Our last night with Baba and Jiji was tearful. All the ordinary events of our daily life were suddenly saturated with the knowledge that it will be a very long time until we can do these things together again; the last time Uta will sprint to the fridge to retrieve another beer for Jiji, the last time Baba will prepare a whole fish in Uta’s honor. Baba busied herself with the cooking and the cleaning up, all the while repeating the same words over and over again to no one in particular. Jiji hummed in agreement. ‘Come again soon’, she was saying, ‘I will be waiting'. A word I did not know kept coming up, I asked for the meaning. Baba thumbed through the Japanese/English dictionary (always close at hand during our visits) and quickly settled on a page. With her index finger glued to the word, she extended the dictionary out for me to see. ‘Lonely’ it said. She will be lonely after we are gone.
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