The day Yoshi died was the worst day of my life, second only to the night I learned of my brother Yakko’s suicide – worse, even, than when my own mother died, for she had been conscious until the last hour of her life. My Lila, her daughter; April, who called her Mom #2; two young women standing up to an incalculable loss. Nothing, nothing ever prepares you for the loss of a parent, not age, not health status, not knowing that death is inevitable, nothing. Nothing.
I was losing a woman who had given me dignity, who had taken my husband and me in without question, because her daughter loved us. As I watched Lila’s mother slip away from us, as I watched Lila stand up, I knew that part of my own existence was going with her. But she had taught me a lot, as I would say days later at her funeral. I never expected, though, that because of Yoshi I would sing again so soon, fulfilling a promised I’d made to her. I’d been quite sure that that was a long, long, long way off.
I heard Yoshi a year after that, or had a very strong sense of her, a year later when Leopoldine passed away at our house. I’m not psychic – my mother was – but I sensed her laughter and I sensed that she’d come to pick up Leo; and then I sensed that, laughing, she and Leo went over the Rainbow Bridge together. I sensed that they were both healthy and vigorous, Leo giving a joyful leap before disappearing over the Bridge.
I feel Yoshi sometimes when I cook. Yoshi was a marvelous cook, as Lila is. I see Gabby cook – like the old folks, she’s a natural – and I’m reminded of Yoshi, who she never knew. I see her in Brian’s cooking attempts. Yoshi was all about good food. She didn’t eat crap. When Lila was a little girl, Yoshi simply eliminated sodas and junk food from the household, minimizing nutritional deficiencies and cultivating tastes for great coffee, tea, and proper food prepared right. She was using marinades and herbal rubs before they became cool. She grew her own herbs. She hated false ingredients and accepted no substitutes.
Although my life has a hole in it that will be there for the rest of my days, it’s better for having had Yoshi in it. No one else on earth can ever take the place of one’s mother; but in Yoshi, I had more than my best friend’s mother, I had a Mom #2; I had the most important of all things, a mother/friend.
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