In 2012, I had experienced one of the most gratifying events of my life. This is it as I recalled it an hour after it had happened.
I have just experienced the most life-changing, motivating hour and a half of my life to date.
I left home near one o'clock to have lunch at the local cafe near my house. After being told to wait a few minutes for my sandwich to be toasted, I surveyed the outside tables for a seat. The best option that was presented was to sit at a table for two, but since it was too close to the counter for my liking, I decided to sit at a table next to this elderly Asian woman. I sat down, draping my bag over the back of the seat and pushed my sunglasses onto the top of my head. She looked up and smiled.
"Nice weather today, mm, very nice," she said.
I looked towards her. Even though she was wearing sunglasses, her look was very gentle and warm. I smiled back at her as it seemed like she was talking more to herself than to me, and I didn't know how to respond.
The waiter came over with the mango smoothie I ordered and said it would be a few more minutes wait for my sandwich. I looked back towards her.
"It's very nice today considering the past week has been so cold." I decided to reply. She nodded in agreement.
A couple of minutes had passed and we had exchanged little thoughts about the weather, how it's cold in the shade but so nice in the sun, then she made the decision to delve into a conversation more complex for strangers meeting for the first time. She told me she didn't have any children. I'm not sure what initiated this response. Maybe it was that I was approaching an age that provoked such thoughts of children. She told me that even if she did, she figured they would be too busy to see her anyway, so it didn't make much difference. Feeling sympathetic, I asked her if she was living alone. She told me her husband had passed at the age of 83, and since she told me she was 76, I figured it must have been recent.
The waiter came back out with my sandwich ready to go, so I got up, intending to go home, until I felt inclined to stay. I felt like she had something to say, but no one had listened. I walked over to her table and asked if I could join her for lunch. Her face was humble in her response yet still welcoming and her small nod suggested she was comfortable with this decision.
"What did you order?" she said, curiously gazing at the bag my sandwich was inside. "Chicken on Turkish bread" I smiled, hesitant to open it incase the very action stepped over necessary boundaries of etiquette.
"You know, I'm very old. I don't care much for fancy, fancy... I just eat what I always eat. I still drive, but I drive very slow, and people always nrrrrr, whoosh," she said as she made gestures that implied a car overtaking another, "..at me on the road, it's very scary. It's difficult now for me to, very hard because I'm so forgetful. I don't have a good memory. That's why I keep a note in my bag all the time. Just in case, you know, I fall asleep on the bench, or, or fall down on the footpath, or something like that. And the note says; To whom it may concern ... you know man or woman or whatever, it tells them to take me to the 24 hour* down the road. And from there, whether they want to drive or not, or throw me into a taxi, they take me to the cemetery."
*By 24 hour she means the Day and Night Clinic.
After this little snippet of her story told in broken English, I knew I had entered into a long conversation. So it was time for me to either be engage, or flee. There wouldn't be a story if I chose the latter, so of course, I chose to stay.
"They take you to the cemetery?" I asked, a little confused and surprised.
"Yes. You know, if they aren't successful in .. the process they do at the 24 hour. I've done all the paperwork so they take me to the cemetery where my husband is and they.. I'm not sure what the English is but, you know, they do whatever with my body, can kick it," she chuckled, "...and then my ashes are put into a container, ... and they put me next to my husband." As she said this I could appreciate she was the kind of woman, that at her age, she is allowed to have dark humour.
"If I have one thing to say to you. You are so young. You have so much future. You are full of life. I will say this; never miss an opportunity. We sometimes become so hesitant and intimidated that we forget we can have so much power and do so much. When the man told me he was writing an article about my husband in the newspaper, I let them two talk, I didn't want to interrupt. That is not my way. I do not do that. But after he had published, I talked to him again and mentioned I was the first ever Japanese airline hostess, and he was very angry that I did not say anything. I didn't want to come across like 'I know, I know everything' but I was wrong. My point is that if I had of said that to the man then I would have helped sell more interesting newspaper and more people would have read about my husband. He had wrote that Australia owed my husband for the connections we have today with Japan."
"Oh, you're Japanese? I studied Japanese in school. I find that the culture is so polite and delicate." I said, more an expression of thoughts than an immediate observation.
"That is so nice to hear, I really like that, you're very sweet. Do you know how to write?" She smiled warmly.
"Yes, I can write in hiragana, katakana and one or two kanji, I haven't done kanji in a while and it's fairly difficult."
We exchanged a couple of laughs over my mispronunciation of some words. It was the beginning of a friendship of sorts, however short and limited the time was.
Before I knew it an hour of conversation and a hardly-touched-sandwich had passed and the cafe owners were becoming antsy about packing away the chairs and ending work for the day. But I didn't want our conversation to end just yet, and neither did she.
We both got up and she asked me if I wanted her to walk me home. I agreed. I told her about a friend of mine who was doing exchange in Japan, and I mentioned that I wanted to visit Kyoto. She exclaimed again and said that she and her husband were married in Kyoto, a very intimate ceremony between just the two of them. She searched her shirt, and pulled out a silver necklace with a temple pendant. Inscribed on the pendant was a mix of hiragana and kanji writing. She described to me that it said 'Memories of the Beloved', and she insisted her husband and herself to wear them everywhere. She told me she was born in 1936, became the first Japanese airline hostess at 20 years old, and married an Australian man not long after. She told me so much about herself that I felt so undeserving to hear it. After all, I was just a stranger to her.
I became worried that she wouldn't be able to find her way back from my house so I told her that I would walk to her car instead. After exchanging more laughs and more stories she grabbed my arm and pointed out buildings that had stories embedded and described the differences between Japanese and Australian flora.
Then at the very end of our little encounter, she turned to me and said "I am so grateful to have met you, I am so grateful that you are so kind to have spent your afternoon with me."
"It's my pleasure" was all I could say, and it really was.
I patted her hand and she walked towards her car as the sun declined behind her in a hollywood touch of finality. I started walking in the opposite direction when she called out "Dewa Mata". I turned back and waved, and I hope that what she said stays true. I really hope I do see her again.
On reflection, I don't think I have encountered anything so joyous, important or refreshing in my life.
We're conditioned to think our worlds revolve around what makes ourselves happy. I can't help but think what would have happened if I had walked away, was so impatient that I couldn't take time out of my life to make an appearance in someone elses.
Great moments often catch us unaware - beautifully entwined in what others consider a small one.
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