Thank you to everyone for the support this past week!  The terrible news came to me on 7/18/13 at 1:20pm that my father had passed.  Knowing that the boys were in good hands with Stuart and Thuy’s sister offered to drive me to Oakland, I decided to catch the first available non-stop flight at 5pm back to New Mexico.  It was very sad when I arrived to my parents’ house, but fortunately many of my stepmom’s families and friends were there to support her and to pay their respect to my dad.

   Dora and Gloria drove from Colorado and arrived the next morning; Yvonne also flew in that evening.  The next couple of days, we all stayed together to morn and to plan the funeral.  We were able to find a very comforting funeral home and arrange for the visitation on Sunday 7/21/13.  Some relatives also helped us by adding some Chinese tradition to the funeral.  Allen finally flew in on Sunday with Katie and Kevin after lots of delay trouble at the airport the day before.  There were also other relatives flying or driving back for the funeral.  Since Logan and Connor are very young and we had the house situation, I did not ask Stuart to make the trip.  The evening of the funeral went smoothly; many families, relatives and friends came to spend few hours with us to pay our dad the last visit. 

    On Monday 7/22/13, we, along with majority of our families and friends, gathered at the funeral home again to accompany our dad on his last journey.  We did a final praying and a flower ceremony, then we were on our escorted possession driving to the crematory.  The final goodbye was very difficult, but our dad is now resting in peace.

    For the rest of the time in New Mexico, my sisters and I helped sort out some of our dad’s belonging and did some cleaning up.  We also took our mom to see a doctor for a checkup.  Yvonne was able to convince our mom to go stay in Florida with them for an extended visit.  So Dora, Gloria and I left on Tue 7/23 while Yvonne and mom flew home on Wed 7/24.

    Stuart did a great job holding down the fort the five days that I was away.  I was so thrilled to see Stuart at the airport and then we picked up the boys at school.  Connor kept staring at me and giggling, and he kept saying “Mommy is here…Mommy is here”.   Logan did not give me any initial reaction, but shortly after, he just held on to me the rest of the evening.  It was so nice to be home with my boys again.