Celebrating Life While Grieving Death

This week marks one of many "firsts without Dad", as we celebrated my mom's 75th birthday on Wednesday. Coincidentally, my dad's gravestone engraving was completed that day. The kids had asked to see where he was buried a while back and we told him we would take them to see him when it was done. So last night, after we took my mom out to a belated birthday dinner, we all headed over to the Cremation Gardens to see my dad.

It's hard to read my mom sometimes. I feel like she's trying to be strong and not sad all the time, and keeping her busy with getting her house ready to sell has helped keep her mind off things, I'm sure. But as we arrived at the Garden, she was in tears and I could tell this was especially hard for her. We cried together and talked about the difficulty of all this, and the sadness we're both feeling from the unfairness of it all, even tho my dad lead such a great life, and truly lived his best life in the end. I told her as best as I could with my limited Korean how much he took care of us before and even after, and that I would be there to take care of her, as a promise I made to Dad. And how it's okay to be sad and cry, but only for a little while cuz Dad would not have liked to see us crying over him!

As we grieve for my dad, I am reminded that birthdays are a time of celebration for a reason. It's not about cake and presents and parties. It's about celebrating another year of life, of living, and being alive. So as difficult as these past couple days has been, I am reminded to be grateful that my mom gets to celebrate another year of life, and so very grateful that she has family and friends that are there for her to get her thru the most difficult thing she's ever faced.