ahora vamos a contar

today was interesting. we ate, met a crazy lady, sang karaoke, ate, my cousins helped me with the ins and outs of dance dance revolution, gossiped, ate, and had some sad talks.

in 2002, my 3-yr-old cousin m died abroad while her family attended another cousin's wedding. visiting her mother(my aunt)'s house can be very difficult because it holds a lot of memories even though they moved a year and a half ago. little things, like my little cousin rocking out to karaoke, remind us -and particularly my aunt and uncle- of my lost cousin. certain songs we no longer sing because the associations are so strong... certain family stories cannot be told without tears flowing, and sometimes my aunt just goes silent or bursts into tears. it's hard. and what's even harder, as i just discussed with my older cousin with whom i'm staying, is that we're starting to forget. she told me she had forgotten m's birthday and was wondering why she couldn't get a hold of her mother. i admitted that i didn't even know the exact anniversary of her death because it coincided with the same timeframe of my mom's cancer diagnosis and i was an emotional mess back then. our memories are getting fuzzier as we've progressed through the healing process. what do you say? what do you do? i'm glad i can talk to my older cousins about it and know that i'm not the only one who is often at a loss.

cutie pie pics will be posted thursday. tomorrow my godson's sister has swimming lessons!