Mom and Dad's divorce has created a chasm that gets trickier and trickier every year. And yet... we somehow figure it out every season.
This Thanksgiving... for whatever reason.. I was hosting Thanksgiving with mom and the in-laws. As the planets aligned... I was able to share a Thanksgiving lunch with one of my best friends in SF Chinatown. After lunch.. Jeff and I seized the opportunity to stroll the streets where I grew up. This isn't the Chinatown I grew up in. The stores were different. So many new shops popping up. The people are different. I saw a HK Style Cafe written with simplified Chinese. The infrastructure is different... including an underground Muni going directly to Chinatown. All the memories start rushing back. Those days when I would wander the music stores... the comic stores... and even... the touristy shops.
"It wasn't as awkward as I thought." Was NN's comment as the evening closed. Mom and the In-Laws don't hang out. They're not in the same group. Dad would jive. Dad jives with everyone. I don't know how he does it. We made it work with a mah jong table. And during dinner... I was able to squeeze a "Thanksgiving" out of everyone.
Grace: To move into my new house.
SW: To making it into King's
NN: The casting call
Joyce: Escaping Hawaii without getting COVID
MIL: Able to have a proper funeral and burial for grandma
FIL: A negative scan of his liver - he's cancer free!!
Mom: Health in spite of losing 40 lbs from her 120 lb original weight
Me: Able to coach NN and SW's basketball Team
NN (part two): Being demoted from Team A to Team B... (in tears)... and triumphantly becoming the best player on Team B.
I was able to cook Thanksgiving dinner. I love to cook. Was planning this dinner for days. Disappointingly... it didn't come out as I had hoped, but it was a dinner nonetheless.
But the most memorable moment of it all... was when mom grabbed SW's book, "Soul Surfer", and started reading outloud in the first page of Acknowledgements. She didn't miss a beat. Pronounced all the words correctly. Struggled through the long words and phonics'ed her way through the SAT words. Mom... supposedly a 70+ year old, senile, old lady... has once again impressed and amazed me. All those years of Adult School and ESL... she is finally finding her language. The language of her nation and citizenship. I watched with my jaw on the floor. So proud... so so proud of her.
5 kernels??? I dunno... I don't think I can make 5 kernels after that moment in time.
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