Japan
Some of you may know that my mother was Japanese. She was from Sapporo, Japan. She passed away back in 2000 from an unsuccessful liver transplant. In her memory, every year we carry on a "boat ceremony" to celebrate her crossing over. This is a type of ceremony that is usually done in Japan, but only for the very important people. Well, we all felt she was very important, so we decided to carry this on, but to "Americanize" it - just a little.
Thank you to our friends who sent us pics from the night of my mother's boat ceremony. They are a little tough to take because it's so dark out. There were approximately 175 boats that went out that night. Thank you to all - friends and families. You have greatly helped make this special occasion a success!
History of Boat Ceremony
Toro Nagashi is the real name for our "boat ceremony".
According to Wikipedia this is a Japanese ceremony in which people float paper lanterns down a river. This is primarily done on the last evening of the Buddhist Obon festival as a way to guide the spirits of the deceased back to the other world.
The ceremony can be done on some other days of the year, for similar reasons, such as to commemorate those lost in the bombing of Hiroshima and those who died on the Japan Airlines Flight 12; or in other areas of the world, such as in Hawaii, to commemorate the end of WWII. Obon takes place on the thirteenth to sixteenth of August or July, depending on the calendar you go by. The white lanterns are for those who have died in the past year. Some Japanese believe that we come from water, so the lanterns represent our bodies returning to water (the sea).
This ceremony has also been changed for not only people who died during certain devastations in Japan, but also for other people. (Like in our case)
Check out these videos from the internet ...
http://videos.fresnobee.com/vmix_hosted_apps/p/media?id=1501969
http://thehawaiinetwork.com/2008/05/24/toro-nagashi-lantern-floating-hawaii/
Every year, the weekend closest to July 13th is when we have our boat ceremony for mother at Kinzua River. She always loved camping there and enjoyed staying there the entire summer to fish, relax, and visit with friends and family. If you would like to come sometime to the ceremony, just drop us an email and we'll give you the dates.