Grandmother's Diary



(Translated by Saya)

Ever since I was a small child, I had been very attached to my grandmother.
I would visit my grandmother's home often, even after I became a middle school student.

My grandmother was my father's mother, but my father died of an accident when I was little.
My grandfather died early too, and so my grandmother said she was very fond of me, since I was the only blood relative that was left to her.
But my mother was somehow on bad terms with my grandmother, and so she never set a foot in the grandmother's house.

Every Sunday morning, I would pay a visit to a shrine with my grandmother.
She was a very pious person. She never missed a day without going to the shrine; come rain or shine, she would visit the shrine on every Sunday, ever since my father passed away.
I loved going to the shrine with her. I still remember vividly the warmth I felt when we joined our hands.

A Shrine

My grandmother would always press her palms together, make a deep bow, and then close her eyes for a long time to pray.
I would always do a very brief praying, and then for the rest of the time just watch my grandmother's serious face.
When she finished, I would always ask her, "what were you praying about?"
But she only smiled and never answered me.
I didn't feel too bothered by it, and would soon start thinking about the ice cream my grandmother would buy for me on the way back; and we then would go home together, happily chatting with each other all the way.



I am changing the subject suddenly but I had always been able to see and hear things that others couldn't see or hear since my early childhood. Because of this I had always been troubled by spirits.
I had sleep paralysis everyday, and was never really able to sleep soundly.
When I lay on my bed, I would feel something touching my feet or stabbing my stomach with a needle and doing other such things, and occurrences like these became even more intense and frequent as years went by.
I went to see several psychics with my mother, but they would always demand expensive fees and in the end nothing they did really worked, so I had lost all hope of becoming better pretty early on in life.

By the time I was in the third year of middle school, attacks from spirits had become even fiercer. I had car accidents for numerous times, and every night I suffered from sleep paralysis and would often see hallucinations (such as seeing insects and several strands of hair on my serving of rice) and as a result gradually started losing my mind and began frequently missing school.

During the hours when my mother was out for work, my grandmother would always come to my house and hold my hand.
The time spent with my grandmother was the only time I felt at peace.
My mother worked until late so we never had time to sit down and talk.
Every day I would throw up and alternate between suffering from anorexia and bulimia.  My physical and mental condition were both always poor and unstable, and I even tried to commit suicide several times.
But I would somehow fail to kill myself every time, and for a long time I had to endure the pain of being alive and not being able to die.
I couldn't even go and pray at the shrine with my grandmother anymore like before.

Right after I graduated the middle school, my grandmother, who was my only light in my life, passed away.
I cried like I had never cried before.
I spent days on end hugging my grandmother's clothes while crying at the same time.
Even at a time like this, my mother still went to work like everything was normal. Although I lived off my mother's salary and was grateful to her, I couldn't help but feel a little resentful towards her.

It took me two weeks after my grandmother passed away to notice that the attacks from spirits had stopped.
One of the few friends I had said to me over the phone:
"Your grandmother must have taken all your troubles with her and gone to Heaven." 
When I heard that, I sobbed my heart out again.

A year later, all the spirit-related troubles ceased completely. I became totally healthy in mind and body, and started attending a correspondence school and made many friends in a part-time job.
One day it was decided that my grandmother's house would be put on sale, so I went there to clean it up.
I had been feeling serene and visiting her grave everyday.

When I was sorting out some stuff in the closet, I discovered a few of my grandmother's old diaries inside a wrapping cloth.**
It appeared it was her habit to write a diary entry on every Sunday.
No sooner had I read those entries than I was struck by horror.

The first entry was dated on the day my father died.
Previously I had been told that he died of an accident, but it was written that he actually committed suicide.
It was my mother's affair with another man that drove him to it.
I felt shocked and disgusted. Tears started to well up in my eyes.
However, the moment I turned to the next page, my blood turned cold as ice.
There, filling the page from edge to edge, were words of anger and hatred directed towards me.
It started off with a sentence that said "she is a child fathered by that woman's lover," and went on with such words as "I want to kill her," and "she should die." The grandmother in the diary was a very different person from the grandmother I had known.

The purpose of my grandmother's visit to the shrine everyday was to wish that I suffer and die a horrible death.
For such a long period of time, every week - no,  every minute of every day, she prayed that I would continue to suffer.
Her only wish, while she was alive, was to curse me - a child who was always beside her and adored her - to death.
It seemed her prayers were answered, because I did suffer greatly.
My grandmother too ended up dying in pain.

I burned all her diaries.
It has been years since it happened but I still cannot forget it.
I have never told about this to anyone.

------------------------------------------------------------------
A furoshiki
** Wrapping cloth  (pictured left)-  Furoshiki, in the original text.  It is a type of traditional Japanese wrapping cloth traditionally used to transport clothes, gifts, or other goods (Wikipedia).

Comments

Yukari said…
OMG what a terrible and sad thing to discover. It´s losing the loved one a second time! (Hope everyone near the typhoon stays safe, BTW!)
CreanJinSung said…
That is sad. Imagine adoring someone so much only to find out they resent you behind your back. Very heartbreaking.

I have trust issues because I think of stuff like "Maybe they are just being nice to me." It's not a healthy mindset but there was a case that happened to me where that was the case.

Anyway, Does Japan also have typhoon season? Because in my country we have typhoon season but it has become a part of our lives that shops offer promos during the rainy seasons.
George V said…
Makes you think how much you really know the people next to you? I hope the revelation does not haunt our narrator. She deserves to be happy.
Sydney Pacione said…
This is absolutely heartbreaking. It hurt to read this. What a sad thing that happened. No wonder the mother never got involved with the grandmother...
Diogo Valverde said…
Well, I guess she didn't go to Heaven, after all. Purgatory isn't looking too likely, either.
@Yukari Thank you very much Yukari-chan :) There have been so many natural disasters in Japan lately :(
@CreanJinSung I share your sentiments, my dear CreanJinSung, you are actually quite healthy in being sceptical about people's true feelings. You are probably highly sensitive, just like me, and see more things in people than necessary.

The truth is people's feelings towards others are never pure. As Catullus expressed in his poem: "I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask./ I do not know, but I feel it happening and I am tortured." we often experience not just one single feeling abut a mixture of conflicting feelings towards others. We might adore our brilliant friends, but feel envious about them at the same time, for example.

How to deal with such conflicting feelings? The best thing to do is not to label them as either good or bad, but accept that these conflicting feelings co-exist in your mind. If you can accept your negative or "dark" side then you can just let it be, then it can do no harm to you.
If you can accept it in yourself, you can accept it in others too.
Because I am more accepting about my dark side, I am actually much less surprised than before when people betray me or do other nasty things to me.
People are just people, they are not angles.

It is actually dangerous if you start thinking all people who are nice to you like you or they are purely nice people, because that sort of thinking is what leads Shakespeare's Othello to his downfall. If Othello were more sensitive and compassionate about Iago's dark feelings the tragedy would not have happened.

So if you have trust issues my advice to you is to understand we are all humans and be compassionate about it.

Also remember that it takes a long time for true love and trust to grow between people. So it's not unnatural if you doubt other people's feelings about you especially at the early stage of the relationship. In any kinds of relationships both sides of the party need to constantly work hard to make the relationships to become loving, meaningful and everlasting.

In conclusion, don't despair if someone is nice to you but she or he appears to be fake. It might just mean your relationship is at an early stage of development. It might also mean the person has conflicting feelings about you and you being sensitive are only acutely aware of the fact.

Phew, sorry I go on forever on the same topic!

About the typhoon season, yes we have it in Japan. We have typhoons throughout the year, but we have them the most around September. :D
That's nice that shops in your country sell things at cheaper prices or something during the typhoon season? Excellent!

If you don't mind me asking, are you from South Korea? :) My father loves visiting the countryside of South Korea because it is very beautiful!
@George VanMeter Stories like this make you feel scared of others, don't they? XD
Don't worry George dear, no one will stab you in the back because you are too nice for that! XD
@Sydney Pacione I mean no offence, but I saw your profile and found out you are a gentleman and I had thought you were a lady. I'm sorry about that!
It is true this story is heartbreaking. The first time I read it, it left me speechless too.
@Diogo Haha XD But we hope she doesn't suffer too much, because she suffered enough already in life.
CreanJinSung said…
@Saya - Actually, I am not Korean. People assume that a lot because of my username. My username is actually derived from the word "Korean Ginseng".

I appreciate the advice for the whole relationship thing. Maybe I should open up my mindset more and not be too paranoid of negative ways people see me.

Oh yeah, I'm from the Philippines and I love Asian food a lot because I cannot live without rice. Sadly, the price of rice is getting so high.

Now I rambled a bit xD
allucinator said…
And here I am, always telling to myself: "My cold heart is a place where true love cannot bloom"
@CreanJinSung I assumed you were Korean not just from your name but also from the fact you talked about Korean movies :)

As they say, "what people think of you is none of your business." Their opinion doesn't so much reveal who you are as it reveals who they are. So don't worry about them.


@Kurt Ma. Coll It depends on what your definition of "true love" is.
I have unconditional love for my little nieces, and I think I love them truly. On the other hand, my love for my friends may be conditional, but my love for them is not any less true.

And also if you think something is impossible, it might end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.
If you keep repeating the same thought over and over in your head (which most of us do) it becomes so strong that you begin to believe that it's the unquestionable truth. And your mind just endlessly searches for evidences that support your belief while it ignores all evidences that go against it.
If you want to get out of that kind of hell, you need to allow the possibility that love may be able to bloom in your heart.

And also don't have too high expectations for people, because they are mere humans just like you, and they carry as much emotional baggage as you do.

allucinator said…
Maybe I have just seen too much horror. I have always been a cold cynic. I still wonder if my pessimism is innate or not, but it feels like it. I have done everything to cope up: from indulging in dark humor to reading texts about Stoicism and Zen Buddhism. Maybe I would have not chosen coffee over ending myself if I have not understood well those said teachings/philosophies. Everyday, I always think that I just few steps away from madness. Thankfully, I have my family, friends, and other loved ones. I'm prone to get lonely inside a crowded bus.

"And your mind just endlessly searches for evidences that support your belief while it ignores all evidences that go against it." Fortunately, my mind don't, although it is too sensitive with negative things.

Thank you, @Saya.

I shall always visit this wonderful site.
My dear friend Kurt, reading about you is like reading about myself.

I used to SNEER at the idea of love.
I used to feel like I lived in a desert and always had this thirst for love but knew I could never get it.
I tried to end my life at least for three times in the past (yes you can put that info on my Wiki page lol)
But as you can see I'm not like that anymore. I do sometimes become depressed even now, but I can come back from such a state much more easily than I could before.

Just hang in there, dear. Those books you have read will not go to waste. They will make more sense in the future.

Good sleep, nutritious food and meditation are the best things you can do for yourself when you feel low and want to get out of it.

Shown below is a list of books which I have beeing reading recently and found conducive to my mental health.

*The Illustrated Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living, by Russ Harris

*Life Lessons, by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

*The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions
by Christopher K. Germer

On youtube you can watch videos about Jon Kabat Zinn who teaches you how to live mindfully.


If you are a cold cynic, I am guessing you were badly hurt in the past, or you are tired and under a lot of stress right now.
So be kind to yourself. You have a greater chance of becoming compassionate to yourself and others if you suffered a lot in the past than if you had an easy uneventful life.

Don't give up on life so easily because you don't know what your future holds yet.
Ten years ago I had no idea I would become this happy. I'm glad I didn't give up.

Take care, and be safe :)
allucinator said…
Thank you :)

I have been visiting this site since 2014. I am glad for your return (from hiatus)
Thank you dear. I'm glad to be back too and talking to you!
ReignTracer said…
After reading most of saya's entries, i learned to doubt those kind old ladies, I kinda felt she might not be as nice as she seems and i was right. great entry though