It has been a year since the passing of one of my favorite people in the world, my paternal grandmother. For some reason, I never assumed she would one day "not be around" for me to speak with, make jokes for and hear her infectious laugh, and ask questions about what my father was "really like" when he was young.
It is still hard to believe, but on the anniversary of her death, I now realize that she would want me to celebrate her life, as she did each moment I had the opportunity to know her.
Last week, I took her photos and laid them upon my dinner table. We don't look anything alike as she was from English and Scotch descent and I am half Japanese from my mother. This difference however was one of the things that bonded us together.
She always told me I was her beautiful granddaughter, and that our unique differences only made our relationship more interesting.
Her family is one of the oldest families in America, and she told me about how her father who was a newspaper publisher, traveled with the family to California from Oklahoma in the early 1920's.
Throughout her life, she taught me how to sew, upholster furniture, cook a pot roast, and make the best chicken sandwich on the Western front — but most of all, she taught me "how to live in the moment."
This is my greatest lesson I attempt to live by every day. And as I continue to mourn her loss, I learn each day a bit more how to live the way she did, which helps me to celebrate her life.
"Life is too short to get upset by anyone and everything," she would practically sing while she was making one thing or another.
This February she would have been 99. And if any of us are lucky enough to have even an ounce of her wisdom and inner beauty, we will all want to live at least as long.