Ohigan – the autumn equinox – when the light fades and the bones begin to grow cold. A day for the Japanese to remember their dead.

Outside my window, overlooking the little temple graveyard, a large black spider sits motionless between two pines, at the centre of a gigantic web, spread wide like Indra’s net. The silky threads glisten in the sunlight. Death waits quietly, patiently, and there is no escape for unsuspecting insects.

The day begins cool. A scattering of visitors wanders among the tall graves, some dressed formally in black, others casually in jeans and T-shirts. They carry fresh flowers, buckets of water, and incense. One old white-haired woman is with her two daughters. Another old man is by himself, quite alone. It is not only habit or custom which brings them here, but memory – a memory of what once was, a bond between the living and the dead that lingers on, that has not yet faded away like smoke.  Yet custom and tradition also have their place, for they occasion remembrance. A few, perhaps, are brought by a realisation of what one day lies ahead for them, too. 

They offer fruit and water, and on occasion, cigarettes and cola, the can and the packet opened, of course, because how otherwise could the deceased enjoy them? Yes, these are the things they loved in life. Let them eat and drink one more time.

The old white-haired woman and her two daughters busy themselves carefully washing and scrubbing the slim, grey granite pillar inscribed with the family name. They place flowers on either side, together with a new wooden name-tablet. The grandmother, bent over, and hobbling with a stick, bows deeply in front of the grave. She walks unsteadily, holding on to a side wall to support herself, and pays her respects at several other graves, each time pausing and bowing. Friends who have gone before? She bows low, lower than her daughters, then sits for a moment enjoying the last warmth of the fading autumn sunshine. Perhaps she is remembering her husband, his face, their life together, and wondering how much longer it will be before she joins him.

There is a young man with his mother and a boy about two-years old. The young man and his mother scrub the grave and pour water, while the toddler tries to help them, dipping the ladle into the bucket with both hands and throwing it in an uncontrolled arc at the gravestone. It’s the best he can do for now. They put their hands together reverently. Then the young man lights a cigarette, but only the soothing fragrance of incense reaches into the house through the open windows.

There are other families with young children, to whom it is all a game, a bit of fun. The children imitate their parents and bow with tiny hands together, but they would rather run about and play, waving their arms and laughing in the sunshine.

One woman holds a baby to her chest, cradling his head. He does not know that if all goes well, when his time comes and the roar of life is over, he, too, will finally sleep his long sleep in this same place, interred with the ashes and bones of his grandparents and the mother who now holds him so close and so carefully. But of this day he will remember nothing.

And as the afternoon wears on, the sunlight slants through the crimson maples and pines and fills the small cemetery with light. There is still a faint, lingering warmth. Somewhere, a very late cicada sings, but there is no answering call. He sings alone. The frenzied mating in the high heat of summer is over. The successful ones have laid their eggs deep beneath the thick green mossy tree roots, there to sleep for sixteen years until they emerge for their one, brief summer among the tombs. The rest are dead.

From time to time, there comes the sound of chanting and the throbbing of a drum – a memorial service. A black-robed priest appears from the cool depths of the temple, stands before a grave with the relatives, bows, and chants scripture, while repeatedly striking a small, bright bell. Who is he summoning? He re-places the long, thin slats of wood with Sanskrit inscriptions, and one by one, the relatives bow, and drop a pinch of incense on the burner. They ladle some cold water into a stone cylinder, bow, and retire. The aloe wood burns smokily, comfortingly, wafting upwards.

Then, in the early evening, comes the first roll of thunder, and shortly afterwards, another, nearer. Heavy drops of rain begin to fall and the forest comes to life with the pattering sound. The air grows cool and people begin to go home.

One man, a late arrival, stands alone for a few minutes with his umbrella and his solitary thoughts, and then is quickly gone. The narrow wet road that goes up the hill by the cemetery is now quite dark under its canopy of trees. There are no more walkers in this steady rain.

In the dusk, the graves glow quietly, brought alive by their bunches of fresh flower-jewels: lilies, gentians, chrysanthemums, and carnations – white, blue, yellow, and red. Yet there is one grave, solitary, unadorned, overgrown with lichen and moss, that no-one visits. Perhaps the family have moved away and can no longer come. Perhaps it is just abandoned.

 The mist begins to creep down the mountains, clinging ghostlike to the pines. There is no one left. The insects are silent. The day’s activity is over. The place is deserted. The dead are left in peace again while the evening rain refreshes them. They sleep quietly amid the dripping forest.

But the cemetery is not a dead place. It is a place of tranquillity, of continuity between the generations. And in the hearts of those who come, it is alive with memories, if not ghosts, for the dead have never really left. They go on existing in our monuments, our history, and our own selves. The remembering and the offering are a re-affirmation of the link between the living and the dead that goes back to our earliest consciousness of death and separation. Though the things loved by the dead are offered out of honour and respect for them, yet finally, it is for themselves that the visitors come. 

With some regrets, perhaps, over what might have been, they are affirming their own lives by remembering those of others, and with the hope that in their turn, others will one day remember them. For in the end, no one wants to be forgotten.

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Malcolm Ledger was the winner of the Japan Local Prize for the Seventh WIK Writing Competition. Read his bio and winning essay here.

For more essays and poems from Malcolm Ledger, click here.