Well, yesterday was the one year anniversary of Dad's death. Yesterday was also a public holiday in Hong Kong. What was the occasion? The Ching Ming Festival, which is the spring day of remembrance for the dead. Chinese families go out in droves to honor their departed loved ones, sweep their graves, light incense and burn "paper money" so that the dead ancestors will have money in the afterlife.
Since it was a public holiday, Matt had the day off work. I am really glad that he did! I think I needed someone with me...I had no idea how emotional I would be! Of course, I thought about it before the actual day, but I figured that I have been sad for a year, why would this day be any different. (Here you can tell I am my father's daughter...I was thinking "What difference does it make? I don't need a particular "day" or "anniversary" to tell me when to feel sad or to think about someone!") For this reason, my emotions totally snuck up on me...Matt and I woke up, and I wanted to eat breakfast out, but he wanted to eat omelets. So, he made them, and when I went to cut into my omelet, all of the leaky, squishy-gishy egg juice in the center leaked out. Gross! I hate that! But, instead of acting like a rational person, I got really, REALLY upset. I started crying, quietly at first. Matt noticed and was pissed: I was insulting his cooking and being high maintenance! He told me to cut it out, at which point I lost it. I felt the rage surge through my body. I grabbed a knife off the table (a butter knife, thankfully) and threw it at him, movie-style. Matt had forgotten that it was the anniversary or Dad's death, and so he was PISSED. He slammed the kitchen door. Now my crying escalated to a full scale wail. The kind where your mouth is wide open like Lucille Ball. I couldn't stop. Then I think I said, between sobs, "It is the day my Dad died and you can even let me eat what I want!", or something equally ridiculous like that. He felt very sad that he had forgotten and forgave me for throwing a knife at him. After my tantrum, I felt like my body had been completely drained of all energy. My limbs were weak and sort of shaky feeling. In retrospect, I think it is good that Matt made a gross omelet. For me it is hard to admit emotions to myself, and so it takes something happening to force me to let it out.
Then, we decided to go to a spot on Bowen Road where we knew people would be burning paper money for their ancestors. You see, Dad had left a stack of the fake paper money and incense from the last time he had been in Hong Kong. While it is not my tradition, I figured that since he left me the supplies and since I have no family around to mark the day as "special", I figured I would go burn the money for him. We took a picture of him, the one he took in Borneo that is on his website, and the money (at least a million dollars worth!) and the incense. Honestly, I did feel alot better after burning the money. It sort of helped me feel like I did something concrete in remembrance of Dad. If I was at home, maybe we could have had a family dinner or something, but I wasn't. We sat there for a while, talking about how we couldn't believe it had been a year, how much has changed in the past year, etc.
From there, we went down into Wan Chai and had some giant bowls of noodles with pork dumplings. We also walked around the markets in Wan Chai and had waffles from a street stall. It was good...I felt calm. We made dinner at home and listened to one of the CDs Dad burned for me, Pharoah Sanders. I miss him. I still can't believe that he is gone. It seems unbelievable.
I guess this is a good opportunity to thank everyone that has helped me through this past year. It was the hardest year of my life! I am a different person now. The outpouring of love and support has been phenomenal, and I am so grateful. Also, I have realized I am so lucky in the friends that I have! I always manage to find the nicest people to be friends with, it is great! My friends here in Hong Kong, although new, have been amazingly supportive.
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