Tomorrow, Friday, January 6, will be Mom's jaesa day: two years since her death on a gray morning in the Intensive Care ward at Walter Reed Medical Center. Unfortunately, we won't be performing the small ceremony we performed last year: I had wanted to do things right this time around, but was never in a position to be able to afford the materials for a proper ritual.* So this year, we're going to celebrate in a more explicitly Western manner by dining at Chima, a Brazilian restaurant in Tysons, Virginia.
They say time heals all wounds. I try to look back with fondness on Mom's life, but the memories are always colored by how her life ended, and by what happened with my father afterward. I haven't written too explicitly about my father on any of my blogs, but you can get a hint of where things were going-- even at the beginning of Mom's illness-- by reading this post at Kevin's Walk.
I eventually plan to write about all of this, the whole experience, in detail. But not now: the pain is still there, and is sometimes still fresh. I do my best not to be maudlin on this blog, but every now and again some sadness is going to peek through. For those made uncomfortable by that, you have my apologies, but on the bright side, the advantage of writing an omnibus blog, instead of a blog with a specific theme, is that it shouldn't be surprising to see a little bit of everything on these e-pages: moments of joy and sadness, anger and vindication, salaciousness and saintliness. The blog contains multitudes.
*My buddy Mike very kindly offered to "bankroll" the ceremony, just to preserve the tradition. I was touched by the offer, and said I'd keep it in mind for 2013.
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Kevin, I hope the celebration goes well, and I am sure that the fond memories that you have of your mother's life will begin to outweigh the memories that have you down.
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