That’s a strong poem. Thank you for sharing.
Yes, we took a picture of my son next to the screen and were able to record their final online meeting. My grandfather died about twelve hours later.
A few days earlier, when he was still quite energetic, my grandfather watched as we fed my son mashed rice, fruits, and vegetables. Apparently after that, my grandfather was inspired to eat a pretty hearty portion of mashed potatoes, which was nice to hear because all of the food he ate the previous day amounted to one bite of meat and a single baked bean.
It’s funny, when you add all the little things up, put them together in reverse, and assign meaning to them, it seemed like putting my son and grandfather together face to face was important.
They met last year while my son was in utero, but we hadn’t decided on his name at that point in time.
When we finally chose his name, we struggled to find kanji that would work for it. Then our friend suggested a very old kanji that most people aren’t familiar with these days. It essentially means successor. It seems funny to give your third child a name that means successor and not your first child, but that’s the way it worked out. Then I decided to give my grandfather’s middle name to my son as a way of doing what we did with my other two children.
We live in Japan and my grandfather had visited and spent time in Japan in the 60s or 70s. These aren’t really much as far as connections go, but just the same, somehow I feel like these two are connected and had hoped they would meet.