Moving out

Dear readers,

I’ve been wondering what I should do with this blog. Right after his death it felt appropriate to tell his friends about what had happened to him but I feel I cannot remain here too long. I also didn’t want to see my name shown as a writer which should be his name.

Once again I'd like to thank you all for supporting Iain by reading his blog. Thank you for being with me too.

posted by Edera

Be kind to yourself

A-chan, a daughter of my close friend, came from Kawasaki for an overnight stay. She brought me a book written by a female monk. Actually it's her talk transcribed into a book. I'll translate some sentences that I liked.

Us sent into this world to be here means that we are making somebody happy by just being us. To make someone happy, we ourselves have to be happy. When we stand near someone who is happy, we feel the warmth as if it's reflected on us.

....

You should love yourself. Even though you don't like your flat nose and small eyes, they belong to you and you are the only one who exist in this world. You need to praise yourself to be surviving with those!

She is talking to people with lots of humour obviously. Yes humour is another hint to make our lives more cheerful.

posted by Edera

Internet friendships

When Iain started living in Japan he faced lots of problems with my two daughters who naturally didn’t welcome him at first and then there were all sorts of culture shocks. Hot sticky weather was annoying him in summer with unpleasant insects and creatures. Our house doesn’t have a central heating system so he complained how cold it was in winter too. He also greatly missed English diet, especially pies and cheeses that were seldom found here. Above all, the language barrier really frustrated him. He was in dire need of talking to people in English with similar background however in this rural part of Chiba-ken it was difficult to find such friends easily.

One way he used to keep himself sane is to register himself in those sites which offer opportunities for people looking for international friendships. I knew he was communicating with quite a few people however until recently I hadn’t known that he was writing to some of them almost every day. Well he was a letter writer all his life so it wasn’t a total surprise. In one site, somebody who learned of Iain’s death left a very kind message on his page so I’ll copy it here – I hope she will not mind me publishing this. I corrected some dates and hid the name of the site and his pen name.

OPEN LETTER TO VISITORS OF THIS PAGE:

I am shocked and deeply saddened to report that Iain, or '***' as he is known here on *** , passed away on July 14 of heart failure. He was hospitalized five days after feeling under the weather, and while there took a turn for the worse.

I was blessed to have known Iain and befriended him on ***, developing a fun and inspiring acquaintance with this cheerful, outgoing, learned and very wise man. In hearing of his death I became all too conscious of the sanctity and fleetingness of life -- apparently Iain had simply gone to the restroom, come back, complained of breathlessness, and died within an hour afterward. One minute he was here and the next - gone. Just like that. Despite my shock and genuine sadness at the loss of such a cool guy, my heart was lifted in knowing that Iain is reported to have died peacefully. It's a comfort.

Let's take a moment out of our busy, crazy lives and reflect on the things that matter. Iain had celebrated his 64th birthday mere days before his death; he turned 64 on July 5 and died on July 14 -- but anyone who knew him or corresponded with him, or even visited his blogs and sites of personal activities in which he took part, knew that he led a very full, active, interesting life! :^D Iain had his hand in everything :) So he is truly a powerful example that it's not how many years in your life, but the quality of life in your years ... Iain did tons of living in six decades, and I'm sure the peacefulness with which he passed away was due to an inner knowledge that he accomplished much and truly, genuinely LIVED. He was an inspiration to me while alive, and even more so now that he's gone. I miss him.

Thanks for everything, Iain . . . thanks for being you. Blessings and light on the next phase of your spiritual journey! :)

from a friend

posted by Edera

100th day memorial gathering for Iain

Friends from Naruto Vocal Ensemble and Jadebros gathered at our house yesterday evening. They are such nice people. I'm sure Iain was absolutely happy surrounded by all of them. I won't describe what it was like, I'll just put a photo that my daughter took then.

posted by Edera

Synchronicity

I'm sure lots of you have experienced synchronicity in your lives. It happened a lot to me and yesterday afternoon it happened again.

I had been to a local festival which was really good - the weather turned beautiful with nice cool breeze. Lots of artistic activities there, you could paint shades of green on long white cloth hanging from trees, you could make an instrument using dried bottle gourds and other natural materials. There were a lot of stalls selling home-made cakes, soup and packed lunch. Open-air cafes and tiny bonsai shops. In an open field there was a stage built with local cidar trees and you could enjoy listening to live music and dance performances. It felt a bit like 1960's hippie fair although certainly no dodgy stuff here in leafy Chiba-ken.

Back home I suddenly wanted to talk to someone in English. Recently I was thinking that I was really in need of speaking to someone in English on a daily basis. There is something in English that liberates me in some ways. Well in other ways English could be restricting not because of its grammar but due to my lack of vocabulary.

Anyway a friend's name landed on my head - he was Iain's close friend and someone we often met in the U.K. but for some reason I hadn't got in touch with him after I came back here. "Yes!" I thought, " I'd like to talk with him!" Opening Iain's address book I dialed his number. His wife answered and we said hello to each other. Later he was on the phone. Surprisingly, he told me that he had just started writing an email to me at that time! We do have telepathy don't we?

posted by Edera

On days of sorrow

Yesterday when I was sorting my things out, I came across an old notebook I kept thirty years ago. It's my scribbles from a lecture on Philosophy of Education. On one page there is a poem by Juukichi Yagi. I'll copy it here in Japanese.

かなしい日はかなしみのみちをゆきくらし
よろこびの日はよろこびのみちをゆきくらし
たんねんに　いちねんに　あゆんできたゆえ
かすかなまことがみえてきた
じぶんでみつけねば　だれも力をかしてくれぬ
このひとすじのたびは　つらかったが
こわたれぬせかいがすこしみえてきた
かたじけなさ

I'm not good at translating poetry but I'll give it a try.

On days of sorrow I live in complete sorrow
On days of happiness I live in absolute happiness
I have walked step by step with simplicity and diligence
so now a hint of truth is in my view
Nobody lends a hand if you do not find it by yourself
This travel on a narrow path has been difficult but
I have a glimpse of an unbroken world
with gratitude

The lecturer told us that it was necessary to concentrate on the sadness and it was important not to change it into grumbling or hatred or any other emotions. Without realising it, when we are sad, we might end up complaining bitterly about something which actually should not be the issue. Nobody will be able to cure your soreness in your heart however at least you can give a cry. You can express yourself. The best thing is that you remain 'clean' and 'pure' in your own heart, which in itself might move someone. Keep your mind concentrated. Don' be bothered by what your other emotions say.The most wonderful thing you can do to people is to really be one in yourself.

posted by Edera

A fig cake for Iain

Around lunch time a friend visited me. She is someone Iain and I always thought of as our family. So I relate to her as my sister. She made a very nice fig cake for us. She also brought me some lunch. The cake was on the altar for Iain for a while and was eaten by us.

The photo is a bit blurred but I cannot take the picture again because it's gone!

posted by Edera

"Another wonderful day with you."

Just to tell everyone that I'm surviving okay. It's really hard to lose someone so caring and supportive. Iain was indeed the sun of my life. It feels like the world is in the shadow all the time now.

Iain had been always positive. He was very good at encouraging people as well. Maybe I had relied on him too much for being happier. I'm also an optimistic person basically but now I have to learn to live cheerfully without him.

The other day I was remembering the phrase he once suggested me to say when I woke up in the morning. He said, "Why don't you say 'Another wonderful day with you' to me?" I kept saying that for a while but then sadly the habit slipped away.

Indeed those days were wonderful days with him. If you are happily living with someone, husband, wife, partner, children, friends or pets, it'll be nice to say this every morning because it really is another wonderful day with them.

Well - even if it's quite hard to live with them it's nicer to say "Another wonderful day with you." rather than "Another horrible start of the day with %&'$#!" isn't i? Actually come to think of it, maybe one summer morning Iain thought about the unbearable heat and humidity, disgusting Japanese food and then his unkind wife and he almost said to himself, "Another hor.....!" and then stopped and thought about a positive way to put it, eh?

posted by Edera

Imi-kotoba -words you should avoid to use in certain situations

In the Japanese language, we avoid using words related to death and also numbers that have the same sound as the words associated with the image of death. The famous ones are 4 and 9. In Japanese 4 is pronounced ‘shi’ which also means ‘death’. 9 is pronounced ‘ku’ which also means ‘suffering’. So there usually are no room number 4, 9 or 49 in hospitals and hotels.

In wedding parties people try not to utter the words incurring the image of separation. If you are a parent and when your child is about to take an entrance exam you, as well as others, will try not to use words like ‘fail’,‘slip’ or ‘drop’ etc.

Taboos in English are not quite the equivalent of these – euphemism is an option to avoid shocking expressions however actually I think everything is much more open to talk about in England. People seem not to hesitate in talking about all kinds of human activities happening around them where Japanese people will be careful not to. We tend to talk about things moderately and there is a thing about ‘shame of the family’ here, so people especially avoid talking about something bad that happened to your own family to others. However that’s not the case in the U.K. Well at least that’s what I observed with Iain and his friends. Sadly my Japanese-ness stops me from going into further details at the moment!

posted by Edera

Open day for Iain

Yesterday afternoon I opened the house for my students and their parents, but it was mainly students and their mothers of course being in Japan - never a father! - who came and offered incense in washitsu (Japanese style tatami room). Some offered food, others offered flowers. All of them gave a donation to the Stainmore Railway Company - so Iain would be very pleased about that.

In the school room, I set two pcs on the table. One pc showed the websites that Iain created in those two years. The other showed the slide show of Iain’s portraits since he was about twelve years old. I have some other photos of him at different ages so, for his 100th memorial day, I’ll scan them and compile them in a file.

The nice thing about today is that a friend helped me all afternoon. I’d kind of thought she was a ‘cool’ person but actually, she has been very warm and kind and has supported me greatly by just being there when I needed help – like today. Another nice thing is that some students really missed Iain and shed their tears looking at the slide show. I hope he knew he was loved so much when he was alive.

posted by Edera

Lupin the kitten

This is our new cat Rupan, sitting in our messy washitsu. Well for English readers I'd better write Lupin but, in Japanese we only have an 'R'! We are famous for not being able to pronounce London properly. Most of us say Rondon. So, you'll hear “Herro Rupan!” instead of “Hello Lupin!”, but that’s Japanese for you. Hope you’ll be very kind and give collection to their English… oh, sorry, I made a mistake myself, I should have said correction! From the name, you would imagine it's a boy cat but actually it's not. My elder daughter Chihiro rescued her while I was in England. The kitten could barely see due to heavy mucus and was too weak to eat anything. Chihiro took her to the vet and luckily she survived. She seems to be around 8 months old but I'm not sure. She has beautiful green eyes and a very interesting triangular mark on her dark face. Her behaviour is completely different to other cats that we had kept before. Very timid, never tries to run outdoors. It's so interesting to see the way she plays with a hair band too. Do you see it just in front of her in the photo? Why did Chihiro name her Lupin? She thought the kitten looked like both a thief and detective! Don't you think she has a bit of a suspicious look? In Japan, there was a cartoon called "Lupin the third" on TV a while ago... I don't know if it's still on air. It's based on the gentleman thief and detective story written by Maurice Leblanc. Younger people may only know today’s animation, which is often the case when a hero from an original story develops into a manga character. I feel like pulling my hair out whenever I see Winnie the Pooh in Disney animation because that’s NOT the Pooh that I know from the original book. Maybe it’s wrong to expect animated character to be the same as the original. Maybe it’s only me. Perhaps I’m already too old to appreciate Disney characters. Everyone in Chiba seems to love Disneyland and its characters. When people are so excited about it, I cannot say I'd rather avoid such things so I just sit and listen to how long they had to wait to take a ride on Splash Mountain and how much they enjoyed taking pictures with Micky Mouse….oh dear. posted by Edera

Tsuki-meinichi (Monthly memorial day)

14th today.Two months have passed since Iain’s passing. In Japan with some religious families, a family monk visits the family on Tsuki-meinichi and recites a scripture. In our house, however, no monks will visit us because Iain’s tie is with a Buddhist Abbey in England. So my daughter and I offered incense by ourselves and recited the scripture of great wisdom both in English and Japanese just like Iain and I used to do in the morning.

Sometimes we did it before breakfast, other times after.Looking back it was the only quiet time in a day and I’m really happy that we kept doing it together. After the recitation Iain will offer the merit of recitation for the benefit of our home and for the people in our thoughts and for every sentient being. Then we smiled “Good morning, love!” to each other, which made us feel happy and made us get on with our work all through the day. Well, actually we should have done three bows but Iain never insisted on that one, maybe it would have been too much for his heart.

posted by Edera

A behavioral difference between the U.K. and Japan

I’m telling you only from my own experience. There will be various kinds of funerals held in both countries, so please do not generalize what I say.

Today I’ll tell you just one observation. A big difference is about the family and relatives look at the deceased or not. In Japan, definitely yes but in England it seemed not always. In my experience in various parts of Japan, if a person dies in a hospital, he/she is usually carried back home or a funeral place or a temple. The deceased will be laid on a futon bed. Family and relatives will sit near the deceased and spend a night with the incense lit all night.

So I imagine, if you are English, you will find it rather scary to take a look at the dead person especially if you don’t know the person well. It might just give you repulsive feeling. With me as Japanese, when I see the face of the deceased I always have the impression that the face is the most peaceful and relaxed. I feel it’s better to see the beautiful face because it actually calms you down rather than upsets you. Imagination gives you worries, threat and fear but the reality gives you peace of mind, clarity and stability.. that’s how I feel at the moment.

posted by Edera

Grandfather's watches

Was Iain's grandfather a collector of watches? No, not really.

Back in Kirkby Stephen, I had a very limited timescale, but I tried to take a look at as many things Iain had left as possible. In the attic, there were two huge boxes of watches, clocks, springs and various parts and tools that used to belong to Iain’s granddad. After he retired from his job as a signalman, he mended people’s watches and clocks as a hobby.

I couldn’t manage two but I did take out the contents of one box and took pictures to keep the memory there and I kept imagining his granddad fixing them with great care...

I wonder if some of you have the same kind of collections from your grandparents.

posted by Edera

Letter of Complaint

When I was struggling with myself not knowing what to do with pain and sorrow in my heart, I remembered a book titled "What to do when someone dies" which had been kindly given by the Abbey. One chapter was telling me about the grief process. It says that the different stages of grief that a person may go through include shock, sorrow, anger, apathy and depression before the process of recovery can begin.

I haven't written much about anger in this blog but naturally I did feel angry about myself for not being able to help Iain and about the doctor who saw him first. I went to see the doctor a few days after the Buddhist funeral and afterwards I decided to write a letter of complaint to the PCT. I'll copy it here in the hope that this helps someone somewhere in the world.

Dear Sirs,

I’m writing this letter on behalf of my late husband Dr. Wilfred Iain Thomas Robinson.He died of a heart failure on the 14th of July, 2011 in Cumberland Infirmary. He was 64.

Iain was taken into the CCU at the above hospital on the 12th in an ambulance. The attending doctor at the hospital diagnosed that Iain had had a minor heart attack several days before. Suffering from severe pain in his left arm on the night of the 7th, he saw Dr. A at B Medical Practice on the 8th and was diagnosed as having a frozen shoulder. Iain told me that he explained to Dr. A that in addition to the pain on his left upper arm, he had a slight chest pain on his left side as well. When I met Dr. A and talked with him on the 2nd of August, he told me that he did not remember any of the conversation. On top of that, he said that he was not aware of Iain being diabetic. I understand that this information is in his medical file easily available for reference. There is a possibility of misdiagnosis due to carelessness and negligence.

In retrospect the symptoms that Iain experienced were that of a heart attack or angina and it is well recognised that people with diabetes are at high risk of ischaemic heart disease and that they can present atypically. Frozen shoulder is common in people with diabetes but is not usually of sudden onset and it is exacerbated by lifting the shoulder but not associated with chest pain.

The possiblity of angina was not considered by Dr. A as no ECG was performed nor was an examination of Iain's chest. It is possible that if an adequate examination had been undertaken the heart attack would have been diagnosed earlier. If this had happened, Iain's chances of survival would have been increased and he may have been admitted earlier to hospital and received treatment for his acute coronary syndrome which could have enabled him to have undergone angioplasty. Unfortunately Iain was not given this opportunity as Dr. A failed to listen fully to Iain and fixated on the wrong diagnosis.

Before my husband died, he had shown dissatisfaction about Dr. A’s diagnosis and attitude on three occasions. First, he told me he was not impressed with the doctor right after he saw him on the 8th. Next, Iain told his priest about it on the phone on the 12th. Thirdly, Iain told me about making a formal complaint about the doctor when I visited him at the hospital on the 13th. He felt that he was not properly heard. Therefore, I have good reasons to believe that this is what he would do if he were alive today.

To keep my mind in peace I would like you to investigate Dr. A and require him to really reflect on his own practice.

Since I am traveling back to Japan for several months on the 31st August, I will appreciate it if you could contact me as soon as possible at the above address or by phone on xxx. After that date, please write to me to my Japanese address.

Yours sincerely,

(signed)

posted by Edera

Weeping a lot

Telling people about Iain's death is much more difficult for me here than that in England. It’s probably because I do so in my own language. Words directly connect to feelings and it takes more energy to utter each word since each brings with it vivid memories. Or it’s perhaps the way we talk to each other – it feels much ‘wetter’ here. Friends moan as they remember him and try to encourage me which eventually makes me cry as well. Generally I feel it’s okay to cry openly here.

Maybe it was okay to cry in the U.K. as well but somehow I felt that I had to show strength in my behavior. I thought British people find it a bit embarrassing to encounter emotional gestures. “Stiff upper lip” was the phrase Iain told me to describe the English attitude. A nice thing in Britain is that people always hug each other. When it’s difficult to speak and if you only want to share the feelings or encourage the person, hugging is great. In Japan we seldom hug but we remember together, shedding tears and talking.

Yesterday morning, I felt exhausted after talking with four people although I was happy to know how greatly Iain was missed by them. When they left, I suddenly found it very hard to be on my own. I rang my friend to talk again. But I couldn’t cry much because I knew it would give her burden. I looked for help on the Net and found a site full of letters written by widows to their lost husbands. As I read them I wept and wept, shedding abundant tears. Some of them had almost the same experience as mine. After about an hour of good crying, I felt much better. It helps a lot to let go of your feelings.

posted by Edera

Good bye to Kirkby Stephen (for now)

Just a short note to tell you that I’m leaving our Kirkby Stephen house this afternoon. The flight back to Japan is tomorrow, which coincidentally is the 49th day after Iain’s passing. In Japan we regard the day as the end of mourning. It feels as if Iain had known about this and had planned everything for me accordingly.

I’ll start working as soon as I get back to Japan. With my jet-lag the blog post might be a bit irregular but I'll keep writing!

Wishing you all the best.

posted by Edera

Stainmore Summit sign erected

Quite an emotional day today. First we saw the grand re-opening ceremony at Kirkby Stephen East Station. Then we drove up and spread Iain's ashes on the hill where his granddad's ashes had been scattered. In the afternoon, we went on an exceptional trip on a double-decker to Stainmore Summit and to the south abutment of Belah viaduct.

In the evening, three young friends of ours cooked beautiful Thai curry and soup with rice. Thanks Luke, Charlotte and Becky!

posted by Edera

Serendipity

With Rev. Mugo I’ve been experiencing things happen serendipitously. It happened when she was with us in Japan. It’s like a magic hand picking out a few pieces from different places and then we find something fitting together we had not anticipated. Sometimes I felt as if a missing piece of a jigsaw suddenly appeared. I guess after all it’s her virtue and also these things happen not coincidentally but as a result of her careful observation and thoughtfulness.

I cannot describe those occasions at this moment as I’m in the middle of sorting things out. Today I’d like to tell you a little exciting experience from yesterday. As we had arrived a bit too early for an appointment, we decided to take a look at the famous Blackpool Tower. Then Rev. Mugo shook her magic wand and we found ourselves sitting at a table in the Tower Ballroom! Middle aged couples were enjoying dancing to music played by an electronic organ on the high stage which sometimes sank and came up again - for players to take turns I guess. Although I don’t know how to dance formally, I like dancing in my own way so I had to restrain my feet from moving.

There is a Hans Christian Anderson story of a girl who wore red shoes to the church. One day she went dancing leaving her sick mother behind. Then in the ballroom her feet never stopped dancing and she had to have her feet chopped off. This really scared me as a child and only the fear remained not the moral of the story. Dancing girl with red shoes on, and the bloody scene stuck in my mind. Afterwards I couldn’t remember the reason why she had to face such a fate.

Do you have this kind of experience? You only remember a part of the story because it was so shocking and don’t remember the cause. Too much impact doesn’t work for small children I guess?

posted by Edera

Running on the water

This morning we went to Blackpool. (For the benefit of Japanese readers, Blackpool used to be a very popular seaside resort famous for its tower and the ballroom underneath it, called the Tower Ballroom as well as the illuminations in the autumn.)

I can imagine my junior high school students asking, “Ballroom? Room for baseball? Or basketball? Room with lots of balls? “ Well in this case it means a huge room for formal dancing. This ‘ball’ came from Latin word ‘ballere’ = to dance.

However what I’d like to tell you today is that I saw a young man running on the water! I’d never seen such a thing before, certainly not in Japan.

First I saw someone in a plastic sheet or something but suddenly it became a big ball covering him up and he was standing on the water. I was so curious that I went there to take a close look. By then he was already out of the ball however Rev. Mugo talked with a man who was mending holes in another ball and she asked if it was possible for a repeat performance. He was once again sealed into the ball and there you go, he was running and splashing on the water. Afterwards we talked to this cool young man.

His name is Daniel. According to him a lot of children try running on the water during this summer. It’s only £5 for ten minutes. Why not try once? If I had been wearing a T-shirt and shorts, I definitely would have given it a try! Iain would have approved.

posted by Edera

Needed, train spotters

Here are a couple of sample pages from Iain's diaries and notebooks. Train spotters! Are you able to tell me what these figures mean? The one above is from 1961. On 14th April he wrote, “Up at Stainmore early.” The one below is from 15th August, 1974.

posted by Edera

Three day boy - mikka-bozu

If someone dies, those who are left are left with his or her belongings. If the situation allows I’d keep everything as it is so that I could feel Iain’s presence in the house at all times. However as it is not the case, Rev. Mugo and I have been sorting things out these past two weeks. Parting with his clothing was the most painful. Going through his albums was rather interesting since I see his life before we met. However he was the main photographer in the family so he wasn’t in the pictures very often. He had visited a lot of places in Europe and the U.S. I didn’t throw away any albums.

Finding his diaries from here and there made me smile a lot. I was happy to think that I was able to read more of his writings. However he only kept the first week of January in most cases.

In Japanese, mikka-bozu, that was him. Mikka means three days which refers to a fairly short time and bozu means a male monk – it also means a boy. Three-day monk. In Edo period (1603 to 1868) there were men running away to a temple to get away from hard farming life. Some of them might have committed a crime, others just wanted to receive free food. However when they found monks’ life too restricted and severe they would ran away again. So people laughed at them and called them three-day monks.

Nowadays this expression refers to somebody who can only keep doing things for a short time. You are easily bored and get lazy. I am one of them and I’m not laughing at him at all and also, to be fair, one year he wrote up to the end of January! It’s just that the fact that he had kept all those diaries with only a week’s entry and all the pages blank for the rest of the year seem a little funny to me. Sorry Iain!

I think he really wanted to keep records of his daily life. After the Internet came into our lives, the blog space seemed to best fit his needs. He really enjoyed it and he kept it for six long years fairly well! Hmm..maybe what he needed was readers in those days eh?

Do you also find typing on the computer much easier than actually writing down in your diary?

posted by Edera

The Alexander Technique

Have you heard of The Alexander Technique?

I had no idea what it was like but when I heard that it was a method to help let go of your unnecessary tensions and also to live in this very moment, I suddenly got very interested. Kate, a friend of Iain’s has been learning the technique and she is going to graduate from her course at Christmas this year. When I asked her to show me a little bit about the technique, she said okay and visited me yesterday.

She explained to me the general idea of this technique then I lay flat on the floor and she showed me how to let go of all the tensions in my body. She did this by gently helping each of my limbs to stretch long, especially so with the neck because the head is very heavy.

Rev. Mugo was out all day. When she came back and saw me washing dishes, she said “I can see the effect on you!” Indeed I felt much lighter in myself. My headache was gone and my stiff neck was gone. It was like magic. I felt much better, and actually I was so relaxed that I went to bed before 8 and slept until this morning! Somehow I haven’t slept enough recently so it was good to catch up.

About 16 years ago, I came across something a little similar in a workshop called “Kenji no Gakko” (School of Kenji Miyazawa, a storyteller and poet born in 1896. He was a sincere Buddhist.) However I didn’t dig into it any further at that time. I wonder if those people who held this workshop had learned something from the Alexander Technique.

I wrote this blog to show my gratitude to Kate. Thank you Kate!

posted by Edera

Back gate mended

Seeing is believing. I know we Japanese are infamous for constantly taking photographs wherever we are however I couldn’t resist taking these photographs today because the way the door was mended was so super smooth and it was a wonderful job.

Two senior monks visited us today. In the winter the back gate swells with the damp and it won’t open. Rev. Mugo and I wanted it to be fixed but thought it would take a long time. However when they took a look at the door one of the monks said “It’s a piece of cake.” And within perhaps ten minutes, the door was taken off its hinges, a chunk sawn off the bottom of it and then screwed back on again.

The first picture is the very tidy tool box belonging to one of the monks which impressed me greatly. The next one is him taking the door off.

Very many thanks!

posted by Edera

Our breakfast

Looking at this photo, did you think I eat spring onions for breakfast? Yep! But not as they are.

Before I tell you about our breakfast, can I ask what you eat for breakfast? Tea, toast with butter? Weetabix?

Back in Japan Iain and I had three choices; rice and miso soup, porridge on busy mornings, and homemade bread with bacon and eggs to please Iain since he became homesick for a British breakfast from time to time. We don’t have black pudding in Japan, though!

Here in the U.K., Rev. Mugo and I are enjoying brown rice and miso soup almost every morning. We have got Italian brown rice which is easier to cook than Japanese brown rice. The miso was brought from Japan. It goes without saying that Rev. Mugo is a vegetarian so I don’t use any fish stock to make miso soup here. We just boil lots of vegetables and add miso at the very end of cooking. We have so much fun out of it. For topping I sprinkle chopped negi in Japan but here we use chopped spring onion. At first I was using leek but spring onions also taste wonderful. They are so nice I can survive without negi, I suppose.

posted by Edera

Two more things to keep me going

I would like to add two more things that helped me keep writing.

As I wrote in my previous post, Rev. Mugo has been helping me to write about what had happened. Who is Rev. Mugo? Did I tell you about her before? Iain became a Soto Zen Buddhist in the U.K. and Rev. Mugo is his teacher. I am really grateful to him for having kept his practice in his group here in the U.K. and for having maintained his close spiritual connection with Rev. Mugo for over twenty years, a close one in the last ten years. Without him, Rev. Mugo wouldn’t be here.

Another thing is that writing in a language which is not quite mine has enabled me to express difficult things because somehow it makes me sit straight and I have to try to be logical and more objective. Writing in English makes sense because not many of Iain’s friends will read Japanese. However I’m scared to think what kind of impressions native English readers receive from my writing. Rev. Mugo says my English is back to front and too many commas! I know I sometimes miss out articles because we don’t have them in Japanese. Well, I can try to be more creative and make it upside down sometimes? Just joking.

As somebody kindly commented, I know that Iain had an amazing style of his own sprinkled with vast knowledge of - well - almost everything. However it made his writing difficult to understand for non-native speakers. Our students often told me that reading Iain’s blog was quite a big task for them.

So let’s assume there may be good things as well in my simple English, eh?

posted by Edera

Writing about difficult things

I thought I would never be able to write about the 14th because as you can imagine it was such a traumatic experience, and it still is.

"I don't think I can write about that day." I said to Rev. Mugo. She seemed to accept that however within a second she said, “At least you can write about that cat!” I paused for a moment and said “Okay, I think so.” Yes, I thought, at least I can write about the ginger cat.

I wrote only a few lines about the cat. I didn’t want to remember that day not to mention writing about details so I stopped there and thought, Right, this is today’s post. The readers after all are all kind people. I’m sure they know the difficulty and they will understand.

Added to this, in Japan, on such occasions, remaining silent and not being talkative is supposed to be good manners. So I sometimes feel when writing this blog I’m doing something very unusual for a Japanese person. Actually for anybody who has just lost his/her partner for that matter. Am I a weirdo? Would Iain have written his blog if I had died suddenly? Maybe. Maybe not. Can people write about horrible experience so quickly afterwards? It took my father fifty years before he could start speaking about his experiences of the atomic bomb. He was in a crowded bus going towards Hiroshima city centre when the bomb dropped. He was 14 years old. I wonder how I am able to write this now. For what reason, and for whom?

When I read aloud my post to Rev. Mugo (I always ask her to listen to me reading what I have written), she seemed to be waiting for the next sentence. Realising I had stopped writing, she said, “So… what happened then?” I talked about what had happened. “Then you can write that,” she said kindly. So I typed a few more lines. This is how we proceeded. When it came to the point that was so painful to remember I couldn’t even talk, and cried. She was sitting next to me and I could feel she was experiencing my pain through her own body. Slowly we proceeded, with her never pushing me to write further and telling me that I didn’t have to publish what I’d written. She suggested however that writing might help me, as well as others. Some time after we started, she got up and moved away from me and sat on the floor leaning against the wall. I think she did this to avoid any sense of my feeling pressured to keep writing and also so that we could face each other while we were talking.

So I started to tell her what had happened. Often I hesitated to describe something intimate and said “I don’t know how to write about it.” At one time I even said, “Maybe I’ll write only up to here and the rest I can write some time later.” She nodded with a smile and somehow her being there kept me going. I think sharing this whole experience was very difficult for Rev. Mugo. She was realising empathy and patience by means of her existence.

After struggling together for an hour or two – again I lost track of time – the previous post was completed. It was done only with the support of Rev. Mugo, I can’t imagine me doing it on my own, alone. Actually we hugged each other after posting it on the net.

In deep gratitude to Rev. Mugo.

posted by Edera

Day 8 - 14th July

Thursday, 14th July

I received a phone call from the Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle at around 2.40 a.m. The voice at the other end of the phone said, “Your husband is very unwell, please come immediately.” I rang Peter with trembling fingers. Peter is Julia’s partner, they live together in Preston with their one-month-old baby. Peter was kind and encouraging and spoke with a steady voice saying they would pick me up as soon as possible. Around 3.30, with my heart racing, I waited outside our front door. Then a cat appeared from the dark and snuggled against my legs. When I sat down on the doorstep she jumped on my lap which was very comforting. She was purring softly and when I looked at her face, I thought she looked quite like our old cat Tora. At that moment I had a slight fear that Iain was visiting me to say good-bye.

For the last few days since starting to write this record, I've been remembering Iain's face when I saw him for the first time after he died. It was quite some time after the nurse told Julia and me before she led me to the room where Iain lay. We were both very upset and cried a lot. Now I think the nurse was waiting until we became calmer. Julia went to feed the baby and I was asked if I wanted to see Iain. When we were first told of Iain's death it was like a terrible explosion, not wanting to believe what we'd been told was true. We were in turmoil. When I eventually arrived at the room, it was very hard for me to walk at all, I found he was in a quiet and calm place.

When I entered the room, I called his name several times and of course there was no answer. I cried and I could hear the nurse sobbing behind me. I touched his face and held him but was afraid to touch his body as it was covered with a white cloth. The nurse said, “It’s okay” drawing back the cloth as she spoke and then left. I stroked his left arm and hand. Again I looked at his face - his eyes were slightly open, his green-gray eyes very clear and gentle. His face looked so very calm and peaceful. The worries and pains of the last months and weeks had all faded away. I have to say that after he finished his thesis he started to look rather old and tired and lines were deep on his face. When I saw him that morning after he had died, he looked much younger and beautiful. This sounds as if he wasn't good-looking however he was.

I walked to his right hand side and held his face again, l lay over him with my ear to his chest. Gradually I started to hear a steady heartbeat and I wished it was his heart beating. But when I touched his chest it was not moving. It was my own heartbeat. I stroked his right arm down to his hand, touched his fingers and hugged him again. He was still warm and it was hard to believe he was dead. It was only that he was not moving, he was not responding to me which confirmed that he was not alive any more. I must have been there for some time with him, maybe an hour.

Peter came and stayed a while and left, the nurse came back and asked what I wanted to do. She genuinely said I could stay as long as I wanted to. I would have gladly stayed there for two or three days however I thought I should move, with Peter and Julia waiting for me and with doctors and nurses working, if I stayed there I would be an annoyance to them. The nurse took me to the room where Julia was waiting for me. We had another cup of tea, we couldn't utter a word at all. We were still in shock. After some time Julia asked, “What do you want to do now?” I asked her what the room was for. She said it was the nurses' room. "Well then we have to go. We cannot be in their way,” I replied.

Peter drove us back home, he was so good and made us toasts with butter and jam. He said, “We have to be practical. Food is to our body like petrol is to a car.” I think nobody was hungry but we just munched through. It was around nine in the morning. Actually I really don't know what time it was. I lost track of time.

posted by Edera

Day 7 - 13th July

Wednesday, 13th July

On the 13th I took a 12.30 train to Carlisle. The visiting hours were from 3 to 4.30 but I couldn’t wait any longer. In the train, I looked up the meaning of CCU with my little electronic dictionary. Iain had told me that CCU meant cardiological something. However, what I saw was quite a shocking term in Japanese. Kanjo Domyaku Shikkan Shuchu Chiryo Byoto. It is a place where patients with problems with their coronary artery and are at high risk stay. They are in an intensive-care ward. When I realised the seriousness of his condition, I wept - luckily there was no one sitting beside me. However, I quickly stopped thinking of the worst and tried to think positively. I said to myself - surely Iain will be okay. He will never leave me alone.

At the station in Carlisle I took a bus to the Infirmary. The hospital appeared to be a nicely busy place, by that I mean staff were going about their business briskly - with a good attitude. The entrance was spacious and full of light. Lots of people were walking around on the ground floor so it almost felt like a shopping centre. There was a café on the first floor and it looked cheerful with visitors and patients chatting over a cup of coffee. The CCU was on the second floor. It was, I think, only 2 p.m. but I went into the unit. Iain had told me on the phone that nobody would stop me from visiting him even though I would be a bit early. As I walked around, I felt uneasy again since all I saw were people in their 80's and 90's who looked really frail - but then I realised I was in the wrong unit. I should have turned right and gone through the opposite door to the CCU!

Eventually I found him sitting in a chair beside his bed, with an insulin drip attached to him. He told me he had to be on a drip 24 hours a day. Thankfully his blood sugar was now being held under control. He reasoned that the shock of the heart attack made the blood sugar so dangerously high. Sitting with a book in his hand, he looked much better than I last saw him. I often felt that his face was rather red, but now his colour looked fine. I brought a chair for myself and sat close to him.

The room was bright with sunshine and the air was pleasant, I thought the windows were open as the blinds were moving, but I'm not sure. The room might have been air-conditioned and there might have been a draft. There were, I think, three other beds, two of which were empty. A man was sitting on the next bed, a really big man, he appeared to be a similar age to Iain and he too was on a drip.

Iain said he felt fine, and had no more pain in his arm, shoulder or chest. He'd had his heartbeat checked the day before and they would do an angiogram the next day. (As an aside he remembered that in his childhood he used to have arrhythmia.) There was a plan mentioned to take him to a Newcastle Hospital the following day to do a 3-D analysis of his heart. But he wasn't sure if it would happen. The good news was that the damage due to the heart attack was to the lower part of his heart and not the upper part. We both felt relieved because this indicated that he'd only had a minor heart attack.

On the table beside him was a thick booklet. It explained how to recover from a heart attack, and mapped out in detail the step-by-step process that a patient must follow. It encouraged people to regain confidence after the shock of having a heart attack. The message was to increase physical activity gently day by day. On one page, it said that the heart is the strongest muscle in your body. I read this sentence aloud to him feeling encouraged. I thought, from now on we really have to live a less busy lifestyle. And I have to watch him more carefully, to make sure our daily routine included adequate exercise.

While we were talking two medical people came to see Iain. The first one, an ultrasonographer, an Egyptian perhaps. I helped him draw the curtain around Iain’s bed. On the screen I saw his heart pumping away. When I saw his heart beating so strongly I childishly thought his heart was strong and I asked, “Is his heart okay?” To this he replied, “I cannot tell you, the doctor will need to take a look at the ultrasound.” After he went, Iain chuckled and said “I smiled when you asked that question – actually that is the question you can never ask a doctor. He cannot say, can he?” And I felt ashamed of myself asking such a silly question.

After a while a diabetic nurse arrived. She explained to him that it was now necessary to change his diabetic medication. Iain now needed to have insulin by injection and she showed him how to do that. It was a bit scary to see her using a syringe on herself to demonstrate how to give an injection. Iain's dad used to do insulin injections on himself, so I thought we would get accustomed to doing this too.

The bell rang and it was time for me to leave. I asked what he wanted me to bring the next day. He said “My mobile phone, please!” Since a nurse came to take his temperature and so on, we both threw our kisses to each other and I left. Actually I wanted to kiss him but I hesitated to do so in front of the nurse. I said "See you tomorrow!" not knowing that was the last moment to see him alive.

posted by Edera