Long Day

Today was a very long day. This morning we had a burial service for my popo. All the immediate family and some of her friends arrived. Popo didn't want a formal funeral. She didn't like to inconvenience others or draw attention to herself. She said if anyone really cares they'd come see me while im still alive. Which is actually a pretty good point. Even though the family wanted to have a funeral we respected her wishes and kept it simple. She was buried next to her dad.

We all wore either red or green, christmas colors! because red is good luck in Chinese and i guess green was her favorite color. So without really knowing how the burial would go, we began to each say a few things we remembered about her and then placed a white rose on top. She lived a long full life. And to be honest, longer than anyone really expected. She's finally able to rest in peace.

We then went to Asia Manoa which is a Chinese restaurant we went to last with her. This time it was different without her. I think her favorite topic to talk about was food. She would never waste any food. It was good to be with family and to celebrate her life.

The hard part of all of this is that this past week the family has been trying to clean up her apartment because she was somewhat of a hoarder. She kept everything, magazines, newspapers, books, CDs, tapes, vases, a whole cabinet full of napkins, towels, clothes, and more travel magazines. Just way too much stuff. Today we got a lot finished and gave donations to Salvation Army / Good Will. I've actually never really spent this much time with one of my uncles before so it was actually pretty nice. We had bulky items like a sofa, a bed, a table etc, and we couldn't find where to drop it off. Finally we found a place. Man just too much piles of junk. Apparently, one of her friends owns a thrift shop so we gave her a bunch of stuff too. Still so much to go through. im so burnt out.