How Japanese Food and a Funeral Brought My Family Together

I remember so vividly everything about my grandfather's death. The fight for his life against cancer was prolonged by useless treatments and was marked with hurried, frantic trips that my dad would take to ensure that he would have the chance to say goodbye. It was a heart-wrenching time for all of us. I remember laying in bed with my parents crying when we heard the news of my grandfather's cancer. Through those unbearable two years, we were all on edge, wondering if there was any treatment capable of helping Grandpa. Each time he went to the doctor, my grandmother would call so we would pray that maybe this treatment would work. Nothing ever worked. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to save our beloved grandfather, he died in December of 2002.

However, the most painful part was the visitation, where what seemed like hundreds of people came to see Grandpa on display and to comfort the family. Visitations are the most useless event; no one ever truly desires to attend a visitation, and no one is ever actually comforted there. For some reason, people always have the need to attempt to say something comforting, which typically ends up sounding cliché. For example, I remember an older woman from the church my father pastored telling me that everything happens for a reason. Her words seemed so hackneyed and brought me more annoyance than comfort. When someone dies, the last thing that a grieving person wants to hear is that their suffering is negligible compared to some mystical greater cause. At the end of it, I remember seeing my grandmother in hysterics and standing around just watching everyone tearfully. At the end of the visitation, my most vivid memory is watching my grandmother weep over the coffin, kissing my late grandfather. It was a moment of sorrow, mixed with love, for a man who still existed in our hearts. Then, in the very last few minutes, my dad decided to announce that everyone was invited to a post-visitation dinner at Shogun, the local Japanese hibachi restaurant.

My paternal side of the family is not exactly involved in the typical domestic household activities, including cooking. None of us were expecting a huge homemade dinner after the visitation; in fact, none of us even felt the need to eat at such a time. Also, our immediate family saw our cousins on this side of the family only on the rarest of occasions. We never spoke, wrote, or communicated at all with those cousins. Yet, off we went to Shogun with a party of roughly thirty-five people, all ready to celebrate the death of my grandfather. The whole car-ride to the restaurant was a complete blur, filled with my sister and I trying not to burst into tears while my mom made awkward small-talk with my dad.

Upon entering the restaurant, my friend Kelly and I could not help but notice a large, tacky, pond, filled with ridiculous-looking gold fish. Somehow, in what normally would have been a moment of sorrow, Kelly used her unique ability to make me laugh.

The inside of Shogun, taken from http://www.restaurantshogun.com/history.php

Yet I still felt distressed when I was separated from my sister as the group began to congregate and organize themselves around the table. SarahAnn, my older sister, and I always sit together during occasions such as this. To this day, I dread being separated from sister during meals with people other than our immediate family. Consequently, I sat between my dad's best friend Mike and my own friend Kelly. It was not until Mike was able to make me laugh with an obscure Wizard of Oz reference and an order of strange sushi that I began to notice the incredible diversity of people in the group, and their ability to love me and make me laugh even in the lingering spirit of the visitation. It was a odd mix of family. friends and those who were strangers to me. It was the only time that all of those people would ever be in the same room. Kelly and Mike, from completely different places in the world, will never sit on either side of me ever again. The meal, which started as an awkward dinner to commemorate Grandpa, turned out to be a rare opportunity for healing for our family, through the moments of laughter provided by the strangeness of the food in combination with its ability to bring us all together over a basic human need.

Towards the end of the meal, some of the men decided to have a competition to see who could pay for dinner. Amidst all of the attempts to catch the attention of the waiter and grab the check, my realization that the group was there to help in our healing process was only emphasized. I was floored by the amount of people who strongly desired to pay for this meal and, strangely, how sad we all were to see it come to an end. Even after my other grandfather achieved his victory in obtaining the check, we all still lingered around the table in a moment of gratitude, for life and for each other.

The restaurant and the food were negligent. These were mere details in the scheme of that sorrowful week. This dinner was the only time during that whole week of preparations for Grandpa's funeral that I felt like I could heal. We all healed. It was as if we could all lean on each other, and no one needed to say anything to make things better. No one needed to cook for us or send us flowers; we all just needed to be together in a place and eat. I may not ever see most of those people again. In fact, I have not seen my cousins since this particular dinner, six years ago. It was God's way of putting us all together, perhaps for one last time, in order to heal and strengthen us. Food brought our family, friends, and those who loved my grandfather together. 

My paternal grandmother and cousins; this is our last picture together.