Hey everyone!
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas wherever you are in the world! đ I spent it in Oahu with my aunt, uncle, and cousin and realized that many are spending it without their loved ones. I remember being one of them in 2018. I wanted to share an excerpt from an article I had written on Medium to help anyone who needs to hear this now â youâre not alone. I hope you lean on your friends, trusted work buddies, and your fur babies to remind you that you are supported and loved, especially during these times. I also came across this little note on Instagram:
Sending you all love and light âš See you in 2022!
Akina
âDo you Believe in Magic?â
In June 2018, I had lost my grandfather. He was in his nineties, and watching him go from the sweet and happy jiichan to not remembering who I was, was difficult. It was a part of life. I understood that and accepted it.
That September, I had lost my father. He was only 62, and watching the strong, ambitious, goofy man disappear seemed foreign to me. It was the purest love I had ever known. I did not understand it and still have not accepted it.
A week after losing my father, I lost my friend to cancer. He was 28-years-old and was an artist with a creative mind and soul. He chose death with dignity. I had to dig deep within me to understand and wholeheartedly had to accept his choice. I was at peace with it and had accepted it.
So to sum it all up, 2018 was the year that I had all sight of magic. To me, such a thing no longer existed. After countless hours and pep talks with friends and family members who had also lost their parents, they shared that this was only the chipping of what would become a lifelong longing and missing. In the CHamoru language, the native tongue of my father's island, we would call it mahÄlang.
2018 was also the first Christmas I had spent alone. My mother was in Japan helping her grieving mother, and between the both of us, I felt that she needed my mother's company more, and my mother needed to be back home to process her grief. Leading up to Christmas, I isolated myself from everyone and drowned my grief in bottles of wine until one night, I got a visit from my best friend with a Christmas tree.
Somewhere along the way, my family and I stopped putting a tree up altogether. We werenât festive as my other friendsâ families, and a bright Christmas tree was something I didnât grow up having many memories of. My best friend remembered this. Lugging up a large brown box and a bag packed with ornaments, she made herself home in a little corner and began to assemble. I remember putting this tree up with her as little Azu đ± began knocking down the little snow cone ornaments, rolling them across the living room floor.
It was then that I realized that there was magic all along. There is always magic in our relationships with others, especially during the deepest and darkest moments.
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