Month: October 2011

The Circle

A few weeks ago, my maternal grandmother passed away. Just like when my paternal grandparents passed, I had basically no idea what to do about it. I felt the obvious sense of loss, but the distance made the whole occasion feel … remote. Obaachan had a huge impact on my life, though in a totally different way than Iso Isa or Iso Aiti.

There’s a lot I could say, but ultimately, the best example is that well into her late eighties, she was taking care of “senior citizens” who were young enough to be her children. She used to send me little packages of Japanese things, and they were always my favorite boxes to open – full of all manner of stuff, from crackers to yokan to Transformers (or whatever they were actually called in Japanese). The language barrier created more distance as I grew older, and societal conventions weighed more – but if I could, and if she would have felt what I felt, I always wanted to run up to her and give her a big hug.

Rest well, Obaachan. I miss you, and you will always be in my heart.

The other side of the coin, of course, is Jin. He gets more and more interesting every day. He still loves his trucks – specifically “front loader trash truck!” – but he can name almost every truck-like thing under the sun. Still gets his colors confused, but can also count from Uno to Diez in Spanish, which is pretty hilarious. Mostly ’cause he does the whole count even when there are only 3 or 4 things. 😀

He’s using the bathroom now, and will tell us when he has to do his thing, which is good – he definitely sometimes *wants* to go, and other times clearly knows he has to, but doesn’t want to go because something else is more interesting. But yeah – he’s growing like a little weed. He plays in the park, wants to go dig in the sand, wants to go see the animals at the zoo, and loves walking around the neighborhood & playing with Moby.

He eats tons of “applesauce” – but it’s not applesauce. It’s raspberries/blueberries/blackberries & yogurt. He loves watermelon. Every so often he goes on a tear & eats a bunch of meat, but usually, he’s more focused on the fruit & “coco pancake!”, which are the coconut flour pancakes that E’s made for him (which are *delicious*).

Work is going well. Busy as always, stressful as always, but good things are getting done. Can’t wait to see what comes next.