This is for Janet

This particular piece I am keeping for my blog~will be different from my others.

This is for my sister~

Our brother Carl played a beautiful song called "Coming Home" 

Janet has been a gift to so many of us!!

In March, 2007, I was in Pennsylvania, here at Janet's, with one of Janet's best friends Amie. 

Amie was my classmate, but she and Janet were SO alike!
Their friendship was one of the most special Janet had.

Amie wrote to me "...what she was like...  A wonderful  friend and mother when she could be. It makes me very sad I do not understand why the darkness was there so strong sometimes… and what it meant and I never will….but what I can remember is the light she brought to my life in a way that no one else could."

Mom, Janet and Amie could do their last hike all together less than a month before Janet died, April 2012. Mom says Janet was so full of joy.

The past 5 years since I moved back to the States from Japan~ I felt like Janet could die at any time. She told many of us, she cursed each morning she had to awaken to. 

Her liver took a terrible toll, and from two years ago or more, doctors told her there was little left of her liver. Yet Jan would indulge when she was able to anyway. About six weeks ago she broke her wrist. She was given painkillers, and unfortunately abused those as well. She went to bed May 1st, and couldn't awaken the next morning. Her body couldn't carry on. But her spirit does in us.

Janet was able to stay with Mom and Frank for the past six months, 

and their connecting was a blessed time. 

A good friend recently made this card for us.

Like she said, the hurt will get better.

This blog piece, I came back to it as regularly as I could during this month.

I have been adding to it, editing it, loving it.

I planned to until the end of May, after her memorial.

I do ask friends and family, please share your stories with us. And if you would so allow~ may I share them on as well? As you can see, stories such as the Memoriam Janet's AA sponsor, K~wrote at the end of this piece~ another very, very special sharing of the heart and times spent with Janet.

As we "fare thee well" 

to the gorgeous friend, daughter, sister, mother, and grandmother that Janet has been.

May '08, Jan's daughter Jessie, Jan and Mom.                               

                                                     
And Jan with her granddaughter, Jessie's daughter May  2010    

The day I heard from Mom that the date was decided for Janet's memorial, my husband Taka was outside digging on our property planting flowers~ (of all things! Janet loves flowers you know).

He found this wooden bird in the soil. Janet!!!

Hey~

J. Bird!!!

Make us think of you!!!!

Janet Louise Jackson

J.J.

The wooden bird sits in our new altar now

  .

About a week before Janet died, I finally found this plant I had been looking for.

It's an asparagus fern, it's a finer fern than what I kept finding around. 
But I wanted this particular one because of Janet, 
she had had one amazing asparagus fern in her bedroom when we were teenagers.
I wanted this~ hoping I could get it to grow like Janet always could...in an empty spot of our rental.

Mom and Janet always could grow indoor plants beuatifully. But indoor plants always died on me. 

                          


I was worried I might kill this pretty little delicate thing. But look~

  it's growing so much, I'm so excited. Since Janet died, I look at it so often, and think of her. The long branches reaching out...makes me feel like it's Janet reaching out to us~

From our past~

Me, Janet and our younger brother Carl were at Janet's home in 1999.

And with all of our kids, her one and my four~

She was my little sister. We were very close in age. We used to joke about how we were "twins" from November 4th until December 23rd, for eight weeks every year, we were the same age.

Jan looks worried about her dandilion~

1969 with baby Carl.

This is how so many of us love remembering Jan, outdoors, with that hair...laughing...

with those amazing legs!!! Yep, J-Bird

She loved flowers. 

When I was in fifth grade I even won an award at school for a book I wrote called: 

Janet and the Flower

 So many people know how very, very different Jan and I were. 

But we had this love for one another...the epitome of how sibling love can run deep.

We all wanted her here for ourselves, but we've known for some time now that for Jan, life on this earth was more than she could stand to deal with. Oh how she bitched about~ some things! Even when she bitched,  she bitched and we could laugh together over the bitchiness she felt. Yes, she has been a very, very special person in so many people's lives. And we all are remembering that!

JANET JACKSON

IN MEMORIAM

I am K~ and deeply aggrieved that I cannot be here to read this.  I was Janet’s AA sponsor for the past 6 months.  I met her when she stood in front of me at a meeting, and with that sardonic smile of hers, pointing at someone across the room, saying “that guy over there told me to ask you to be my sponsor”.  She seemed amused, cynical, slightly self-conscious, but somehow willing to take direction.  Of course I said yes.  Little did I realize that this would be one of the most challenging sponsees I would ever encounter.  The added coincidence and surprise came when I learned that her mother was the very Priscilla I had known a few years before from church.  I knew of the son and daughter somewhere out there, ‘missing in action’.  And here I was sponsoring her daughter.

Over the months of phone calls and driving Janet to meetings, I saw someone who was at once completely lost, and yet SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW willing to give this a shot.  There was someone kind and sweet hiding inside of a tough facade.  Sitting in my car as I dropped her off after many a meeting, at times when Janet would seem to be struggling harder and visibly angry or disturbed, I would often lean over, place my hand gently on her breastbone, and declare “I know who’s in there.  I see her.  I wish that you saw her too.  I see someone who has a glimmer of hope at times that this process might work.  And the reason I know that is that I ask you to call me every day and you DO.  You willingly get into my car and ride to meetings all the time.  I see that face of yours bloom into a smile from time to time and I know that you see it … the hope … the ‘thing’ … the possibility for joy that so many of us have found.”

In my little fledgling art business I saw the best of Janet.  She was an energetic, willing and very generous helper.  Janet was my volunteer assistant for the first craft show I ever participated in.  I was terrified, overwhelmed, and physically challenged with the amount of work involved.  She was ready to roll at 6:30am when I picked her up, bleary eyed from 2 hours of sleep, and she supported and encouraged me throughout the day all the way to unloading at the day’s end with multiple trips up the stairs at my home to store everything.  She smiled, she seemed to have fun, and I saw someone who recognized possibilities for herself.  It was sweet.  It was wonderful.  I called her the next morning especially to thank her for her generosity.

I will never know the hidden demons that ravaged the soul of this gentle, lost soul.  That she wasn’t up to the challenge some of the time made us all sad.  On the other hand, she apparently never made it quite this far, or opened her heart quite this much to the possibility of recovery.  And for this, I think we are all grateful.  For me … it was an honor.  This woman occupied a huge part of my heart, my thoughts, my efforts and my life for 6 months.  She will always own a special place in my life’s memories.  I am starting a sponsorship workshop for AA sponsors all over the area, and dedicating it to that sardonic, sweet sponsee I once had … Janet Jackson.

K~

April with Yuriko~ and Sheon and Spring!

Yuriko and Sheon! We got Yuriko here for three months so it's been an easy time touring shops, restaurants, lovely places~ and the weather has been a little rainy, cloudy here you can see...however it's warming up and the girls have been getting their tanning in...

Me~ I'm going at the garden! No tomatoes...but lots of BLOSSOMS! I even found that the purple blossoms from the blooming red radishes are tasty! And the purple-pink blossoms from the daikon have a little daikon flavor. In the salad below, those white blossoms are from the arugula a.k.a.
rocket leaf lettuce.

We're getting whole salads from the garden. Little by little lettuces grow~ the yellow blossoms are from...ummmmm....some Japanese salad mix, and it still grows with tiny leaves~

Zen gets home from College perhaps every two weeks. He gets a dose of Sheon, food, and girlfriend~ gets laundry done and a good space to sleep too~


Sheon, Taka and I got out to the flea market one long Saturday morning a few weeks ago.

Sundays are the big days at the flea mrkt, but Saturday was so wonderfully CIVIL. People weren't as intense as on Sundays, and the weather was gorgeous! I found a great iron pot, Taka got wood for half the price the seller was asking. Taka ended up ma VERY cool shoebox for the entrance of our house.

And this woman carved a mango for us to eat! The tradition, apparently is to always sprinkle it with a read hot chili pepper. Talk about refreshing~tho it did get stuck in our teeth, SO I'm
   covering my mouth!

Santa Cruz~ Yuriko too is feeling it.  I'm wishing so many friends and family could be here already!

Finally!!! We can go back to our house in Santa Cruz!

We hadn't left Santa Cruz County~ but had to leave our house since the end of February.

Our housemate had planned to move by April 1st~ but four months hadn't been enough time to for him to get everything done. So for the month of March, Sheon, Taka and I moved all of our things into our one bedroom at our rental and "got out of the way" so his moving his things would be easier.

One of the worst parts was that Sheon had just begun this one English Class at the College down the road, and I felt so sorry to not be able to have her settled so she could concentrate on the one- very expensive- class. 

But now~ with a new lease, and some house cleaning and repairs, we're slowly but surely making a freshly, cozy home!

We stayed at hotels for the month too, and even camped out a few nights. For the most part Sheon, and sometimes Zen, were able to stay at the loft behind Uncle Lynn's and Lorraine's. Talk about feeling fortunate!

It really reminded us of Japan!!! Squeezing into the small space. Sheon and I could stand up upstairs~ But Zen really needed to crawl!

I did get to get some of my lettuces out of our garden over the month. Even some little carrots, and sweat peas are growing a few at a time~









For the most part we ate out though. We tried a number of different sushi restaurants so that Sheon could get an idea about kinds of restaurants she might like to work at.

Below is outside Pink Godzilla~ I love this picnic table of cacti in front of the shop.

We made dinner at Grandmom's a couple of nights. Zen visited us a few times from Monterey too.

Sheon's driving our purple Subaru now!
It took me a little bit of time to get used to her driving, I had to remind myself she's TWENTY TWO years old and she's BEEN driving. She is great great!

Taka and I got to plant lots of seeds, and leave them in a greenhouse at Uncle Lynn's yard SHUNGIKU, SHISO, BASIL, SPINACH....and more.

It's been raining a lot the month of March~and it's been cold~~

Where ever we are, Sheon's got to find her smoking areas outside, rain or shine.

Taka and I were at Whole Foods to do internet one day, sitting outside, this sign was there. 

Funny~ when Japanese read this sign- Taka told me he and Sheon were talking about it...that it sounds to Japanese that it's free to smoke here!

 

Sheon and I on another of our days out shopping, she found these Pockys from Japan...she laughed, seeing the ingredients all in English "Weird" she says.

And then I kept finding this "NISHO-MARK" around Santa Cruz...and the type...japanesey, and Sheon asks "Why do Americans like it so much?"

Speaking of Japan, at our school in Japan, Anita was having an Easter egg decorating party I got to skype for an hour with the class and the event from our hotel room~ I wish I had better pictures!

So~

 as I wrote at the start of this blog entry, lots of repairs are being made at our rental. The hole in the kitchen floor is finally getting filled! Walls and cabinets painted...

And the day we went to see some sofas in San Jose that were for sale (we bought them) That day we got to see this fantastic rainbow~ BOTH ends of it ! The place we went to see the sofa was somewhere right there under the middle of the rainbow! What a nice sign, wasn't it?!

Spring is coming with the rains, 

and jasmine is about to bloom outside our kitchen window.

Here's to hoping your days are good too!