下川　誉志彦

No one understood why I was so reluctant to attend grandmother-in-law's
funeral here. Everyone (even the children - though the children are
becoming less and less welcome) sits around watching the body burn, and
then pass the bones around using long chopsticks. Sorry - I barf at
the sight of roadkill, and can not eat fish with the head still on.
Just the thought of watching a body burn, and then toughing it - even
with a chopstick - is just too much. But it's just normal culture
here. When one of my friends died (she was an older lady), I was kind
of sad. I mean, I was grateful her suffering had ended (she had
Parkinson's as well as some other problems), but certainly I'll miss
her. But others who were even better friends with her than I just
shrugged it off - it was just her time. Then we get into religion -
which I will not get into on this list. But just the different view of
death, I guess I wanted to share.

Love, Melanie in Japan