One of the many things I loved about my beloved grandmother

The only family member I truly got along with is my grandmother, who is now in heaven, but my grandmother, born in the Taisho era, who raised me, was very unique.
There are too many things I loved about her to write them all down even if I spent all my leisure time in life doing so, but one thing I remember fondly now is that she never once told me to "get married soon" or "have children."
She didn't say "get married," nor did she even say "why don't you?" or "marriage is nice," and she didn't even say "it's good to have children either."
I suspect the phrase "a woman's happiness" probably never even crossed my grandmother's mind.
By the way, my grandparents had a good relationship, I think she was happy to have given birth to twin sons, and she had no cognitive issues whatsoever until the very end at 91, so she was making clear-headed judgments when she chose not to say such things.

When I said I wanted to go to graduate school during a time when our family was in a very tight financial spot, some aunts and uncles who rarely appeared in my life opposed it, saying, "You're a woman, so you don't need to go," while conversely telling my younger brother in unison, "You're a man, so you should at least graduate from university," but neither of my grandparents ever said anything like that.
And when I told them, "I got in!" they said, "How cool!" and were happy for me. For some reason, my grandmother was crying. I have never seen my grandmother cry on any other occasion.
Perhaps it wasn't about academic background, but rather she was praising me for sticking to what I wanted to do and working hard when things were tough for the family. I was so happy that my grandmother was happy for me that I cried my eyes out only in front of her. I was always able to be honest only in front of my grandmother.
And, uncool as it is, I ended up dropping out due to various circumstances, but she didn't say anything special about that choice either, just laughed lightly and said, "Is that so? Well, you can just find something else, you can do anything."
The subsequent long years of repaying my student loans were not bitter at all when I remembered this moment when my grandmother was happy for me.

While my cousin, who is the same age as me, got married and had a child, and everyone was happy saying, "Grandma, you have a great-grandchild," I sometimes remember that my grandmother herself wasn't that happy, and I almost laugh.
Of course, she was smiling and seemed to be having a good time, but only I could tell. She wasn't happy at all and it was like it was someone else's business.
"I won't see a great-grandchild that much anyway. It doesn't feel real. More importantly, Norimaki-chan, shall we make tonjiru (pork miso soup) again tonight?" she would whisper to me with a grin.
She's severe. That part of her is just like me.
Or rather, am I like my grandmother?
Because we both thought so, I was probably a special grandchild to my grandmother (in fact, I was favored), and she was a special existence to me within the family (I also favored her).
My mother and grandmother didn't get along, and according to my mother, the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship was a total nightmare, but since I don't get along with my mother either, I expect that it was inevitable, and I'm sorry to say, but I am 100 to 0 on my grandmother's side, and even if this leaves a rift as deep as the Mariana Trench in my relationship with my mother to this day, the outcome of the 100 to 0 match remains unshaken. That is how special and strong the bond between my grandmother and me is.

I kept being told by relatives, "If you keep taking care of your grandmother, you'll be late to get married," "Why don't you have children soon and show your grandmother a great-grandchild? You could do the ultimate filial piety for your grandmother," "You should give your grandmother peace of mind" (I've stopped being told this abruptly since I passed 40, and I'm genuinely relieved; it's one of the few big good things about getting older), and I was fed up with people who didn't know that I was spending the best, most fun time with my grandmother, more than showing her a great-grandchild once a year, telling me what to do.
Every Thursday, when work was over, I would go back to my grandmother's house, we would eat dinner together, watch TV shows with Arashi, take a bath, eat mandarin oranges or watermelon, and stay over; Friday was also the only day of the week I would eat a proper breakfast made by my grandmother. Until the week before my grandmother passed away, we spent a relaxing, incredibly fun, and safe time together every week. I did it because I wanted to, and it wasn't me taking care of her, but my grandmother taking care of me—a pathetic story, really.
That's why I thought, "Shut up, you guys," to the people who said useless things despite not being involved in anything.

But only my grandmother knew.
She knew that deep inside, where I was fed up with those words, I was always a little hurt. Not caring and not being hurt are different things. I think my grandmother understood that I myself felt somewhere deep down that choosing a life without children meant I wasn't fulfilling my duty to my parents or my grandmother.
That's why she kept praising me and being happy for me, saying things like, "Norimaki-chan is wonderful," "Norimaki-chan is great," "How cool," "That's amazing," "It's better than anything to be able to do what you love," "Work must be tough, too. Thank you," and "Grandma is so happy."
When I traveled abroad alone, my grandmother apparently prayed for my safety every day, but she never once opposed me going on a trip.
I was told nasty things by many people about this too (though many didn't mean it as an insult and were just saying it unconsciously), like "A woman traveling alone abroad is...", but my grandmother always listened to my travel stories happily.
She would smile and say, "That's nice, that's nice," and "You enjoyed it, that's good."

My grandmother apparently traveled alone to the Tohoku region in the past, and her eyes would sparkle when she told those old stories. I think that in that era after the war, a woman as tomboyish and slightly eccentric as my grandmother must have stood out quite a bit from the world. Even looking at black-and-white photos of my grandmother, her level of fashion is such that even when she's in a group of women, she's the only one dressed in an exceptionally strange way. There are many photos with mysterious situations, such as her clinging to a rocky mountain in a kimono and making a peace sign (the type where you put your index and middle fingers together), or holding my father and uncle (who were twins) as toddlers on both sides while wearing huge sunglasses. I can't help but think that a person like this in that era must have been strange.
Such a grandmother would sometimes tell me stories about "women in the wartime and post-war era when I lived...", but she never once told me how a woman should be.
She is the only person older than me I have ever known who I have never heard say the words "because you're a woman" or "act like a woman." That is my grandmother.
By the way, my grandmother was from Ishikawa Prefecture, just like Yoshiro Mori, and since he was Prime Minister, my grandmother would call him "Mori" with resentment, but since she was born in the Taisho era, my grandmother was much more senior than Mori. Regarding Mori's recent remarks, as a feminist myself, I have a mountain of thoughts, but setting that aside for now, the idea that "such sexism is inevitable because he is an old man" is also a prejudice, and even if the decline in brain function due to aging is inevitable, I think there are individual differences.
My grandmother, who is senior to Mori, would surely be angry in her heart, telling people not to lump all old people together and make fun of them.
Since society changes, there will be people like Mori who cannot keep up with those changes, but if it were my grandmother, I think she would be able to live freely and flexibly in any era without having biased ideas of "how things should be," and live a life where she laughs and makes a peace sign on a rocky mountain.
It has been 7 years since she passed away today, but I love her, think she was cool, and am proud of her.
That feeling hasn't faded even a little, and that is what I think.

Reading the article below, I keenly felt how much society has changed in the world. I somehow wanted to let my grandmother read it. If it were Grandma, I'm sure she would say, "How cool."

The photo is an ofrenda (altar) in Frida Kahlo's Blue House in Mexico. I have a feeling I want to make my grandmother's Buddhist altar this flashy too.