Early this month my wife received a call that her father would not live
until the end of the week. Dr. Wada was 84 years old and had an advanced form
of stomach cancer. We were under the impression he was waiting for us to arrive before he passed on. We made arrangements to take first available flight to Japan.

My father-in-law did seem to be "waiting." He managed to survive long
enough for us to pay our last respects. In fact, he stayed alive, almost painfully so, through my own daughter's first birthday, a full celebration with all family members together for the first time in a long time. Then, eight minutes into the next day, 12:08 a.m., he passed on.

Dr. Wada was a surgeon of high reputation, ran his own small hospital and spoke his mind to the community. He loved to do pottery and was one of the few people who was not afraid to openly rage at the government for the allowance of the construction of an airport in his hometown near Hiroshima. He won the respect of the locals and the attention of people in high places. People wept openly at his funeral.

What took me by surprise, however, was the tenderness and care he
received both during his last days and after he died. I recalled when my own father died of lung cancer, the funeral home took care of all the "arrangements." I never saw his "body" and for years afterwards, had many dreams about him returning to me. We told stories about my father at the local church at a funeral after, but I remember that I remained comfortably distanced from "the body."

In Japan, you cannot help but have contact with the body. My wife and I had no clue what to do after he died, but his mom, who had long resigned to his death, handed us chopsticks and a cottonball soaked in water. Each of us passed it around and gently touched the wet cotton to his lips. This assured that his soul had enough to drink for the "journey."

Next, his body was to be washed and changed into a comfortable Kimono. Visions of my own grandfather in his stiff "Sunday's Best," came to mind. With Dr. Wada, the entire family carefully washed the skin that they had washed many times before. He had often bathed with his children, sharing the same tub. I was envious of this kind of intimacy. I don't ever remember sharing a tub with my parents, much less washing them. Then he was slipped in a comfortable cotton kimono.

In Japan, if you die in a hospital, usually the hospital does the
washing. But in this case, since he passed away in the comfort of home, the family took on the duty. My wife said this is an older tradition that had begun to be lost.

After the washing, he was laid on a black sheet. A white cloth was cut
out and laid carefully over his face. A black sheet covered the rest of his body. It seemed more appropriate than pulling up a sheet the way you see in movies.

His son, also a doctor, took the lead in planning the wake and funeral.
Visitations were to take place in the same room he had died. The next
morning the funeral home carefully prepared that particular room, placing his body on a futon. Layers of dried ice over his chest for short-term preservation and he was covered carefully with a white comforter. A small shrine was set up behind his futon, furniture removed, so visitors from the immediate family could come pay their last respects.

They sat on small pillows on a totami matt on the floor, drank green tea, and "caught up" as relatives often do in a funeral situation. There was little discomfort with the sight of Dr. Wada lying peacefully on the floor. Silent bows and prayers were offered as people entered the room. Candles remained lit, incense was burned, and people came and went late into the first night.

The next day I was called upon to help lift the body into the coffin.
Six or seven immediate relatives gathered around. We were asked to wash the exposed parts of his skin, face, hands and legs. We were given small squares of cotton soaked in rubbing alcohol. I watched as his my wife's mother, Akiko, started this ritual, washing his forehead, cheeks, nose and lips with care. It would be the last time she would touch him.

After washing we also put white sleeves around his ankles and clasped
hands. His skin was cold from the dry ice, his face was peaceful and
completely absent of pain. It struck as a wax figure, that much of our
"pallor" comes from circulation of blood near the skin's surface. A white
Kimono was placed on top of him. Different objects he might need for his "journey" were lowered in the coffin, glasses, a book of poems he wrote. His niece, Sahoko, looked intently as we collectively lifted his body in his coffin. She was not kept from the sight of him, and she had no problem handling witnessing the body of her grandfather up close.

After the flowers had arrived from people and organizations from all over Japan, relatives, his University, Pharmaceuticals (as he was a doctor), and even a telegram from the Prime Minster Mayazawa. The room, in short, was packed with a display of flowers, the head an intricate Buddhist shrine, hundreds of arranged white chrysanthemums (chosen because they tend not to droop), white lilies, gardenias, roses. "It was a show," his daughter Takako aptly put it. The room felt like a floral shop--and we all openly complained about the "gaudiness" of the funeral arrrangers. But it was a trend in Japan that "more is more." Overdoing it and making the arrangements "as busy as possible," was the fashion. The sum total did have an affect...my father-in-law, who I knelt on a totami matt to ask him permission
to marry his daughter seven year prior, had died and was going to be given a funeral.

That night we took turns keeping vigil by the body, as it was not good
to leave the body alone. His son arranged his Dad's pottery into a glass showcase and hung his calligraphy on the wall. One of the paintings meant, "One-one." A Zen haiku that meant, "each meeting between person and person may be the only time."

People showed up for the "wake" on the second day. It was a short
ceremony, an elderly Buddhist priest reading a long Sanskrit prayer in a
cracking, mournful voice. People wore black. I stood out as the singular American in a charcoal gray suit.

We later read in a funeral book that it was not necessary to "entertain" people after the wake. This was permitted after a funeral, but we didn't know any better. Also, it was not necessary to "see relatives to the door."

This helped relieved the bereaved from some of the exhausting "hosting,"--the equivalent of a three-day funeral.

After the funeral, Doctors spoke of his love of making pottery and the fact that he stayed alive through my daughter's first birthday. My niece wept heartily. I tried handing her some handkerchiefs, but she noticed I had not cried. The fact was I could not understand what was being said. Then, one by one, we came up to pay our last respects. Instead of closing the coffin's face, as I thought would be the case, the entire facing on the coffin was lifted off, revealing his entire body. People began to tear off the blossoms of the meticulously arranged display. Not just a few, but dozens. The room was silent except for the cracking of blossoms from their stems. Then people surrounded Dr. Wada's body with them. This powerful doctor who once ranged against the airplanes was now being bathed in flowers. He was covered entirely except for his face. I couldnt help but begin to cry.

Then, just as I was caught up what appeared to be a spontaneous act (but has been a long tradition), the funeral directors passed us a ceremonial hammer. We were each to take turns hammering the coffin lid shut. It was a final farewell--stronger than any Chopin piece--and turned my tears to the reality and finality of death.

The metaphor continued as we carried the coffin to the shiniest hearse I had ever seen. We followed the hearse in a chartered bus to the Crematory, and, once again, lined up for one final look at Dr. Wada's face through the coffin's window. My wife was most broken at this point. He brother, who had not yet cried, lost it in front of three hundred people during an impromptu speech as he gazed in to the eyes of his father's best friend. No matter how much you plan a funeral, the event goes unplanned.

Now, my wife, on seeing the man who raised her, would gaze at his face for the very last time.

An hour and a half later, if that wasn't enough, the bereaved carefully
handled his bones. Allowing no "agency" to take over, the immediate family carefully places his bones, one by one, into a ceremonial cup with a pair of special chopsticks. One might find this too strong, as I did. Luckily my daughter began to fidget and make loud noises uncontrollably, so I had the excuse of exiting the room and playing with her outside. The sight of his bones and the feel of the heat, brought me to a finality of the physical death process that was beyond any abstraction. Death is real.

I rocked my one-year-old daughter outside the crematory, in the most
beautiful countryside I had ever seen. Later the bones would be placed in something like an "urn" in a shrine in my families home. Punk would remain lit, and prayers would continue. Forty days later another funeral would be held, and the bones would be placed underground.

The butterflies went from blossom to blossom, "Cho-chos" as they are
called in Japanese. "Cho-cho" I said to my daughter, "Ch-ch" she said,
unable to get it all. "Cho-cho" I said again, "cho-cho." I extended her
toward the flowers and the butterflies as best I could. I don't ever remember seeing a countryside so beautiful.

-David Flood