Thursday, April 9, 2009
Welcome to the celebration of Virginia Bazela’s life. My name is Yoshihiro Katsuura from Berkeley, Ca. I am Gram’s 12th grandson.
Today on the beach this morning, this would be a day that Gram would love with blue skies and a calm ocean.
As I grow older, I regretfully realize that less and less do I get the chance to see my family. Between school and the demand of plotting a path through in life, I regret also that the artifacts and recollections of my youth have faded.
Yet, being here today, in the presence of you all, I feel as if the last fifteen years have somehow been reversed. Seeing everyone here today, I am reminded of Christmases long since past where we would all gather at my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Coates’s house for a feast and party, the scale of which I think only those with large families can understand.
Those were very exciting times for a ten year old. The thrill of getting presents, eating sweets and running around between my Aunts, Uncles and Cousins are memories that even time has had difficulty eroding. But despite the clarity of these memories, there was one person at the center of all those times that no amount of aging will erase from my mind. There was one person I would go to during the warmth of those Christmas parties to show off a new present or to relate a new story, and that person was my grandmother.
Those times, where all the family was together, were the times she loved the most and my grandmother lived a life defined by the things she loved, particularly by the places and people she loved.
First there was 39 Manor ave., the childhood home of my mother, and all my aunts and uncles. In this house my grandmother was the head chef at thanksgiving, Santa Claus at Christmas and the one to make everyone feel welcome during a Sunday dinner. She was the one to fill the nine baskets during Easter, as well as fill the house with the aroma of chocolate during winter. In this three-story house, my grandmother cultivated her love of Gardening and nurtured not only the flowers in her garden but her seven children and also the many grandchildren who would follow.
Next there was Cape May, and the beach house. It was in Cape May that my own memories of gram started to develop, and I can understand what drew her to this elegant seaside town. It is a place unblemished by the modern world, where quaint Victorian houses line the streets, and families gather during the summers for long days at the beach, followed by crabs and cards at night. Here too I remember spending many summers with gram playing in the ocean at Windsor beach, and exploring the marshes while she worked at the Wet Lands institute. Similar to 39 manor ave, in Cape May gram also tended a garden but more so she tended the minds of her grandchildren, inspiring in them a love of nature, the ocean, and how sometimes happiness can be found in the simplest of things.
Finally there were the places she loved to visit. Whether it was the vineyards of Napa valley and Carmel, the coves of Monterey and Santa Cruz, the towering mountains of Tahoe and Yosemite, or the museums of Berkeley and San Francisco, wherever the sun shone brightly and the scent of flowers or the sea could be distinguished in the air, gram could sit happily and watch us kids play.
From the East coast to the west coast, all these places defined gram as a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother, and her love for them was shadowed only by her love for us: her family and friends. When I was young I would often ask her about the afterlife. I’m sure if she were here now she would tell me that it is amalgamation of all these places. She would tell me it is an endless stretch of beach, where horseshoe crabs scurry in the surf and the sun always gleams against the water. She would tell me that Pop Pop is there with her and that every morning they walk together, watching the horizon where they can see all their kids, and the strong families they have built. And she would tell me that even though I’m not there with you anymore, don’t think that I wont be thinking about you on your next birthday or at your next graduation, or wedding because I have never forgotten one before, and I’m not about to start now.
Good bye gram, we love you
