🌸Messages from our ancestors🌸

When people pass away, naturally, they can no longer speak...

However, I feel that things happen where they send us messages, either through people or through events♪

I read various books, and since I always think that one-sided communication isn't good, I read in one book that it's best to bring chrysanthemums to a grave, so I make sure to bring them♪

Compared to other flowers, chrysanthemums last longer.

This year, it has been hot day after day, and somehow yesterday, as I was worrying about whether the chrysanthemums I had brought to the grave the other day were okay, my daughter, who is just starting her summer vacation, said,

“Let's go to the temple! I wonder if the flowers are okay?”

She was thinking the exact same thing (laughs).

We immediately went to the grave, and it seemed that most of the flowers on the graves had withered due to the heat and had been cleared away by the temple, so there were no flowers on my parents' grave either.

Since we had come all this way, we wiped the gravestone, pulled some weeds, and when we went over to the ancestors' grave, the chrysanthemums I had brought the other day were still there, almost completely un-withered and safe!

My daughter and I looked at each other,

“Huh!!!? Why??”

We both looked around, and no matter how we looked at it,

“Huh!!! Only ours are safe!!!! (laughs)”

There was no water, so we hurriedly refilled it, wiped the gravestone, and started pulling weeds until the bag was full♪

On the way back, in this scorching heat, there were other people who had come to visit the graves just like us.

They had brought buckets, scrub brushes, and rags, and were cleaning the gravestone with intense focus.

I was struck by a realization.

The cloth I was using to wipe the grave had been washed, but it was actually one of my daughter's old socks that she had outgrown (laughs).

My 'waste-not' mentality was on full display (laughs).

The flowers were cleared away, and the bag I had intended to use for that was left over...

I used the leftover bag to pull weeds...

If I hadn't pulled the weeds, I wouldn't have met the person cleaning the grave...

This is how you visit a grave!!!

It felt like the ancestors were giving me a bit of a scolding, like, 'Socks are... a bit much...'...💦

Next time I visit the grave, I'll make sure to bring proper cleaning supplies, and my daughter and I will clean with intense focus too♪