Today we visited my very special host Mum, Keiko's Mum, Mrs Aibara. At the moment Keiko is extremely busy with her PhD which should all be submitted by March next year, Yay! She says. It has been hard for her being so busy and having us here as a distraction at this time in her life. We've been so grateful that we've been able to spend as much time as we have with her, but remember fondly the days when we were living here and just round the corner to boot, when we could just pop in for the morning or afternoon to have a cuppa and a chat.
So we made arrangements with Jun, who had some free time today and was more than happy to accompany us on the long trip to see Mrs Aibara. We had seen Mrs Aibara at the Cowra Seikei Exchange dinner but only chatted briefly, so I was looking forward to spending more time with her. Mrs Aibara was my Mum for about 8 months and let me tell you it was no easy task when I was 17 going on 18. We came from worlds apart, and I'm not talking about countries here. She is a strong, very clever and well educated lady from a traditional Japanese family, and as such quite strict and formal. So a simple country girl like myself, with few airs and graces, was quite a shock I'm sure. She did manage to teach me many things though and over the year and subsequent years we became very close. She suffered a stroke several years ago, which has effected her sight and physicaly she is now quite frail, but her mind seems to be improving each year rather than deteriorating! She is an amazing woman. Oh, I forgot to mention that she was a concert pianist and one of the terrible effects of the stroke has meant that she is unable to play the piano anymore, which is a real shame and must be extremely difficult for her.
We wiled away the few hours we had together chatting and reminiscing about the years past and I have to say, somewhat embarassedly, she was reminding me of several incidents from the past that my mind had long forgotten! It was a wonderful time.
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