Death Anniversaries and Zeal
Afterlife dedication and book review.
A year ago today, we lost my beloved Bachan, Teruko “Terry” Azevedo (Watanabe). It’s been a really long year. I’ve been hearing her voice a lot lately, her sayings echoing through my head like she is right here before my own inner voice has anything to say. I imagine her sitting on the floor around a Japanese chabudai smoking cigarettes (“puffing” or “concentrating” as she would call it) with her sister (Aunt Keiko) in the great hangout of the beyond, seeing my stepdad Mike who has barged in suddenly, she tilts her head back, her eyes and eyebrows widening with her mouth tilting down a little in this epic practically trademarked shocked and confused frown and she says “What are you doing here?!” and he, true to form, says, “It is I! The one who never knocks!” but I think they’re maybe alright no longer in all this pain we have down here, my stepdad is drinking Coronas with his brother and some friends and my Bachan just keeps on talking and puffing into eternity surrounded by all her girlfriends while my grandpa is chilling somewhere completely contentedly. I know that’s probably not what heaven is exactly like, I mean how can beer be branded in heaven at the very least, it’s all so unknowable and beyond us, but I still feel like somehow they know when another one of us joins them and we over here can feel them over there somewhere, and it’s also just so good to imagine (the reunion they might have) and so nice to talk about, apart from all the missing we do. Miss you.
[You can listen to my audio recording of For Teruko Azevedo in SUDS Zine Volume 2]
And another poem of mine for you from SUDS Zine Volume Two.
[Listen to Bon Tempe Lake in SUDS Zine here]
A few weeks ago, I went on 3 day retreat in Inverness in West Marin at St. Columba’s Retreat House as a part of a “Rule of Life” retreat for people in their 20’s and 30’s. We prayed together, shared meals, and talked about the role and impact of technology on our lives. I left feeling inspired to pray more, to seek more spiritual community, and to give up watching TV alone during Lent and also to give up even “necessary” work-related social media during Lent. I’ve definitely slipped since then but the intention is here, I’m grateful to have God as my True North and that my compass will keep on pointing towards God no matter the directions I end up wandering.
Recommendations:
Zeal — Morgan Jerkins (Harper Collins, April 22nd, 2025)
Amidst sharecropping, Black Codes, and vigilante terror, Morgan Jerkins writes of the violence and separation of the post-Civil War South, in all its brutal viscera. Staring directly into the dark heart of American history—and into the present day—Jerkins has lifted up a peoples’ cry for freedom toward the forces that guide us home. Zeal is an outstanding historical narrative and multigenerational epic, a love story and a reckoning that will both break you and make you believe.