Two Years ~ A Tribute To My Japanese Mother

Two Years

Two years has slipped away from us,
cried a thousand tears
hardly a day passes, I don’t well up
missing you in a particular moment.
No more phone calls to hear your sweet
accented voice talking on the other end
No more telling me “Please don’t put
black pepper on the mashed potatoes!.”

Two years of empty holidays missing
your extraordinary smile, reminiscing
gazing into your dark soulful eyes.
Two new beautiful grandsons you
never had the chance to see or spoil.
Not sure where to place all the grief
as time relentlessly continues on.

I’ve gone on...
but it’s as if I just merely exist,
like life transcends right through me.
Feeling numb down to the bone
stripped away by painful raw emotions,
which have turned hard as stone...

A cold shinny black stone
all that is left of a vibrant lifetime,
a whole lifetime loving you.
Two years reliving bygone memories,
two years relinquishing you to death.

©Jo A. True-Burkholder 2008

How fast time passes! Sunday April 6, 2008 will mark two years my mother has been gone. She was not only my mother, but my father, and every relative I never had. Spring is a celebration of rebirth, but now it has become a sad commoration of the day my mother passed away. She died with her small family keeping vigil all through the night.

She always had a touch of class, incredibly neat in all she did. She raised three daughters in a foreign country, and she hardly knew anyone. She was strong and endured many hardships throughout her lifetime. She loved Mcdonald's cheeseburgers, and Kentucky fried chicken. We should have been born as sisters, for we had so much fun hanging out together. I have started to work on a memoir of her life, her passing has been an immeasurable loss to our family.