Sending My Father Out to Sea

In the past three years, I have said goodbye to three members of my family.Most recently, it was my father.

There is something dramatic about death.The everyday life that had carried on until then suddenly ends. Family members gather, decisions must be made, and time passes in a blur.

After a while, it becomes a very quiet memory.

I had not seen my father all that often.Once every month or two. More recently, I had been driving my mother to the hospital each month, so I would see him then.

My own daily life, then, has not changed a great deal.

For my mother, who lived with him every day, his absence must feel different.

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My father did not leave a formal will.But he had always said:

“When I die, scatter my ashes in the sea. I don’t need a grave.”

Following his wishes, our family will go to the sea off Hayama next month to scatter his ashes.

I was surprised that he wanted something with a touch of romance to it, like having his ashes scattered at sea.

Perhaps he simply wanted to save money on a grave.

There is no way to ask him now.

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My parents lived apart for sixteen years—my father in Kyoto, my mother in Tokyo.

“Separated” makes it sound more dramatic than it was. The reality was that my mother, born and raised in Tokyo, wanted to return there.

When I was in my second year of junior high school, my mother, my older sister, and I moved to Tokyo.I had never quite accepted that our family should live apart because that was what my mother wanted.

During one summer holiday in high school, I spent about a month with my father in Kyoto.

We talked almost every day.Still, the decision remained unchanged.

Looking back now, that month is a fond memory too.

My sister also visited him often during her university years.

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Divorce might have been an option back then.But my father firmly refused.

He was a man who resisted even changing the registered location of the family’s koseki, its official family record.Until I married, mine remained in his hometown of Omishima, in Ehime Prefecture.

He was stubborn.

And yet, when I think of the years after his retirement, when he and my mother began living together again, perhaps it was just as well that they never divorced.

Whatever had happened between them, by the end they both seemed content to share a home.

For the rest of us, knowing they had each other was reassuring too.

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Now I worry about my mother, who is left on her own.

For the time being, she is managing to live independently.My sister lives nearby and often checks on her, for which I am very grateful.

I will continue driving her to the hospital each month.Beyond that, I would like to visit a little more often.

As my father’s death becomes a quiet memory, my time with my mother is still unfolding.