Knowledge Seeker
  • Home
  • Articles

The Aokigahara Forest

12/1/2018

 
David was a high school science teacher who was previously in the business world but his wife (Jenna), talked him out of it because he was always at work. They had been married around twelve years with no kids, didn't have hardly any family around, so they were pretty much all each of them had.
 
Jenna ended up having brain cancer and didn't last long and David was devastated even thinking about ending his own life. Jenna always wanted to go to Japan but it was never a good time plus they didn't have a lot of money. David decided he'd make the trip in memory of her and commit suicide in a popular forest in Japan called Aokigahara. It's a location known by the Japanese as a place of spirits and a culturally accepted place to commit suicide.
 
When David reached the woods, he took out a bottle of pills he was going to use to kill himself and just before doing it, he saw a man around 30 yards away on his knees sobbing. David instinctively went up to the man and saw that he was Japanese and that he had cut his wrist. The man allowed David to use his tie and place a tourniquet on his forearm.
 
The man's name was Kanji and he knew English, so they began talking about why they were there. In Kanji’s case he had lost an important job and could no longer take care of his family; he was ashamed. Kanji told David that he learned English from television and having his mom read books to him; he said his favorite was Hansel and Gretel.  Unlike David who didn't believe in God and thought that once he committed suicide it would just be over, Kanji was very spiritual and said there is life after death and that our loved ones even after they pass, are always with us.
 
Kanji had lost a lot of blood and was too weak to hike, so David told him to sit still and that he’d run for help; there was no cellphone service in the woods. While trying to get out of the woods and to the parking lot, David fell down a ravine and a limb went through his side and he couldn't move. Several hours later he was discovered by a park ranger.
 
David did his best to tell the ranger, who couldn't speak English, that Kanji was still in the woods, but they focused on getting David to the hospital where he stayed for several weeks. When David got to the hospital there was an interpreter, so she let the rangers know about Kanji, and they went looking for him without success.

​They went back to the hospital and asked David if he knew Kanji’s last name, so they could check with his family, but he didn’t and unfortunately the name Kanji in Japan was like having the name John in the U.S. He remembered that Kanji told him his children’s names and he did his best to pronounce them, but they said they weren’t children’s names and left it at that. David was once again heartbroken because he couldn't do anything to find Kanji, but now his desire to kill himself had passed.
 
He decided to go back to his job as a teacher and try to start over. One day he was going through some of the clutter he needed to take care of and he saw a small package from Amazon that was addressed to his wife (from her sister who lived out of state), and it was unopened; apparently his wife hadn’t gotten around to opening it before she died.
 
What was inside was kind of a joke between the two sisters as they hardly read anything when they were little accept for one book that they read a thousand times. The book's title was Hansel and Gretel. David was taken back but logic told him it was a coincidence.
 
One day David was tutoring a student and the student saw a small note on his desk with just two strange looking words on it. He asked David what the words were, and he told him he had been to Japan (he didn’t go into the whole story), and that it was his attempt to write down a couple of names he heard while he was there. The student asked David if he could look at the note. His family lived in Okinawa, Japan when his dad was in the military, so he thought he would try to sound the words out from what David had written.
 
The student told David that he didn’t think they were names and that he thought the words were “yellow” and “winter.” David turned pale for a moment and put his head in his hands. Then he began sobbing uncontrollably. The student didn’t know what was happening. Yellow Winter was the name of his wife's favorite place to vacation. It was a small cabin on a beautiful lake that they considered their place.
 
Then David slowly rose up from the desk and wiped the tears from his eyes and he started smiling for the first time since his wife’s death. Now he knew, she was still with him.
 
Note: This was my version of the story (and move), Sea of Trees.

​

Comments are closed.

    Author: John Mann

    Picture

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly