Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was a bit bittersweet for me.

This time last year, I lost my grandmother. She was an amazing lady. I must sadly admit that I have not been back to her grave (I hate that word grave...) because of all the emotions that it would bring back. For me, it helps to compartmentalize all of my emotions. The hardest thing was that this year was also the first year that my mom's side of the family had Thanksgiving apart in a while.

I feel like it was just yesterday that I was eating her beef and basil stir-fry and telling her she really doesn't need to hoard the Styrofoam backings from the grocery store anymore. I miss the crazy scary stories that she would tell us (even though now that I think about it, we were a bit young for her to be telling us those stories). And you know what's the craziest memory of all? When we were teenagers, we would ask to go sleep over at her house. We thought we were being smart because we would sneak out at her house. She caught us, scolded and lectured us ... and never told our parents. I don't know exactly what lesson that taught me, but all that to say, I have these loving and everlasting memories of her.

Based on all the stories my grandmother told in her life, I knew she was a spunky kid growing up. This sounds crazy, but the week of her anniversary, I was thinking about my little Aubster. Aubbie has come into her own as of recently with tons of personality. Usually, she's very quiet, shy and reserved. This girl was busting out with screaming, yelling, and dancing this week. She was born in the year of the double dragon, and my grandma was super into these Chinese horoscopes/superstitions/how-to-invite-luck-into-your-life type things. I'm not too superstitious, but as I was thinking about her this week, I have a feeling that my grandmother had something to do with this:

Love you Ba Ngoại.