The next time a Japanese person asks you this, know that the older they are, the more concerned they are with your ability to not drop bones being held with two pieces of wood. Most of the world has learned from ordering Asian food, or seeing how they are used in the movies. One thing you never see in movies tho is this ritual of standing around the remains of a loved one's bones and having to put them into a ceramic vase the size of a flower pot.
I.
I barely knew John. He was a 46-year-old Boston native. He was a friendly teacher, a great cook, and lived in Osaka for about as long as me. But he had health issues and demons that led him to drink. Self-diagnosis and self-medication eventually lead to complications that left him bed-ridden and a stranger to people who used to know him.
I would often visit our friends living in his building and often saw him at the entrance elevator on my way to someone's potluck party.
”Forget your key again,” he’d say.
”I only live here part-time.” I had to explain that I was only ever here to visit friends and that I actually lived with my family down the road.
He shook his head at my dodgy logic.
Seemed like everyone in the building had people over on Sunday. For a time, there was no shortage of doors you could knock on and be invited in. There’d be fantasy football trash talk at one, darts at another, a proper English roasts over at Scouser’s if you came at just the right time. These friends have since moved out of the building, but for a time, it was a given that John would be there. In recent years, those closest to him said that he had become a recluse, declining offers to come over and hang for a bit.
It was as much in support of these men as it was for John that I wanted to be at his funeral. I also wanted to observe the Japanese cremation ritual.
"In Japan, you are born Shinto, marry Christian, and die Buddhist."
I’m familiar with the first two, but not the third. I made sure to check Living in Japan, a website that explained about kouden or the practice of giving money in a special envelope.
II.
I am standing with Craig, Kerry, and Marco. We are in a massive marbled hall, with high ceilings, and tall windows which bring in natural light, but none of the heat from outside. We have wheeled the box with our friend in it to a metal door marked number 1. In my memory, there are twenty more doors like it, maybe more. When it opens, there is room for the box to be wheeled in but nothing more. It looks like an elevator without buttons, metal walls, and stone floors. Once the box is inside, the attendant bows deeply. He mentions to us that this is where we will return in two hours. He then bows deeply in the direction of the coffin and the closing door, which slides down, rather than from left and right to seal in the centre. We are told to wait in the area for mourners, but we are told we can also come back at the appointed time to pick through the remains.
The sliding metal door that shut us from the view of the box was not of an elevator taking him to a fire chamber on another floor. It IS the fire chamber. This was the incinerator, and this quiet, large building with very little furnishing and adornment, the crematorium. When we returned from our two-hour stay at a Chinese restaurant around the corner, we were standing once again in front of door number one, only now what came wheeling out was a metal gurney with blanched white bones on it, those of the man we once knew as John W.
He had been found by the police, landlord, and Tanaka-san, the employer responsible for finding out why John had not come to his latest class on July 13th. Mr. Tanaka had to show up, knock on John's apartment door, and after hearing no answer from within, call the landlord and police to come and open the door. The police officer entered first, while the two other men waited outside. When the police officer returned, he simply shook his head to the question, 'May we enter?' Instead, this was now a police matter and they had to start the process of dealing with a body that had been laying in bed for five days. The body had decayed, the skin purple from sloughing, but mercifully, John died in his sleep with the air conditioner on.
We were able to see his face at the viewing. The viewing was of a closed casket, but Craig insisted that he see John's face one last time for closure. I said "no" because someone had made that decision, but he slowly moved towards the box and began to remove the white cotton covering, by untying the ribbons that covered the little window through which you could only see the face. It was all so meticulous and delicate. The white cotton was pulled down, but there were still two wood panel doors to be lifted. Craig pulled back the right panel, but from our angle we still couldn't see John. Then the left side, and finally, with my hand on Craig's back to show him my support, but also to brace myself, I leaned forward and finally saw him.
We leaned forward with respect, awe, and fear. But these feelings were replaced with the relieved sight of John laying there with eyes closed. His skin was the colour of a bruise, contrasting with his white beard and jet black hair. He still carried an expression of chipper calmness. Even with his eyes closed, he had the look of a man that patiently and pleasantly waits for you to tell him your funny story before laughing and then giving you his Boston reply. Shit's fucked up. What can you do? Fuck those bastids. But yeah, it was a relief to see and recognize that beautiful face lying in that final state.
III.
"Can you use chopsticks?"
Remarkable how much you can fit into something so small. It takes help from an assistant who arranges as many of these brittle jenga-like pieces into the box before it is taken away and prepared for shipping.
A staff member with white gloves explained how we would use chopsticks to pick bones and place them in the box that would be mailed to his mother in the States. He picked up the first piece of bone fragment and explained that it was the trachea, or voice box, and that it would be the last one placed atop our contributions. We were each given a pair of chopsticks. Craig and I were most nervous because we had heard of the “hashi-o-watasu” ritual in which a master of ceremony explains which of the remains were most significant and then has you pass it person to person, one pair of chopsticks to another. We were a little tipsy by this point and were afraid to accidentally have a piece shatter on the marble floors. For this sacred reason, it is considered insensitive to pass food from one person to another at the dinner table. Thankfully, we were not asked to do this. Instead, all four of us sifted through the still warm remains and chose bones that held significance for us.
"In your wisdom, Lord, you took him. You took him as you did so many young men before their time..." eulogizes the grieving Walter Sobchak in the Big Lebowski as the only other mourner, the Dude looks on and then away. Walter then removes the lid off a container and dumps the remains of their friend into the bosom of the Pacific Ocean. In this film, the ashes are a fine white powder. Most of which covers the Dude, standing silently abiding his role as bystander.
There was no fine white powder this day. Mostly bones. The only other notable piece to go in was the tongue-piercing I found among the ashes and metal joiners of the coffin walls. It gave us all a chuckle at a time when we needed it. We were fascinated by this treasure of a past life. Now past tense, we put it in with the rest of him.
Kerry had been the last to arrive and felt he had to say something because he had missed the viewing a couple hours earlier. Over what bones remained on the table, he asked the three of us if he could say a few words. He only knew him as a work colleague, and his words were brief and courteous. But he got the ball rolling. At the viewing, there were just a handful of people, and no official ceremony led by a priest. No chance to say final words until now.
I thanked John, for giving us this experience, for being the stranger in this land who now leaves before us. For reminding us that death may be an empty moment, but here in this final goodbye, there were those of us who remember him alive and well.
In a week's time, his mother in Boston will receive the package. We made sure to message her and let her know that John was with friends up until the end. And also that we got hammered together in John's honour. Anything we drank, we did so by reminding ourselves that, "This is what John would have wanted."
May this be peace of mind to those family and friends who could not be there, and the many students and colleagues who survive him. We were there, slightly tipsy from the drinks we had at the Chinese restaurant, thrilled to have found his tongue-piercing, fearful of dropping brittle bones, and in the company of strangers keeping our outlandish observations and dark humour in check.
It was certainly what John would have wanted.
This post isn’t sponsored by BetterHelp, but I do speak from past experience that talking to a professional about your mental health has never been easier. If you are having trouble, and don’t know where to turn, consider reaching out to:
Better Help
In Japan, you can also reach out to:
John was my nephew. He carried the rings his uncle and I exchanged at our wedding. He was handsome, brilliant, loving, sarcastic, and loved for so many reasons. It’s so hard to say good bye to those who cannot overcome their addictions and leave behind so much hurt and pain. Especially when they’re too young to go. I’m appreciative of the fact that you attended this ritual and that he wasn’t alone. I truly hope he is finally sober, spending the here after with his father, his uncle, and his grandmother, all of whom could not get past their addictions either. I’m not a praying woman but I pray that this cycle of addiction stops with him. May he rest in the sweetest peace.
John was my brother, we were born 17 months apart. We had many years together before he moved half way around the world. He wasn’t always the easiest person to get along with and I was often his target. But I loved him, he was my little brother. He inherited his intelligence and his demons from our Dad and it made me sad that he knew that too. I think it kept him from letting anyone get too close. We always stayed in touch but he didn’t talk much about his life in Japan and It makes me happy to know that he meant something to so many. Thank you for writing this.