Sixty Years

My Mom met her best friend when she was 18. They worked together at Bullock's Department Store. It was 1948. A tough time for Japanese Americans in the U.S. Only a few short years before, Japanese Americans were being held in Internment Camps around the country. In 1948 Japanese Americans were trying to put their lives back together.

In many ways it was a natural for my Mom to become friends with Jeannie. My Mom was as she puts it, "an orphan", Jeannie's father died in camp when she was only 13. They both suffered the loss of a parent. They were both strong enough to pick them selves up, and help their families survive some very tough times. My Mom took care of her four brothers, Jeannie helped her Mom run a boarding house and cared for her younger brother. They were strong, independent young women, in the 1940's. It was a no-brainer that they'd be friends.

Yesterday, I went with my Mother to bury her best friend.

They'd been friends for Sixty years.

I cried for my "Auntie" Jeannie like she was my own mother. Well, because she could be. My Mom is lucky, she has her health. Auntie Jeannie suffered from Lupus, Arthritis, and in the last few years, multiple failings of major organs. In the last year, she lost her ability to walk, and care for herself, but she never lost her strength.

I will always remember her bustling around the kitchen in her Muʻumuʻu's. Making some glorious feast. I remember spending hours in her house with her kids, playing games, eating, listening to my Mom and her talk. If any of you have had My Chinese Chicken Salad, well, you can thank Auntie Jeannie, it's her recipe. It's a recipe my Mom made for me 10,000 times, and I now make it and I hope my boys will equate fond memories of childhood to the smell of vinegar and pepper, two of the more prominent ingredients in the dressing, just like I do.

I will always remember her laugh. It was loud and full of joy. I will always remember her kindness, she always asked about me, and the about the boys. Even near the end, during my Mom's last visit, after looking at pictures and hearing stories, she asked my Mom to tell me how cute they were, and how happy she was for me. Even as her body was failing her, she was reaching out to others.

Almost 300 people came to pay their last respects to this woman. My Mom and I were just two of many. The loss of Auntie Jeannie, has me thinking, has me pondering. How long do I have left with my own Mother? Will my sons remember her? She was an old Mom, like I am now. Will my son's loose a parent before they are 40? Before they have a family of their own? Will I live to see my grandchildren graduate? marry? will I see great grandchildren?

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So you, those people I've known for more than twenty or twenty-five years, remember this, we've got a long way to go to sixty, I'm looking forward to the next forty years.