This is the story of my mother and I.
My mother’s parents were divorced before she was born. Her father had never seen her.
My Grandma moved to a colony of Japan in China. She left my mother at her parent’s in Japan.
My Grandma remarried and had two children in China. My Grandma came back to Japan with her family and visited when my mother was 6 (First picture)
My Grandma died when she was
36 in China.
My mother
lost her parents completely.
My mother’s Grandparents raised my mother.
Her Grandparents died when she was 19.
My mother
lost.
My mother married with my father when she was 21. (Second picture)
I was born a child of my father and mother in Japan.
They had only one child.
My mother was 25. My father was 29 when I was born. (Third picture)
My father died JULY 3 1994. He was 64.
At the time, I
lost myself deeply and badly. I call it my black hole period.
My mother
lost her husband.
I learned from my father’s death.
I couldn’t give up my dream before my life would end.
When I was
36 I moved to the US and left my mother alone in Japan.
My mother thought she lost her daughter.
My son was born four years after my father’s death.
My mother thought I would never return to her after he was born.
My mother reflected my life with her mother’s life.
My mother visited us in 2002 after I settled my life in the US. (Fourth picture) I asked my mother to come to the US and live with us then.
She never made up her mind until the end.
I
lost my mother FEB 10th 2007.
This is my second black hole period. (It started June 18, 2006)
She called me in the early summer of last year.
“I want to move to America to live with you, I will take surgery in two weeks.”
She told me she has breast cancer.
This was the first I heard she had been suffering with her illness.
She took chemo four times. She asked her doctor about the possibility of operations because her situation improved.
I flew to Japan right away. I left my son here at my friend’s place.
This was the first time my son and I were apart from each other for two weeks.
It was very painful for me to see my mother and also be apart with my son.
I hoped she could survive after her surgery.
Unfortunately her cancer spread all over in her body after the operation because she refused to take chemo again.
A day before Christmas she told me the doctor said she would have three months to live.
I told her, “Pack what you need. I will get you ASAP”
I bought her airplane ticket and her bed for the US.
She was unconscious on her bed in Japan on JAN 10th.
I flew to Japan it was a day before my birthday, Jan 23rd.
She was in the hospital and it was count down to be in heaven.
But she woke up two days before my arrival. Everybody said it was a miracle.
We had 20 days together. We had wonderful time until her death.
I left my son in the US because of his school and I didn’t know how long I needed to stay in Japan. After two weeks passed, I called him to come to Japan. He came a day after my mother’s death.
My mother’s bed came a day after her death at my US house.
I couldn’t make it to live with my mother. She couldn’t make it to come to US to live.
After my mother’s death, I was thinking over and over why she kept her suffering a secret from me.
I got an answer three months after her death.
She wanted and believed she would get better and tell me.
“I’m coming!!”
This summer I buried my mother’s ash with my father’s in their grave at the countryside where we were born. I brought a small amount of my parent’s ash back with me.
She was born beautiful and she died beautiful. She was just 75.
All of my mother’s, father’s and my childhood stuff is in the house still.
It will be a long process to clear up all of our lives. I’m finding a ton of my mother’s notes all over her house. She noted the date of purchase on boxes or covers of things. Most of the dates were 2004. I can’t see any for 2005 or 2006. She stopped many things since she started her chemo.
It is painful for me.
My biggest
loss is my parents death.
But I’m learning many important things from my
loss.
“Lost and found!”
I
lost what I should write in my blog since I went back to Japan this summer.
I needed to write the story of my mother and I. While I was writing it I could see the light of the way out from my second black hole period.
Now,
I found it!!!
Let’s move forward..!!!!
Hoodie’s collection will be in Houston International Quilt show.
Booth #1921
You will
find me!
I’ll post and report what is new in my life more and more regularly.
I used to spend my time at MoMA all day. Sitting in the sculpture park, sitting in the room of Monet, in front of Van Gogh, Picasso, Kandinsky........What a great time with them!
It is count down to 2008, now.
