, the costs of providing medical services and care to this lopsided demographic will be an issue of major concern in years to come. It is already.
I never planned on still being on the archipelago at sixty fucking years old. When I first arrived, I was twenty two, and fresh out of art college in bumpkin Vancouver, following along behind my glamorous English Lit major girlfriend. After a rocky start, then a bit of back and forth, I was seemingly here for good in 1994. I was twenty six.
Thirty two years later. I'm on the cusp of fifty eight, and sitting by a rotary fan in my underwear, shirtless in the baking heat of a very late summer afternoon, jabbing away at a keyboard in a modest Nagoya danchii.
I'm also becoming increasingly aware that I most likely won't be sitting here (or anywhere) thirty two years henceforth.
I look at the now teenage brother and sister that I teach. The storied 'Scrappin' Tweens'. High school age kids, 14 and 16. In twenty years, they'll be considerably younger than I am now, while I may very well be gone, or on the fast track out.
Twenty fucking years.
Where on earth did the time go?
Lawyers and the un-fun business of last wills and testaments in the Land of the Rising Sun.
About a year and a half ago, Mina came across a troubling article online, detailing the unfortunate travails of a bereaved gaijin fellow after the premature demise of his Japanese wife.
It really struck a chord. We've gone over and over this potentially nightmarish scenario in our heads - particularly since the premature passing of Mayumi's husband back at the beginning of the pandemic. Life is a precarious thing. What if Mina goes first? All bets are on me... but anything can happen. Lord forbid...but unless we go down on a cruise ship (highly unlikely, as it's a bit beyond our means), natural disaster or some class of flaming vehicular crash or collision, one of us is surely going to step off this mortal coil before the other.
In to our late fifties/early sixties, this is stuff that no one wants to think about...but it's right there...a stark reality. It's also certain.
In any case, the gist of the story detailed how the poor gaijin widower ended up getting royally done over by his deceased wife's family in the wake of her passing. Laws regarding a surviving spouse's rights to assets and properties vary wildly from country to country, not to mention customs as they pertain to things like funerals and the internment of remains.
At the end of his cautionary tale, he ultimately recommended that childless mixed marriage couples make sure to draw up legal documents that cover every base relating to the way they want things to go, so that nothing is left to chance - or the whims of greedy and less than honourable in-laws in the unfortunate event that the gaijin partner fails to die first.
As I mentioned, this isn't a pool that anyone necessarily enjoys wading in to, and most people simply tend to avoid it.
'What does it matter? I'll be dead anyways', and so on.
I always used to say shit like that when I was younger. Didn't we all?
Fast forward several decades, and I'm in far flung Japan with a native spouse...and approaching my senior years. Our future employment prospects aren't great. My teaching gigs have already mostly dried up, and she'll be moved out to salaried worker's pasture from next year.
Sixty is when most Japanese companies do over their full time 'senior staff', and cut their wages by 40%.
The companies hope is that these 'over the hill' staff quit to make room for incoming fresh graduates, and so on. Today's reality is that there aren't nearly enough young graduates queueing up to grab those batons from the outgoing oldies...particularly in places like hospitals, where under staffing has become a real problem. So, the majority of people hitting sixty elect to keep working 'part-time', doing the exact same jobs on the same schedules, but for considerably reduced remuneration, because they simply can't afford to quit.
To add insult to injury, they often they have to work even harder for the poverty line wages they're 'afforded' in this final phase of their careers, due to the aforementioned critical staff shortages plaguing so many workplaces.
This all seems terribly backwards and unjust to my eyes. I would think that hospitals in particular would be bending over backwards to try to retain competent and experienced staff.
Sadly, this is not the case.
To further complicate matters, pensions don't kick in until people hit 65. Those who elect to 'retire' mostly cycle through whatever savings they have accrued pretty quick, and can easily end up in financial straits before their inadequate pensions come through five years later.
While we aren't rich by any means, and will have to mind our limited funds carefully. We are also aware that there are current and former familial parties in play on either side who *may* decide to make moves on any remaining moneys or assets... given the opportunity.
We wouldn't be in this situation if we'd had children, as they would be entitled to any remaining assets, therefore keeping the vultures at bay. Offspring were not forthcoming, as we married relatively late.
Japanese law is a strange creature.
In the event a couple is without children - and one passes - there are legal stipulations that entitle family members (siblings and parents first) to move on the estate and lay claim to what can amount to a handsome percentage of the deceased's remaining assets. In the worst case, things can get out of hand, and put the surviving spouse in something of a dire predicament.
The smell of money brings can most certainly bring out the worst in people.
After some discussion, we determined that we needed to move on this now, and set about finding suitable attorneys in town (preferably with some English language ability) who would be able to assist us in building legal firewalls, to at least limit the amount of damage the post mortem wolves could potentially wreak when one of us finally goes.
On the surface, it all seemed like a rather straight forward and simple.
We couldn't have been more mistaken.
What followed was a legal odyssey that took the better part of an entire year to realize. To put together a comprehensive, legally binding last will and testament in Japan is no small thing. As mentioned, our primary concern was the placement of mutual firewalls, to limit the amount of access to any remaining assets contemptuous members of Mina's family or estranged parties on Madam Lord Vader's end might have, were either side to decide to move forward with any claims.
Beyond that, we didn't really consider the sheer width and breadth of the journey we'd decided to embark on; that each minute detail of how everything should be conducted when either of us passes had to be determined, including the business of funerals and memorial ceremonies. The internment of remains. Everything. I even had to appoint a legal guardian to safeguard and oversee the handling of my affairs, were Mina to pass first.
Then there was the awkward final question...
"Where do you want to be?"
"Post mortem. How do you want this done?"
Details, details.
For real. Not some stoned, sentimental flight of fancy. An actual plan. The technical/legal realities of dealing with our respective demises, to be notarized and made law.
The details of funeral proceedings.
Final resting places.
Everything.
Now.
I wasn't really prepared for any of this, and to be honest, the whole business really bothered me a lot more than I thought it would. I suppose it forced me to stare down my mortality in a way I've never really had to before. In a way, I think it kind of changed me. Maybe it snuffed out my last bit of carefree and whimsey? I don't know. It certainly feels that way.
The Wurlitzer in my head slid a worn out old Apple Record's lp on to my cranial turntable, and as the needle dropped and found its groove, that slab of vinyl crackled to life, full and rich sounding...like it was the first time I'd ever heard it on my step father's old hi-fi set up in the basement on 35th over a half century ago.
I knew the words well. Like second nature. It's probably the most unlikely selection from that album, but the lyrics rang so prescient...
I'd like to be, under the sea,
In an octopus’s garden, in the shade
He'd let us in, knows where we've been
In his octopus's garden, in the shade
....
We would be warm, below the storm
In our little hideaway beneath the waves
Resting our head, on the sea bed
In an octopus's garden near a cave
....
We would sing and dance around
Because we know, we can't be found
I'd like to be, under the sea
In an octopus's garden, in the shade
....
We would be so happy you and me
No one there to tell us what to do
I'd like to be, under the sea
In an octopus's garden with you (x3)
It's perfect.
Music has ended up figuring pretty prominently in my journey thus far. Different albums and songs have become touchstones of sorts, marking and in some cases defining different phases and periods of my life. Some I can't listen to anymore, as the memories or associations they conjure are such that I'd rather not revisit them. Painful, traumatic or just (and I hate to use the term) 'cringe'. Sometimes that changes. Other times they're filed away indefinitely. Others remain fairly constant, and as years pass and eras change, they come to mean different things.
The past. The present...and if I'm fortunate...the future.
Or even 'The End'.
The Beatles penultimate recording, Abbey Road, is that record for me. Of course, there are others that I've packed along through the ages...but this one is a bit different. it was the first.
It's special.
I would never have guessed that Ringo's sole offering would speak to med at this stage of the game, but there you go. An unlikely contender.
Where do WE want to be...?
"Under the sea...."
Clearly.
Pause and fast forward to a lawyer's office just off of Central Park and the landmark TV Tower in Sakae, Olde Nagoyaland - Deadbeat City - early spring 2024.
Click 'play'.
That shy 8 year old is now 57, staring down 58 if he's lucky. He's sitting at the end of a long, wide table beside his wife of almost twenty years, answering questions and queries from the pair of lawyers we'd tasked with getting these documents done. Now it was the difficult business of determining what we want to happen to our earthly remains.
"So...how do you want this to go? Where do you want to be?"
Mina and I looked at each other, and there was no question.
"Under the sea...."
Or scattered on it, more precisely. Together. We were in complete agreement. We'd discussed our various options several times. I want nothing to do with organized religion, or to have a hand in financing even a rearview mirror on any of Mina's family's priest's expensive foreign cars.
Aside from Mina, I have no one here...so who would come even if there were a ceremony? Mayumi's crew?
No, thanks.
Similarly, Mina expressed no wish or desire to be interred with her family members. All of this post mortem business costs money. Assuming I go first, I want Mina to have whatever remains of our limited assets (if anything) for her future use and security...not to line some rich priest's pockets.
In short, neither of us want any fuss made. We just want to go quietly, and ultimately together.
If I die first, Mina will hang on to my bones, and at the time she passes, we've left instructions that our remains will be crushed into powder (for some reason the crematoriums here can't or simply won't turn the furnaces up high enough to turn everything to ash), then taken out on a boat and spread on the water... together. Vice-versa, if Mina passes first. This will be taken care of either by my selected guardian, or a surviving member of Mayumi's family... if they agree to it. In either case, it won't be done for free. We set a budget, and stipulated that it was to be done strictly 'no frills', as inexpensively as possible.
That will be it. Without any fuss or fanfare, off into anonymity. Together.
To our 'Octopus's Garden'.
An epilogue of sorts
That's where I'll leave off for now. As I hammer away on my keyboard in this hot little room, my Canadian sister and her husband are likely sitting under the A/C over at their Airb&b over near Sakae. Coming from Canada, I'm sure that they didn't expect the heat to be what it is this time around. To be honest, no one did.
The weather is so hot that it literally saps one's will to move.
In a few short days they will be off for two weeks in Sapporo, which I'm certain they are looking forward to. I am thankful that they decided to make a stop over here this year. We've been blessed with visits two years running, so I don't expect they'll be back too soon. Hopefully, I'm wrong.
As always, every visit could potentially be the last, so we'll be sure that we get some good quality time in between work and clinic visits in the run up to their departure. Of course, we'll be sad to see them go, but grateful that they made time for us.
A lovely trip to Shiga was had by all. A trip to mysterious Chikubushima Island with Mina (foreground hand), my sister and brother in law. I hate that I'm so pale. After the skin cancer business, I've had to be really careful in the sun. In any case, A brief bright spot at the tail end of a pretty un-fun summer.
So, until next time (and the mid winter solstice), you'd do well to remember that,
'No matter where you go,
There you are'
There, and nowhere else.
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