#StayHome Journal Ep 3. Mourning the Loss of Normality during Obon; Japanese Halloween

Today, I saw a dream.

My father, my mother and I were all sat at the dining table, but in the dream I had apparently snuck a boy inside my bedroom late last night and he was trying to leave while everyone was at the table. I go check on the hallway and make sure nobody notices, but of course at the worst timing, my mother stands up to get something from the kitchen which kind of faces the hallway and is just enough to notice a stranger snooping around the house. I give my mother the panicky eyes but she is smart to notice, it’s not because a stranger is in the house.

While the boy attempts his escape, he cracks a noise enough to make my father notice something is up, but the next second my mother is a hero and she starts talking really loudly so we can’t hear outside.

Just like that my mother had just saved my ass.

The next second I wonder, wait but dad’s gone, why is he here. Oh wait I’m dreaming, and I slowly wake up from this peculiarly realistic but impossible dream.

I will never get to experience this, I realized. When my dad passed away, I not only lost my father, but also these opportunities of mistake, guilt and fun interactions; the memories that could have been.

As my mind is slowly woken up, I noticed that my father had appeared in my dream for the first time in a very long time. Then I noticed that it is Obon season (or as I like to call it, Japanese Halloween).

Obon is probably one of the very few Japanese holidays of the year that is dedicated to commemorate our ancestors. The timing depends on which area of Japan you’re from, but is often around mid July or August.

During this time, you will find Japanese people going back to their family houses to welcome the spirit of the lost ones. You might find a couple of houses that have put some type of small fire on their entrance spaces. This is to guide spirits to their own homes, a mark in case they get lost.

Not to be all spiritual but I thought it was an interesting coincidence that my father had appeared in my dream during this time around. Maybe his spirits actually came back? At least I’d only like to hope...

↑My late grandmother on a hot Summer day.

Right now, all nations are mourning. We are suffering from our own particular grief of losing something. Whether it be a loss of a loved one, a huge portion of a nation, a famous figure (RIP Miura Haruma in particular), your normal life, or it might be the realization of a loss of racial equality that we never had. What makes it even more difficult is though we may not consciously realize but when we lose something, we are not losing just one particular thing. We are also coping with the loss of everything attached to it; all the actual memories, as well as all the could have beens.

What’s important here personally, is that it’s ok to be sad, it’s ok to feel sorry for yourself. I hear a lot of my friends and even I say, oh but these people have it so much worse so I shouldn’t be sad, I shouldn’t be whining.

Nooo, we all have our standards and just because someone has it worse, doesn’t take away your permission to grieve nor does it extract your intuitive sense of loss. In fact, you suppressing your emotions would actually take away any potential growth or learning or physical act that you could have taken, which might have been driven from this particular loss.

At the end of Obon, there’s 送り火(Okuribi, send out fire). A time when we lit fire, so our ancestors can go back safely to where they belong. It is a sense of letting go, but a temporary one as you send them off with the spirit to see them again next year, to show them how much you’ve progressed, how you’re changing.

These losses emerging in the year of 2020 and how we cope with it, changes the way we grow, physically act and eventually how this world is headed. We hear the words “new normal“ so many times, but we mustn’t forget that we are the ones that create the new normal.

My point is, acknowledge your loss and of others, grieve and try to take steps on moving forward, because that’s how the world evolves.

“And in turn, an identification with suffering can bring us to an awareness of “our collective responsibility for the physical lives of one another.” - By Jamelle Bouie in a New York Times Article “Did You Really Think Trump Would Mourn With Us?"

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