Every once in a while, Kumiko Kano meets a group of people with whom she has decided to spend eternity, one of a growing number in Japan who are shunning the expense and commitment of a traditional family grave.
Instead of shelling out millions of yen (tens of thousands of dollars) on an elaborate tomb, which, according to religious custom must be lovingly tended by descendents, Kano and her late husband decided to be interred in a collective grave alongside thousands of others ....
Ryukai Matsushima, a Buddhist priest whose father pioneered the movement, said Moyainokai was established 25 years ago "for people who were worried about their own burials because they had no kin or had only daughters".
"It's unfair that some people have someone to look after them when they die and others don't, just because they chose a lifestyle of staying single... or they didn't have children," he said.
Group members meet for excursions to the countryside or gather as a book club "to nurture ties not based on blood," he said ....
"Today, people with all sorts of backgrounds... whether they have children or not, show interest in a collective grave like this," Matsushima said ...
"Among them are women who say they don't want to be buried with their husbands." ....
"For the wives, it's not necessarily because their relationships with their husbands are bad, but rather because they want to do things their own individual way," she said.