Seven Months Today... Saturday, March 24

If ever there was ever a real heart-to-heart connection between Snickers mom and I it was felt today.

I ended up canceling my afternoon boxercise class to head out with Snickers to the funeral home for his grandmother -- his mother's mother. When I walked into the funeral home I was greeted by in-laws I had met before and many of whom today marked our first encounter. Everyone was sitting around the tables, snacking on food so we took a seat at a corner table and that's when Snickers' mother spotted us. She approached us in a black Korean hambok and I could tell by her eyes that she had been morning her mother's death. She greeted us with a smile though and I reached out to squeeze her arm.

I thought I'd feel over appologetic for the loss of her mother but I didn't. Her mother lead a long life -- 89 years -- and this fact distracted me from feeling sorry. I didn't feel sorry or any grief for her mother actually. She had lived a long full life, had children, and had watched her children have children. She even got to see some of her grandchildren have children.

I couldn't help but be distracted with thoughts of how I lost my own mother. Unlike Snickers' grandmother, who died naturally and lived a long life, my mother lost her life to cancer and had died way too early. I felt rather robbed today because of this.

Sometimes I feel my mother in my face, as strange as that sounds. I don't know how to really to explain it but to say I feel like it's her smiling back at those looking at me as oppose to me smiling. A couple of years ago I started to feel this but now I feel it more frequently. She's in the little smiles I pose on my face.

Today marked the seventh month anniversary of my mother passing away and I spent it at the funeral home for Snickers' grandmothers. I had arrived wearing my finest -- a pin-stripped pencil skirt, shiny heels, a beautiful blouse and my mom's smile.