January 9th was the 10th anniversary of the my dad's passing. It's so hard to believe he's been gone 10 years. We all gathered at the Golden Gate National Cemetery to "celebrate" this anniversary.When we got there, a busload of supervised prisoners were tending the grounds several hundred yards away. I wonder what they were thinking when they saw us...when they saw the kids playing amongst the tombstones and the rest of us sitting on the grass, laughing and joking with each other. See, for us, the cemetery is not a scary or creepy place. Of course we treat the place with respect and a certain degree of solemnity, butwe were there to celebrate. We were there to remember my dad and to fellowship with each other. We sat around in a circle and asked the kids what they remembered about him. Only my oldest niece had any memories of her fun-loving grandpa...the rest were either too young or not yet born when he died. There were some tears, but they were soon replaced by laughter when we reminisced and retold the old funny stories ("Remember when Dad and Uncle Clarence got into that fight at Candlestick park....?)
Most other families that we see at the cemeteries bring flowers, stand solemnly at the grave sites and then leave after a few minutes. Not us. We are there for at least an hour. We even eat there! It is our version of the Philippines' "All Saints Day" or Mexico's "Day of the Dead." Americans don't really have a comparable holiday so we celebrate in our own way.
The Sheriff's bus drove past us and we noticed its passengers staring puzzledly at the pink boxes of dimsum and cookies that were spread out across the hood of my brother's car. It was probably the weirdest picnic they'd ever seen. Unless they were from the Philippines or Mexico, they probably didn't understand.
The kids saluting Grandpa before we left.
We miss you Dad. 
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