Today is an 8th anniversary of my mother in law’s death. If she were alive, she would be 83 years old. She was diagnosed with diabetes in her early fifties. Since then she had to be careful about her dietary, but she was healthy and controlled it very well. She was really nice to me even though I was her daughter in law. There is some invisible tension between mother in law and daughter in law. I think many Koreans know what I’m talking about. Any way, she was really nice and I also liked her.

When she was 65, diabetes complications came to her eyes and kidneys. She took a surgery on her eyes and started dialysis three times a week. Dialysis made her so weak and it took almost 4 hours. I can’t imagine how hard it was.

My husband’s family used to gather at my husband’s older brother’s house on the first day of March and prepared the food and thought about her and the memories with her, but today we decided not to gather because of this terrible pandemic.

I’m going to prepare some food tonight and I will be thankful to her. I will always love her.