Makiko Itoh : Not a nameless cat.

I downloaded my Twitter archive today for my main account @makiwi. In March 2011, I tweeted 7,041 times. Most of that were my desperate efforts to try to keep people updated with news regarding the earthquake coming from Japan. What a crazy, crazy month that was.

But what a year 2011 was.

I woke up, and no longer felt like I wanted to go right back to bed.

Progress.

This piece was originally posted on Quora in response to this question. I wanted to re-post it here, as a part of my own history and that of my family. It contains some painful and personal/family details, for which I may incur the wrath of my relatives if they should happen to read this. For this, I apologize. But somehow I needed to tell it. It may also explain to some people why I have not responded to your condolences or attempts to reminisce about my father in the past year. For that, I also apologize.

In many ways, this is the "other side" to this.

As I've already mentioned online somewhere, my father died in late November. His memorial service will be held in February, at the church he attended. I wrote up a short biography for the pastors at the church to refer to in their eulogy (or whatever it is called that is read out at a memorial service) and I thought I'd post it here too, as a sort of closure. It is admittedly the 'good' version of my father's life, and leaves out a lot, but it is what I think is most fitting.

I am not well. There's no getting around it.

I've been debating with myself for a while whether I should make this public knowledge, but I've decided to go ahead...because you might see something is up anyway. It's hard to write about food, when food is such a part of your health and body. Besides...it's not like a dirty secret. It's part of what I am, in early September 2011.