Returned!

I’m back, both figuratively and literally speaking.

The thing that happened at the end of May was the death of my grandmother. I spent the last three weeks in Austria taking care of her funeral and related things.

My grandmother was 99 years old, so her death did not come as a big surprise. Although she had had some episodes before where she was weaker than usual (in particular around Christmas two years ago), we all more or less expected her to live and celebrate her 100th birthday next January. But, not so. She fell asleep for good on May 24th. And with her, my family is gone. All I have left now are relatives… The realisation of what that really means has not yet hit me. In fact, I feel strangely detached still. I guess the pain and grief will catch up with me whenever I am ready. Not sure when that will be, but for now, I’ll keep up my life as I have laid it out for myself here in Kyoto.