today was my birthday. i wanted to go hiking this morning, but the weather kind of sucked (or looked like it was going to), and my daughter complained about not wanting to go (to the point of almost crying, even), and so, i got irritated and said that i was going to go off on my own. while driving off, i kind of thought how immature i was being, and by the time i was on the freeway, decided that i would go to mililani mortuary instead, and visit my grandparents. so, i wound up sitting on the grass in front of my grandparents' grave, kind of talking. i had no flowers. i wonder if it's awkward to go to a grave without flowers. i think flowers are your microphone to the spirits. they must have been like, "you never call, and you never bring us FLOWERS!" oh well.

i spoke about the family situations. about how i thought i was trying my best. stuff like that. and then, some lady was parking her car almost exactly where i was (like, she almost drove onto the grass), so i, kind of embarrassed, picked my glasses off the grass, got up creakily, and walked back to the car.

on the way back, i passed some guy whose car had broken down on the side of the road. now, the road to mililani mortuary passes through an offshoot of kipapa gulch (if it isn't a part of kipapa gulch itself), and it's not a good place to have your car break down. he needed a jump. and i thought, why would anyone run out of power (meaning, they had parked) here, of all places? i offered to jump his car, even though he kind of looked like a tweaker (his eyes and face were kind of red, and he looked irritable). but the jumper cables weren't in my trunk. i suppose i had put them in the other car, the car driven by my wife. so i had to apologize, made some vague promise to get the cables and come back (which i fully intended to do), and drove off. when i got home, my wife was gone, so i couldn't help that guy...

i came home, and started working in the yard, finishing off the weeding of my lawn...

***

in the afternoon, i had to pick up my mom and my nephew from behind mililani shopping center. my mom was fuming. apparently, my mom and dad had gotten into an argument after my nephew's soccer game; my dad had told my mom to get out of the car, and my mom had obliged him. my nephew got out to accompany her...

so i picked them up and drove them home. i listened to the situation, said nothing committal, and dropped them off. my mom was steaming, saying she wasn't going to stay at home, that she would go to a hotel... oh great. we were supposed to have a dinner for my b-day, and my estranged brother's family was supposed to come... and it looked like my own parents couldn't get along?

the argument had been about my nephew's soccer. his team has been having a miserable season. i think he's an okay player himself, but there is no teamwork in his team. the players are all disconnected, kicking the ball in the general direction of their goal individually, but no one follows through, the passes don't "arrive." so anyway, i guess my mom was yelling a bit too much at the game (she has that habit), and my dad kind of got annoyed. after all, it's not as though my nephew can save the team on his own... so.

my mom eventually called and said the dinner was still on. but my brother was coming late, and leaving early, which meant he was going to be visiting with us for 30 minutes at best. he said that he had a prior engagement, unspecified- but for the rest of us, it was clear that he didn't want to be with us at all...

my b-day dinner was tense. on the one hand, my parents didn't want to sit together. on the other, when my brother finally did arrive, he was clearly tense. he sat between my parents. his wife sat with her daughter on the childrens' table. she didn't even come over to say hi to my parents or to me. when i tried to break the ice a little by mentioning the basketball team that he was coaching, he said nothing. when my parents tried to ask about little things, he said nothing... it was clear that he had come with a lot on his mind...

of course, i was to blame. i had written a TERRIBLE letter to him. i had intended to hurt him, as he had hurt the family. i knew it would make him so upset that he would "follow through" on the path that he and his family had been traversing for a while, that is, to leave the family completely. after a few days of very bitter messages back and forth, he called late one night. my brother and i had a conversation that night, which i felt was heartfelt and sincere, a conversation in which a lot was explained, and in which both he and i (but mainly he) apologized, and called for reconciliation. there had been some small hope by the end of that conversation...

so that brought us to tonight, to this crappy dinner in which my brother's family made a brief, tense appearance, and vanished to whatever prior commitment had been so very important that it trumped spending time with a family that he had cast off from him for at least half a year, and potentially forever. some "reunion."

***

my wife had to leave for work, which left all the kids, and my parents. i suppose it was kind of a sign when the lighter that the restaurant provided to light the two candles on my cake didn't work. that was sort of how the day had gone...

anyways, after the brief and embarrassing happy b-day song, i had a little talk with my parents. i tried to calm them down, get them to at least be on speaking terms with each other. i said something about how they both were different, and that they both depended on each other for their complimentary natures, and that part of getting along was accepting those differences, and not expecting or demanding each other to be anything other than who they were. i think it helped. they were at least smiling...

***

i cannot put anything back together. i try to hold things in proximity, with duct tape, but it is in the nature of things to fall apart and away. i hardly know what my own path is any more. i hardly care.

i've been thinking about my own oblivion with regards to my life. i can hardly remember people, details from my past, experiences i have had. and i think it's largely because a part of me doesn't really care about anything, about any part of life. and i think it's because i consider myself to be a nothing person to others, and that, whether i like it or not, that mirrors and morphs into thinking of others and the world as a nothing place.

in the present, there is always a concern to keep one preoccupied, there is always something to love and to hate. but beyond the burning moment, there is nothing else, there is no past and no future, no memory and no past. there is no continuity, nothing lasts, it is always just a momentary drama, to be replaced by another momentary drama. i hold to love, i repeat it like a mantra, even as it slips away over and over. perhaps that is life, that is all life is, is this imperfect and incomplete attempt to pretend something better. an illusion of hope.

oh well. ultimately, i am so grateful for my family, broken as it may seem. i love my wife, my kids; my parents, for holding together, and for taking the time to try to have this dinner for me; for my nieces and nephews; for my brother's family; for my sister... i love them all, and have no choice but to love them, no matter what happens. thank you for my family... and thank you for this life, even if i can't help but not care for it at times.