One last trip with my mother

Please let Moshu-sama sit in the passenger seat and handle this picture.

The young man in the black suit motioned to me while supporting my head with a sizable umbrella. It was early on a Friday. The intense downpour had stopped, but the drizzle persisted. I served as the moshu, or head mourner, on the day of my mother's death.

Thanking him, I stepped into the white Toyota that wasn't a typical hearse. In Japan, hearses used to have black cars with gold, float-like embellishments as decorations, but this sign of misfortune looked to be outmoded.

I secured my seatbelt while holding a picture of my mother in my lap. I had took the image five years prior, when my father was still alive.

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