My Aunt Yimmy

Opening up my own place (tomorrow), has made me think a great deal about one of the very most important human being to ever come into my life. My beloved Aunt Yimmy. She didn't know her true birthday, Somewhere around 60, she changed it to be celebrated in Spring rather then the dark depths of February. Honestly, I believe she was more of an Aries anyway. Plus, She deserved to have whatever birthday she wanted.

I wont get too far into her story because I would be making things up in between what I know. Honestly the paragraph above has a presumption in it.

Here is a bit. She was born in Korea, her father had already been killed, a casualty of World War 2 and the fighting between Japan and Korea. I believe by the age of 3, her mother died. She said she did not remember her face, just photos that she had seen. She was sent to a Buddhist temple. After finding her not to be Nun material, she was adopted, due to life, she was returned. She was "farmed" out. At a very young age, she and other children were used to haul wood to a village market, walking through dark forest in the middle of the night with armloads of wood and motivated by the fear of ghosts that would drag sleeping children into the lake never to be seen from again. Fast forward to years later, she met a handsome GI, my Uncle Jimmy. On March 10th, 1974, my Aunt Yimmy came to America. A week later on St Patrick's day, she was married. 2 years later, on March 10th, 1976, I was born, in my mind linking us together for all of eternity.

She was the first person to REALLY SEE ME. My extended family is very large. When I was young, there were a lot of us kids. 5 I would put just in my age group, and many more older and younger. Some, beautiful, some smart, some out going, none of us shy around each other. I was kinda quiet though, never really took lead on anything. My Aunt was very smart. She learned English, long division, how to coupon, and live on the other side of the earth from where she was born. It was hard, she was living on a farm in Airville, not exactly a great place of diversity. The food, the water, the people, everything was different, and there was trauma to deal with in a world that had yet to recognize trauma as something that needed to be recognized or dealt with. For some reason, I like to believe it was fate, some linking of our souls from another life or time before time. She saw me, she thought, that one is watching, that one is learning by watching.

For 44 years, she was in my life. I resent 2020, because of not going to see her, I did not realize how sick she had become. I was in my own situation, not understanding why I could never seem to get her on the phone, or when I did, she was quick and didn't really make mu