Cleaning graves!

Obon is over in the blink of an eye, and for the first time in a long time, there were lots of people coming from out of town!
It was the first Obon vacation since the restrictions on activities were lifted, and it was nice to be back in the good old days.

Just before the start of Obon, my family and my sister’s family went to clean the graves of our ancestors.
We were a little late, so we didn’t get to see the condition they were in, but I heard they were covered in moss.

It was Fionn’s first time to clean the graves and he had a lot of questions.
He knows that a grave is a place for the dead, but he had never thought about how they are buried here.
He had a lot of questions. Yeah, he can’t help it.

My mother’s family was a family of four, my grandparents and two girls, but my mother, the second, was the first to die.
A year later, my grandmother died, and six months after that, my grandfather died.
And my aunt passed away a few years ago, so it’s from our generation down.
It is very sad to think about it.

The graves are not close by, so I can only go to clean them at such occasions.
But when we do, we do our best to clean them up!
This time, the kids were able to get to work and clean up pretty quickly.

My second sister, Mana-chan, and I have always been close to my grandparents, so when we were in elementary school, we used to go there almost every weekend for sleepovers, and I have so many fond memories of it.
The roads are better now, but it used to take about an hour for the two of us to get there on the winding mountain roads by bus.

I vividly remember the smell of the bus, the view, the steel of the windows, the thick vinyl on the seats, and so many other things.
I also fondly the thick sashimi my grandpa cut, the miso soup with somen noodles my grandma made.

I am so busy every day that I rarely go to the cemetery to clean the graves, but I have a picture of everyone on the desk next to my computer where I work.
I often look at them and think about my grandma and grandpa.
There are just good memories of them, they were really kind and sweet grandparents!

At the end of the ceremony, we all prayed together, but somehow Everyone was individually asking the ancestors to grant their wishes. lol

We had a lot of fun cleaning up from the beginning to the end, and it was a lively and happy time.
I’m sure the ancestors were happy to see us!

Oh, yes, there are cherry trees planted all along this road.
These were planted by my grandfather. They are beautiful in the spring!

I can’t see him anymore, but it’s nice to be able to see and feel what he left behind in this way.