A New Post to a New Year

Let's see if I can't force myself to post at least once a week this year.

We visited my grandpa in the hospital today. A few weeks ago, he went in to get scar tissue removed from his back, and since the scar tissue was pressing against some nerves (and of course surgical wound right up the back), he's been going through physical therapy. The only person who can really give him much company is my grandma, but we go by now and again, mostly at the request of my oldest sister, who grew up close to my grandparents until we all moved (we only moved about an hour south, which isn't very far, but finding parking in San Francisco sucks so much it's a wonder I used to visit my grandparents every weekend).

For brunch, we had dim sum, which was delicious and would have been more delicious if dad didn't have to hunt for parking.

Afterwards, dad took my sisters to the Buddhist temple where their mom and grandma's plaques are. I had been there before, though I can't remember what for. It's located in a (rather wide and clean) alleyway. Enter through the door and climb some steep, narrow stairs with gated-off doors to the sides. At the very top is the temple, though "temple" is too austere a word to describe it. Some old people were sitting at a booth and my father greeted them. Along the north wall were probably hundreds of red plaques with the names of the deceased written in gold characters. Dad pointed out the plaques that belonged to my sisters' mom and grandma (neither were very new or clean looking). We grabbed some incense sticks, lit them, and offered some prayers. Dad told us that there used to be a lot of people in the temple. There was still some free space on the wall.

Last week Dad told us that when he was in the temple, an old woman who he had never meet before came up to him and told him that she saw his first wife next to her. Dad's not a terribly religious or spiritual person, but he humored the old woman. She then described his first wife with extreme detail, the way only someone who had known her could have. The old woman told him that she could hear what his first wife was saying. When he asked her, she said that his first wife wanted him to, "live on."

I thought it sounded so much like something out of a movie.

When we exited the temple, we could hear strains of Katy Perry; then that was drowned out by firecrackers.