Grief - Elephant Journal essay 12/5/2018

I wrote this essay for the Elephant journal several years ago. I am not the best writer but looking to improve it in 2023. This was my way of dealing with grief.

ELEPHANT JOURNAL - Do you believe in Signs from the universe? My full circle of the grieving process.

I hugged my mom goodbye on October 17,2016. I did not know it would be the last time I would see her. One week later, my mom died in an accident while on vacation in Gora Hakone, Ashigarashimo District, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan on October 24, 2016 about 2pm US time/October 25 about 7am Japan time. She was only 70. I never thought something like this would happen to me. You hear stories about accidental deaths overseas but having it happen to me was unfathomable. My mom was born in Japan and left this world in Japan.

I received the news standing in the middle of an aisle in Target. I was collecting items for a 2 week trip to Hawaii. I received an unknown call. I usually do not pick it up but this time, I did. The person said “your mom is dead” in those exact words. I said “Is this a joke? Who is this? I just saw her last week”. It was not a joke. It was her boyfriend. I was in shock, my heart was pounding, my head was spinning and tears started rolling down my face. I called my brother, my son and my two sisters. Three days later, we were all in Japan.

In August of that year, I moved from Pennsylvania to California. My mom was still living and working in New Jersey. I had spent the prior week with my mom in San Francisco and the Santa Cruz Mountains in California at her boyfriend’s daughter’s wedding. I was lucky to have had that time with her. I was the last child to see her.

Do you believe in signs from the universe? My siblings believe they are just coincidences. Am I looking for these signs or are these really signs from her and the universe?

Before her death

I was suppose to go on a Tinder date that week while they were visiting. This person asked if I had ever hiked Angel Island. I said no and that I had never heard of it. Her ashes were spread at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco from a yacht. We took the boat out to the bridge and then turned around. When the captain said it was time to release the ashes, we were facing Angel Island.

My mom was always worried about not having enough money for retirement. It was a weekly conversation that she had with me for 10 years. She was still working at 70. When I saw her the night before she was going to Japan, she said to me that she finally felt she had enough money to retire in the following year. She was ready to move on.

An hour before her death, she loved a facebook post of mine regarding watching my son play a college golf tournament. She was his biggest supporter.

During her death

At the time of her death, I was in Monterey, California on the golf course watching my son play a college golf tournament. My son did not tell me this for a couple weeks. While he was on the golf course, his playing partner started asking him about his nationality. He asked where my mom was from. He proceeded to tell him Japan and Taiwan and that his grandmother was in Japan right now. They spoke for 15 minutes on the subject. The time was 2pm California time which was 7am Japan time. This was the estimated time of her death.

On the following day of her death, one big white puffy cloud appeared in the sky above the golf course. When I was in Colorado a couple months before, I had posted on facebook how lovely the clouds were and they looked like big fluffy pillows. She wouldn’t stop talking about it and kept on saying that whenever she looked at clouds, she thought of pillows. She was watching over us.

After her death

I was living the life of a digital nomad. I was moving around to places for 1-2 months or shorter on the West Coast. I did this for 2+ years. This past October, I decided to go international to Southeast Asia. I bought a one way ticket to Vietnam. I had a few countries planned, but I left things open ended. I telecommute for work, so I can work anywhere but working overseas was another layer. This trip would have to be seamless to my employer, so I had to work on East Coast time which was around 8pm – 4am in Southeast Asia. I wasn’t sure how long I could do that schedule. My initial plan was to be gone for 4 months visiting Vietnam, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Thailand, Bali, Indonesia and Taiwan.

At the end of week 1, I was in southern Vietnam on a snorkeling boat. Before I went on the excursion, I took off all my rings except for hers. It was on my right middle finger. I slipped, fell on the boat and sliced my right index finger and had to get 15 stitches. It was the finger next to the ring. The center diamond on the ring popped out. What was she telling me?

At the end of week 3, I was in Cambodia. I was at the airport and decided to buy a book to read. I haven’t read a book in years. My favorite author is Haruki Murakami, a Japanese author. I was choosing between two books and decided to go with his short story book called “Men without Women”. In the first story, it talked about traveling around Japan and one of the places they would go to was Hakone. This is where my mom died.

At the end of week 4, I was in Thailand. My crown on my tooth came loose so I went to the dentist. The diagnosis was that the tooth was loose underneath, I would need to extract it and get a dental implant. At the Japanese cremation ceremony, I watched my mom’s physical body go into the crematory and the tray of ashes and bones come out. They sifted through the bones with chopsticks, took the bones from bottoms up and placed it in a jar. Legs first, hips, chest, skull and then placed the voice box at the top. But the dental implant she had did not burn. Her boyfriend wanted it and took it. Why did my tooth get loose on this trip?

In week 6, I went to Bali, Indonesia for a long weekend. I was originally planning on going for a month, but I had heard from many people that wifi was a struggle there sometimes. Because of my job, I need strong wifi since I send and receive large files. So I opted for a quick trip. My yoga teacher from Encinitas, California is currently living there. After my mom’s death, I went to live in Encinitas for a few months. I discovered her yoga studio and attended her studio 3-4 times a week. There were many times that I cried through the practice. Her yoga classes moved me through the initial grieving process. I went to Bali and took her classes. This time, I did not cry. What lead me to her on this trip?

My next country is Taiwan. My birthplace. I will be visiting with family from my dad’s side and mom’s side. My dad had also passed from complications from stage IV colon cancer surgery 9 months after my mom’s death. This will be an emotional last leg of my 2.5 month travel in Asia. I will be visiting where my dad grew up, where my mom grew up and where I was born. The memories that I have of my mom’s house will trigger many sad emotions. I will also pay my respects to my grandmother and grandfather’s graves. I have not been back there in 24 years. I’m scared of the emotions that will surge from this part of the trip, but I feel like it is something that I have to move through.

Full Circle

My mom died alone peacefully in a tranquil shallow hot spring pool. She did not suffer. Men and woman have separate soaking areas in Japan because you have to be nude. For 20 years, my mom lived with Type 2 Diabetes. With this, you should not be in a hot spring pool alone. It was her 3rd day there and they were suppose to leave later that morning. Her boyfriend had called out to her to see if she was ready to go. She did not answer, so he assumed she was inside getting changed, but she was passed out already head down in the water. When she did not come out for 30 minutes, he asked someone to go in and check on her. It was too late. The cause of death was drowning.

Coincidences or Signs? I believe in signs from the universe. Two years ago, someone was collecting stories about grief and wanted me to write my story. I haven’t been able to write about it until now. I finally realize what this trip was all about. I am now coming full circle with the grieving process. Why did her death impact me so much more than my other siblings? I am an INFJ. I feel too much. I am a HSP (highly sensitive person). I sense too much. Double whammy! I was the least favorite child, the middle daughter and the wild child. She always criticized my choices and who I was, yet she always leaned on me in my adult life because I was the only child that remained consistently in the same vicinity as her and saw her the most. She was a very good grandmother to my son.

In a couple weeks, I will be returning back to the US. The cheapest and fastest flight back from Taiwan to San Diego, California was through Narita International Airport in Tokyo, Japan. I was there 2 years ago in a fog and haze after seeing her lifeless body and the Japanese cremation ceremony performed on her. We were bringing her ashes back to the US for her final resting. The universe and my mom directed me this way. I feel like she is telling me that she is okay. Now, I can say when I board the plane from Japan to the US that my head will be clearer and ready to move onto the next chapter of my life. Rest in peace Mom 1946-2016.