叔母さんの話

『叔母さんの話』

　その叔母さんは、母の妹で、お寺に嫁ぎました。私は母に連れられて時々そのお寺に行きました。お寺は行事が多いので、とても忙しい家でした。

　その叔母の家では昔から伝わる秘伝の丸薬がありました。昔、修業僧が修業のために何日もそのお寺に泊まられ、そのお礼として様々な薬草で作った丸薬を残して帰られたそうです。それ以来、叔母のお寺ではその丸薬を売っていました。我が家にもその丸薬はありましたが、薬草の調合法は姉妹の間でも秘密でした。

　その叔母さんの寺ではお坊さんが頻繁に泊まられるので、非常に多くの布団がありました。年中行事のように布団の手入れがされていました：布団の表布から綿を出して、そのままの形で屋根に干します。雨が降る日も、晴れの日も、何日も干すのです。そして夏の一番暑い時に、ほどいてから洗った表布を縫い直し、広い部屋で綿を詰めて再び布団にするのです。村の人も手伝いに来ています。母や姉たちも手伝います。姉にこっそりと、「お寺に嫁入りしたくないね」と言ったことがあります。

　母とその叔母さんは本当に仲が良かったのです。二人とも老いてから寝たきりになりました。その叔母さんは、自分の病状がいけなくなった時に、救急車の担架に乗せられて母の側にやって来ました。二人は互いに手を取り合って、「さようなら！またあの世でね。」と言って別れたそうです。

　これは後に村の人から聞いた話です。本当はそのような私用で救急車を使うのはいけないことですが、昔のこととして許してやってください。

"Story about my aunt"

　The aunt was my mother's younger sister, who married into a Buddhist temple. I was sometimes accompanied to her temple by my mother. Her family was busy because temples had many Buddhist events.

　Her family had secret recipes for the pills handed down through the generations. In the old times Buddhist monks had stayed at her temple to practice asceticism for many days and left the pills they made from various medicinal herbs behind them in return for their stay there. Since then her temple had sold the pills. My family had the pills, whose recipes were secret even between sisters.

　The aunt's temple had many sets of futons because monks frequently stayed at the temple. So the futons had to be mended like a yearly event; Cotton battings are removed from tickings and are put out over the roof to dry as they are. They have been dried for many days, both on rainy days and sunny days. Then on the hottest time in summer her family sew the unstitched and washed tickings, and put the cotton battings into them in a large room. Some villagers came to help. So do my mother and my elder sisters. Once I talked in whisper with my elder sisters; "We don't want to marry into a temple."

　My mother and the aunt had been good friends. Both of them had been bedridden in their last years. When the aunt's illness was getting worse, she came to my mother, being carried on a stretcher in an ambulance car. They took their hands each other and said, "Good-bye! We will meet in the next world again."

　That was the story I heard from some villagers later on. Though you should not use an ambulance car in such a way, pardon her as the happening of the good old times.