100 days and Mother's Day

Today marked the fifteenth Mother's Day since my mother's death and the first motherless one for the Unemori family.

This day was also the 100th since Panda Ann died.


What better day could there have been for a remembrance ceremony for a mother who so loved Japanese culture?
The 100 day funeral ceremony is a Buddhist practice. It s purpose is to provide final prayers before the soul passes on to heaven or is reborn here on Earth. During the ceremony today, there were no chanting monks to beseech Buddha on behalf of the departed.
Rather, her two daughters and her one son had arranged to share bits of their mother with us. On the table above, photographs of her throughout her life were strewn, inviting a closer look at these parts of her life unknown to most of us. Her as a child, her as a young woman in love, her as a mother. What a wonderful experience!
Her now-grown children also shared her favorite foods with us.
A selection of wines, including merlot, graced the dining table.
Also present were two cheese pizzas from Panda's favorite pizzeria, a pecan pie from her favorite bakery.

Best of all, they had made copies of her two published stories.
The tales had been included in an anthology from the Savannah Writers Group, in which she had once been quite active.
The copies were on this table, along with a book for us to write our remembrances of their mother.
I had wished I could have known her better.
Today, I was allowed to do so.