My plan was to go out by the north end of Seatac airport, and I decided to stop and say 'hi' to Dad and Jimmy. I'm embarassed to say that I had trouble finding their graves, and I had to go to the office and get a graves 'roadmap': up by the second tree, take a left by Freeman/Lindman and go up 8 or so rows. I realized one reason I missed them earlier was that their grave stones had weathered a little. The Japanese in me surfaced (I think I was a tatami mat maker in one of my previous lives...) I rode my bike back home, and returned later with some cleaning materials.
The lady in the office offered me a cup of coffee, and I accepted. Being a coffee snob, I didn't like it much, but I remembered two coffee memories about Dad and Jim:
Dad - Dad would stop in the kitchen sometimes, pour a cup of cold coffee that had been sitting in their coffee maker all day, and drink a cup before going to bed...the coffee snob in me quietly gasped inside the first time I saw him do this...
Jimmy - this is a hard one for me - the last time I saw Jim was when he came out to the airport with the folks to see me and Hak Mi off to Japan. It was a little busy with the awkwardness of the goodbyes, and Jim asked me "can I buy you a cup of coffee Chuck?" I didn't accept the offer, and to this day...(I took a little break here...) - to this day, I have always regretted saying "no, thanks Jim"...
Anyway, during of my cleaning I decided to pour a little coffee on Dad's gravestone, and then I remembered Jim's long ago offer...and I poured some coffee on his gravestone as well...
I love your stories, I go alot and I always lose them! I used to get tired of Jim calling me and telling what groceries he bought, he'd say every item, I always listened, he called me alot during the day and I didn't always talk, said I was busy, I think about that and wish he's call and talk to me awhile. I think we all have some regrets. But you know with dad's death, I pretty must feel I did everything I could, the only thing is I wish we would of taken that train trip to Portland I told him he'd have the Christmas before he died. Oh well, no use crying over something we can't fix. I want to believe we all meet again in another life, but for now I'm not sure......
ReplyDeletethanks Sis...I like the sharing...
ReplyDeleteok should i be a wiseacre? man i want to be but...i won't
ReplyDeletesounds nice what you did cr! ..ok 'i don't need no stinkin map!' sorry it just came out!
Nice post.
ReplyDelete