You might laugh, but

July 7th is the day my grandmother passed away.
Looking back, four years have already passed.

It was raining all day that day.
Just after I managed to finish a manuscript right at the deadline and got the OK from the editor, I received a call from my mother telling me that my grandmother had fallen asleep.
Quite the timing.
She lived to be nearly 90, so it was a peaceful end.
According to my mother, she had a peaceful expression at the very end.

When I opened the window, the pouring rain had turned into a light drizzle.
The humid, unique scent of this season drifted in.

It seems the funeral will be tomorrow.

Since the news came the moment I was unburdened after finishing the manuscript I had been working on, I couldn't help but feel like my grandmother was beckoning me.
I really wanted to see her face, so I decided to make a sudden, whirlwind trip to Niigata.

"Still, to choose the day of Tanabata, you're a romantic as always."
When I said that, my mother's cheerful voice leaked through the receiver: "Hehe."
"Your grandmother, you know, she's a maiden forever."

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My grandfather passed away when my mother was a child.
Because of that, my grandmother raised my mother and uncle by herself at a young age.
Saying that might make you imagine a tough-as-nails mother, but the grandmother I knew was different.
She was full of mischief, stylish, and young at heart.

Time and again, she would surprise my parents by showing up at our house without warning.
"I'm here," she'd say, sticking her tongue out, while my mother would scold her, "Why didn't you call first?"
Watching that scene, you couldn't tell who was the daughter.

The expression "eternal maiden" fits her perfectly.

While she showed that cute side, she also had a stubborn side where she wouldn't bend her own opinions.
When I was in elementary school, I was watching Gundam, which aired in the evenings on TV, and she said to me with a frown, "Kenta-kun, are they fighting a war?"
I understood that for my grandmother, who grew up shortly after the war, the theme of war was delicate, even if it was fiction.

It was the first time I saw a stern expression on my grandmother, who usually never stopped smiling.
Her voice was quiet but powerful.
Her eyes were dignified and straight.
With no words to retort, I changed the channel.

As for my grandmother, she had only asked about something that bothered her and didn't intend to take away my fun, so she looked a bit awkward.
"You can watch what you like. But, become an adult who can think about what is happening on the screen."

Looking back, my grandmother had been an elementary school teacher for a long time.
Her ability to reason with children in words they could understand without imposing her own emotions is something I want to emulate.

As she grew older, even such a grandmother began to forget things more often.

She would tell the same story over and over again.
Every time we met, she would tell the same story.
During the few hours we were together, she would tell the same story.
But I loved that story dearly.

"Kenta-kun, you've never met him, but your grandfather was a very serious and kind person."

She would narrow her eyes and begin to speak in a bouncy voice.

"Not long after we got married, your grandfather once said to me, quite softly:
'You might laugh, but when I turn that corner and look toward the house, if the light in our room is on, my steps naturally quicken.'"
"I don't know why, but it really touched my heart."

It was a story from when they were newlyweds.

My grandmother told me this story many times.
Just after finishing the story, she would start again as if she had just remembered, "By the way, Kenta-kun."
Happily, lovingly.
Over and over, the same story.

---------

When I saw my grandmother's face as she slept in her casket, I remembered this story.
Ah, Grandma was finally able to go and see Grandpa.
Even though I'm a cynic and a realist, I was able to believe it wholeheartedly.
Even so, as someone who was always a grandmother's boy, I felt lonely, and tears overflowed endlessly.

Surely, Grandma is at this very moment walking hand in hand with Grandpa along the banks of the Milky Way.

I've become a grown man, but surely it wouldn't be a sin to believe in such a fantasy, at least on the night of Tanabata.

A toast to an eternal maiden.