Goodbye My Neighbor

I have been depressed since I heard this news.
The woman, who had been living in the next door apartment,
passed away about a week ago.
I heard this news a few days ago
from her daughter who used to live there.

This 72 years old woman had been my neighbor
for the last quarter century.
Despite of the very short distance between us,
I never had a close relationship with her,
just the person I said "Hi, how are you?" to
whenever I saw her in a hall way.
Maybe I should have a better one with her,
but it did not happen,
as she was a nice woman but very different type from me,
and a bit too old to be my friend.

After her daughter moved out like 18 years ago,
she became a couch potato to put on lots of weight.
And because of that, she had a trouble with her knees,
and other health issues followed.
However, she had remained always feisty.

A few days ago, when I came back from outside,
her daughter came out of her apartment
and told me her passing.
At first, it was like just "Oh My God!"
But after I came into my apartment,
the real feeling set in.
She was like a permanent fixture to me,
someone always my next door neighbor.
But she is gone now.

And not only her passing
but also the way her daughter looked shocked me.

Since she moved out,
I have seen her time to time when she visited her mother,
but always like just saying "Hi"
whenever I saw her in the dark hall way.
However, for the first time, since she had moved out,
I talked to her face to face this time.
While the news of her mother's passing shocked me,
I also realized she looked quite different.
It was still a same face,
but I saw some grey hair, wrinkles
and even her chin was sagging.
I felt like "What happened to you?"
What happened to her was TIME.
Considering that she is supposed to be in her mid 40s,
it is only natural that she looked that way.

To my surprise, I have been grieving since then.
To be honest, not exactly for her passing, but for me,
for this overwhelming sense of
"Where the hell did the Time go?"
What the hell have I been doing all these years?

Sunday, I heard the noises from the next door all day.
I thought her family members taking her furniture out,
which I did not want to see.
However, still hearing them even in the early evening,
it seemed that they were having a party in a memory of her.
So I went out to get some flower and knocked her door.
A very handsome young guy showed up at the door,
whose relation to her I had no knowledge of.
I told him I was a next door neighbor
and how I felt about her passing with the flower.

Not wanting to go back into my apartment after that,
I went to the East River park
and walked toward uptown by the water.
It was a warm and quiet spring night.
I found the one blooming cherry blossom tree,
and under that, a 40ish guy playing guitar
& singing fado-like songs in french.
I sat at the nearby bench and watched over the river,
which was so peaceful.

I remembered that when I was younger,
I used to roam around in the night
whenever I could not cope with the loneliness.
Sometimes I walked around all night long
hoping I could talk to someone,
but always I got home alone.

At that time, I had more friends than now
and I had the youth.

When I got home from roaming around,
it was like 10:45
and her family members seemed to be gone.
Getting in my apartment, I really pitied myself.
Her family had lots of people
to share and overcome their feelings with,
but I am all alone to wander around in the night.

I thought I got used to being alone,
living my life by myself.
But still the night like this, it is not easy.

One month ago, the refrigerator
that I had used for 25 years broke down,
three weeks ago,
the 21 years old cat of mine was hospitalized.
And since then, he has not shown any improvement.
He may last for one more month, two or half year maybe.
And now my next door woman is gone so suddenly.
I wonder whether all these are coincident or not.

I thought I got used to being alone,
living my life by myself.
But still the night like this, it is not easy at all.
And I hate myself for being the person like me.
Why wasn't I born as a person like her family members,
or anyone else who has a family and friends?

I am alone, all alone in this night.

Goodbye my neighbor,
and sorry for being a not very good neighbor to you,
guessing you wished you could have a friendlier one.
I know it will take a time for me to accept your passing,
but I know you are resting in peace now.

Smile, you must keep on trying

>It is sad to think you have simply accepted this as your fate, though.

No, I have NOT accepted everything as my fate.
However, I have definitely accepted some facts of life
like I will not have a family of my own except my cats.

Until you reach a cirtain age like 35, though it depends,
things like death and aging seem kinda foreign
or not very realistic
as naturally young people feel they are immortal.
But after you reach 35-40 or 50 for some people,
suddenly or gradually they become very realistic,
and you start seeing your limitations much clearly.

When you reach the turning point of your life, just age wise,
you look back your past life which was in your youth,
and think of what you could do.
And look forward to your future life
which will be in your aging process toward to the end,
and think of what you will be able to do
with your eyes and mind which have become more realistic.

Then the acceptance to some extent is necessary
if you do not want to be crazy.
You are not going to be a hero, a star or a super rich,
or accomplish something extraordinary many people praise.
You have to settle with an idea "it's okay" to just get by.



>You cannot exist alone in isolation, like an island, my friend. Even I had to learn this lesson.

Of course, nobody can.
Being an animal of the society,
we need other people's help, attention, comfort and recognition.
I do not say I will live alone completely.
However, I lack an ability of having a family
and the social skills & the right state of mind to have many friends.
So I have to live my life in a relatively isolated way,
which I have to accept.


>Is it too much to say I hope for you? You continue to blog, and talk about these deeply personal topics...I cannot believe that in your soul you have completely given in.

I have not completely given up, of course not.
Even if I have done so,
I still have to continue dealing with my life
as I am still afraid of knowing what is there beyond the sky.


>A part of you continues to reach out, yearns to touch and connect with the humanity in others. I know you haven't given up yet. Your words have touched a chord ... in me, in others... by virtue of the posts people leave you.

I actually opened up this blogger.com accont for my Japanese blog,
but I realized this system lacked some fanctions I needed.
So I started my blog with the other system.
Then some time later,
I decided to start the English one with this
since I rarely wrote in English.
And despite of how you feel,
I do not think I have revealed much of my personal things on this.
What I write here is very generic,
things most of people do experience soon or later in their lives.
Someone said that
life is to experience what the world offers to us.
As long as we live, we have to experience them every day
and deal with them.
Some brings joy, some brings sorrow & pain to you.


>So take heart, Blue. Sometimes, all it takes is the warmth of a smile.

I thank you for your kind words.
Very very nice of you.

Here is my theme song

Mu-En-Shi Lonely Death

A while ago,
I read some intersting article on the internet
about a little phenom that
a surprising number of TV viewers had been really moved
by the documentary aired by NHK(Japan's Public TV),
which was about "Mu-en-shi."
And it was reported that more than 600 entries about it
were written on their Blogs.

"Mu" means No, Not or Nothing.
"En" means Relations or Connections.
"Shi" means Death.
So "Mu-En-Shi(無縁死)" is a(Lonely)death
of the person who did not have any family or friends.

Actually, for the first time,
I have heard this word.
Usually "Kodoku-shi(孤独死, lonely death)"
has been used for this kind of occasion.
Also "Mu-En-Botoke(無縁仏)" is the commonly used word for
graves that no longer has any visiters
as their entire family members have died off.

According to its report,
about 35000 people die alone each year in Japan.
As the rising rate of divorce cases
and people staying single into their middle ages,
many people related themselves to this story.

Though I have not seen this program yet,
I have seen the similar documentary on PBS
about agents who work for the cases that
old people died alone in their New York apartments
and nobody came foward to take care of them
like what to do with the bodies and things left behind.
Probably Americans can accept things like this
better than Japanese as something inevitable in life
though they feel sad about it as well.

On the other hand,
Japanese are still not used to this
since they have had the society that
the collectiveness had been highly important.
Until like '60s, most of Japanese live within a large family,
three or even four generations under the same roof,
where they could get a plenty of Family support.
However, as the Japanese society grew wealthier,
many peope prefer to live in a nuclear family
as they do not want to be interfered
by their old parents too much.
One reason that Japanese used to live with a large family was
that they had to help each other to survive
especially economically.



This system that family members help each others
started to eloded '70s, even in '50s in the urban areas,
Since then Japanese yet have found
the supporting system to replace that.

Until like '70s,
for people who could not find their mates,
their parents found ones for the arranged marrige.
Though this convention still barely exists,
most of people of younger generations
choose their mates on their own.
However, there are always lots of people
who are too shy to do so, especially in Japan.
As Japanese education does not put much emphasis on
being a strongly independent individual,
expressing themselves freely,
or speaking out his/her mind publically,
Japanese tend to be more shy,
and some of them are too shy to meet their opposit sex.

Though people prefer to have a life style
with a minimum interferance by their family members,
this did not make peole less shy or more attractive to find someone.
So a large number of have been left out,
and many of them have turned out to be lonely Otaku(s).

On the other hand, In American culture,
people always had/have to find their mates on their own
besides exceptions of some minority groups' traditions,
If you cannot find one, you had/have to accept that.
And even though they seems to be never enough,
there have been many support systems like Churchs,
therapies and various support groups
out side of people's close families.

I think what Japanese have to learn and invent is
the new support system to replace the old tradition
of the collective-ness driven society.
Otherwise more and more Japanes will commit suicide
because of the loneliness.

Being a single without any relationship for a long time,
I accepted the notion a long time ago
that I would die alone someday
as it is something naturally to come for people like me.
But it could have been much harder to do so in Japan
as they may feel that it could be a shame to die like that
in the society that the collective-ness is very importnant,
also as a failure to raise a happy family,
which seems to be very essencial for human beings.
In other words, Japanese are afraid of being viewed
as a failure by other people when they die.

I will have a "MU-En-Shi."
Even though I do not say I will be happy to have one,
I feel a bit lucky to be living in the society
that people do not judge me much for that.