The autumn equinox (“ohigan” in Japanese) and Silver Week overlap a bit. During the autumn equinox, people visit their family graves. They clean the gravestones and pray in front of them. Six months ago, my husband and I closed our family grave. It was far from our house, and we needed to climb up a lot of stairs to get there. The older we became, the more difficult it was to visit the grave. My sister-in-law and her husband bought a grave five years ago. It takes 10 minutes to get there from their house and from ours. They suggested that we share the new grave together. Now there are two names on the gravestone, my sister-in-law’s and ours. Thanks to them, we can visit our family grave much more easily and more often.   (134 words)

Jaremaga now comes out online on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. To become a paid subscriber and read it 5 days a week, go to “Support Jaremaga” below for more information.

You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com