Every year, I hold memorials for my parents and my mother-in-law. It’s a way for me to honor their memories, for my children to remember them, and to establish a tradition for future generations. I prepare a dinner with the dishes they loved, bringing their presence into our home through the food they cherished and made for us.

For Mom, tonight I made Eggplants with fish sauce, Soup Muóp Khía with Shrimp, Ðâu Xào Bò, Miên Xào Tôm, Chicken Lemon Grass, and rice. Mom liked rice cooked on the dry side. Dad liked rice cooked on the soft side. The kids made a Yogurt Cake for dessert. I should have made Chè but didn’t have the energy to do it today.

Mom passed away on August 23, 2020. It has been four years, and not a day goes by that I don’t think of her. I see her reflected in myself—in the way I speak, in the way I think, in my actions, and in the little things I do that remind me of her. Just last night, I sat on the sofa, propped my feet up on the coffee table, and as I looked at them, I told Eric, “I have my mother’s feet.”

Memories do fade, and I cherish the pictures I have of her. Without them, I fear that one day I might lose the vividness of her presence.

The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, “A serious misfortune of my life has arrived.” I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet… wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

(Book: No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life)