The Day You Hear.

The Day You Hear That Someone Died.
What do you do?

Movies may have long family heart-to-hearts or walks on the beach.
Maybe everyone's reality is different.
Because life around you that day goes on, And you are carried on through it.

Sunday. The day I heard Jane had died.
My day was dominated by Okaasan's hula dance performance at the Hokkaido Newspaper Culture School Performace Day.
Yujiro thankfully cancelled work and stayed home to take over the main caring role for Okaasan.
We stayed home in the morning. I did those essentials after hearing News of a Death: posted the news on my Facebook page....emailed the lost souls who are still not on Facebook...cried, weeded, played with cats, slept, watched stuff on tv, ate salaami sandwiches with Yujiro in the garden.

Mid-afternoon Okaasan was asleep on her sofa. We woke her up and got her programmed in to Going Out...she was surprised to hear that the hula dance event was happening: "Really? I thought it had finished! I dreamt it? ...."Err...no, that was yesterday, yesterday was the rehearsal, today is the actual event."
It took her ages to get ready. But finally we loaded her in the car and took her downtown again.
Delivered her just before 4 pm into the supporting care of her dance classmates...
Then we had to while away 2 hours while they all got prepped for performance. We wandered Odori Park and sat on a becnch and watched Sapporo walk by.
Then near 6 pm back to the Hokkaido Newspaper Hall to see Okaasan dance on stage.
Her group was second and we both actually felt nervous as they walked on!
Okaasan was strategically place back and center of the group so she didn't have to move around much and she was hidden behind the bigger/better dancers. Her teacher had planned it well.
A vision in blue and yellow with hair extensions, make-up and fake flowers.
It all went off ok. Okaasan keeps up with her group just about. No major drama. She thankfully had a successful dance.

Afterwards the class were booked to have a party at a nearby Italian restaurant. So we had to while away ANOTHER two hours nearby. We live just a little too far from downtown to go home on this kind of day. So we walked a bit and found an izakiya. Had a quiet dinner together at the end of a loooong day...and before the events of the coming week.
By 8.30 pm the hula dance group was breaking up. Ohta-san called us to say Okaasan  was ready to be picked up. We were waiting in the side street near the restaurant. We drove home.
Finally.

And so. I climbed into futon about 9.30 pm. Exhausted actually.
It was just one-of-those-things that the day I heard that Jane had died was also the day we had to take Okaasan to hula dance performance. That's life. But i'm glad Yujiro could be there to take charge of it all.

Going to bed at the end of the day is hard. It's like you are leaving the person who died behind in that day. I lay looking up at my bedrom ceiling and thought a lot about the house in England, trying to imagine what family and the agency carers are doing. The undertaker - probably the family firm we used last year - the funeral planning beginning. The house.

I will have to go to England when I am well enough to do an international flight.

But for now. Goodbye Jane. The Day I Heard You Died I Was in A Japanese Culture School Hall Watching Old Ladies Dance Hawaiian Dance.

Strange.