Southwark Cathedral

I’m thinking back to my first jab. Such are life events these days: weddings, funerals, first and second jabs. I’d booked mine at London Bridge Guy’s Hospital. My best friend Will (of the same age and near enough postcode) was also getting his vaccination the same morning as me, so we’d decided to meet up for a drink on the Southbank afterwards.

I got out of Guy’s Hospital earlier than Will, so I walked over to Borough Market. I didn’t fancy a delicious, overpriced coffee just yet. I strolled on over cobbled streets, under damp arches, smelling the faint ammonia and salt-breeze wafting off the Thames. 

I arrived at a lovely old building with sandy-coloured stone walls crumbling at the edges. Bright in the soft daylight, not like the muddied grey of elsewhere reminding me of a limp sponge. I made my way to the entrance. Southwark Cathedral. I had never been inside. 

I bowed my head automatically when I went through the doors. I notice I do that when I enter sacred spaces – has it been ingrained in me from Shinto shrines and the general bowing culture of Japan? You bow to show respect and humility. And I am humbled by ancient lore and spiritual sediment left behind. Old places filled with meaning is what I’m about.

The inside of the cathedral looked shiny. The stained-glass windows were clear and new, not even crazed. The stone floor tiles were smooth and uncracked, however, there was a weightiness in the alcoves. For such a large space it felt like the air was closed-off, as if we were in a vacuum. 

I checked my phone for messages from Will, but my signal had dropped. I padded around the perimeter taking in the high-relief engravings, plaques mentioning recent war, late kings, old territories. I wish I knew what stories the stained-glass windows told. 

I had walked to the very end of the chapel; if this had been a ship I would’ve been at the helm. A tannoy-speaker switched on and a woman’s voice broke the silence. ‘Hello. I am the Reverend of Southwark Cathedral. I will now say a prayer. If you can, please take a moment to stand or sit for contemplation.’

There were some empty chapel chairs in my vicinity, so I shuffled towards one and took a lonesome seat. Looming above me was one enormous stained-glass window tinted in deep blue hues, cherry reds and shafts of marigold yellow.

She spoke of wishing to curtail the virus. She spoke of wanting the vaccine to work and giving people the security, they so needed. She asked us to remember those left behind and to hope for better days. 

I was staring up at this colourful vibrant light streaming through the glass and I cried. I sniffled at the beauty of the way. I had been grieving my mother’s death all this time inside my head, I knew about it, thoughts constantly whirring whilst sitting at work, staring at screens, clicking irrevocably. All I required was a few stolen minutes, the kind of clarity you get when you smoke a cigarette. Surprisingly, this had not happened until I was sat in a church caught in a prayer.  

It might have clicked then, that what I wanted was a reason to move my body without my brain having to think. I wanted to give the relationship with my mother some breathing room. A pilgrimage. Treading a path often tread would give me a way out – an excuse! 

(I mean I deleted Instagram, as if that required any excuse although someone did ask, ‘why did you delete Insta?’ ‘too much rubbish to scroll through’. I don’t have the emotional energy for that, I’ve lost my mother, I cannot stomach seeing your focaccia.)

The prayers were over. I was given back to myself. I stood up and felt like I should bow but I didn’t and ambled through the cloisters. I checked my phone: two missed calls from Will. I went out past the Gift Shop to return the calls. ‘Where are you? I’m out of the hospital.’ ‘Cool, I’m at Southwark Cathedral. Come find me.’

Epilogue: Tomorrow, Saturday 21st August 2021, I am setting off on my pilgrimage. Me, my dog and two good friends will start from Southwark Cathedral and walk for ten days to Canterbury Cathedral. To be continued. 

 

The Funeral (Part 1)

I asked my Obaachan (grandmother) when we got home, ‘Was that a normal Japanese funeral?’ and she replied, ‘Yes, but the bath is optional’.

Arrived into Narita and got a train to Kasukabe my home town. When I got to the house where I was born everyone was dressed in black, just in time for the funeral preparations. I put on my black clothes and was asked about pearls but I wasn’t listening because my Ogiichan was lying still on the floor of the hachijou (reception room). All wrapped up in white cloth. A white veil covering his face. The light filtered in through the paper windows. There was piled up snow outside.

Obaachan spoke to him kindly, said that I’d come home.

I knelt on a cushion and she lifted the veil; he looked asleep and I looked on; lit an incense; hit a bell that rang through the silence.

Hurriedly my mother did the same and then a cute little man dressed in a suit came to the front door donning gloves and a sympathetic smile. Lots of bowing. Lots of apologising for existing. They had come to move him, so obviously I let them and it seemed so logical that I didn’t question why. Another man appears soon after also suited and gloved and stooping under the pressure of solemnity, then the two of them move Ogiichan’s body onto a stretcher out in to the snow and then in to a BMW. The cute little man askes us to hold our hands together and bow until the car has gone out of sight, so we do, and then I go and get ready.

The family arrive dressed in black at a place called The Grand Ceremony, this is a brand name for a building/service I am not sure how to describe as it is like a professional undertaker-cum-funeral-wake-type-reception-hotel. It’s like what you’d expect for a wedding but for a funeral. Chandelier lights, soothing music and soft furnishings. Then things start to get surreal. We’re seated as close family in front of Ogiichan’s wrapped body and we watch him get a ritual bath. A woman and a man wash him with warm water out of a shower head (the type you get at salons). The woman gently says what she is doing like I am shampooing his hair now, or the man says stuff like I am sure he will appreciate the bath, and they clip his finger nails and make him just clean. One by one we have to do things too, like wipe his cold face with a warm towel. But I like that, it makes me feel part of the process.

After the bath they dry him, and let me just say the soothing music is still playing and we see nothing indecent and the corpse is never treated once like a corpse but like a living person getting ready for a long rest. It’s relaxing though cathartic.

Ogiichan then gets or is prepared behind a screen to be presented to us (again) but this time clothed in a white silken kimono with a light blue trim. Serene. The family have to help with various clothing rites, like putting on his tabi, his long socks, his gloves and each item is tied to him with a neat small knot. We also help move his beautified body into the coffin by lifting him then gently laying him down on his bedding.

Nothing that can’t be burned must go into the coffin because in the end he’ll be cremated, so a slip of paper representing money (6000 Yen, I don’t know why?) gets wrapped up in a white cloth purse that Obaachan places in to his breast sleeve pocket. Point Of Interest: This is the fare Ogiichan(‘s soul) will need to cross the River Sanzu, the mythical river of the dead resembling something like but not quite the River Styx, and the ferryman will only help Ogiichan cross it with the correct fare.

There’s other things made out of wicker or grass, unsure, that we place in the coffin beside him. A pair of sandals one for each foot, a walking stick, and a hat that will keep the snow off his head and the shade across his brow. It’s like he’s about to go on a journey. What an adventure? He looks peaceful but also totally ready. I wish I was that ready. What a dude.

I keep crying throughout the day as more random Japanese people come up to me to talk and pay condolences until they realise I am the equivalent of a dumb child who doesn't have more to say than ‘Thank you’. The jetlag and the sorrow produce confusion in me and I still don’t know what to think of Ogiichan being dead. It’s still not right is it? At least he’s had a bath, which is more than I can say for me. Tomorrow we start at 7am.

The Buddhist Monk as he chants long and lowly sounds like he is saying ‘pie jesu’ in long drawn out breaths interspersed with knocks of bells. How funny. How familiar.