Chinese Version
03-23-2022, Wednesday, Sunny
During this spring break, Grace returned to Waltham from Baltimore and visited us this afternoon to see Ben. It was Ben’s first time to see Aunt Grace. When Aunt Grace sat on the sofa in the living room holding him, he smiled at her, a joyful moment to remember for Ben.
Today, after meeting Grace, I realized that friendship can help with forgetfulness again, as sharing time often makes happy memories among friends, although we touched some painful subjects today, such as, my father who just died, her uncle who just died, and 132 lives lost in the March 21, 2022 China Eastern Airlines crash.
I became a grandmother for the first time in January and I experienced hectic daily life and my memory started to blur. I could not remember when I last saw Grace. As soon as I met Grace, I asked her, “How many months have we not met? Three months? Four months?” Grace thought for a while and said: “We met last year’s Christmas and in January.” Her answer shone a light on my blurred memory, and quickly many pasts came back clearly and lively. Before going to California in January, they sent Jefferson, their prince cat, to our house, but our Kara could not get along with Jefferson. We tasted Grace’s famous Japanese cheesecake in last year’s Christmas dinner, where Wenxin brought authentic Sichuan style braised duck feet and duck heads and a bottle of homemade pomegranate wine. In the middle of December last year, the northerners made dumplings, and the southerners just enjoyed the delicious dumplings, so the division of tasks was very clear. Then all northerners and southerners, eight people, played mahjong together. While eating sunflower seeds we also ate mahjong tiles; while listening to gossip we also listened to our tiles, and while bumping into good fortune we also bumped tiles. These happy times with Grace came to mind one by one and I felt very happy.
Friendship, built on shared time, can be one of the remedies for forgetfulness, because the topics during friends’ gathering often involve shared times and there are often many good things in those shared times. Awakening the good times on a busy day with painful topics makes me grateful for friendship!
Little Episodes
1. On last year’s Christmas Eve, the beautiful and naughty Yuki (white) and the fine and quiet Mocha (black) from afar behaved very well and were deeply loved by all. For last year’s Christmas breakfast, the two vases of roses on the table were gifts from last night. At last year’s Christmas dinner, the nine people’s dishes on the table were made by my daughter; after dinner, we had Grace’s famous Japanese cheesecake, then the young people played Hanabi games.
2. On Thursday, December 16, 2021, I drove my son and his girlfriend to see the winter light show and the hazy moon, then enjoyed a party of 13 people. On Friday, December 17, 2021, the northerners made dumplings and the southerners ate them, so the division of tasks was very clear. Later the eight of us played mahjong very happily.
