Mom passed away two years ago today. For those of you who don’t know, our part of the barn was originally the storage area for mom’s pottery studio – she said we could live here if we cleaned it out and made it habitable – a seemingly impossible task – which we did. We started out here six and a half years ago, walking through mom’s pottery studio every day to get upstairs to our home. One of our greatest pleasures once the kids were born was taking them down to see mom, surprising her in her work, and seeing her instant and unabashed delight in her grandchildren.

Her space downstairs remains pretty much the same, and we still trek through it every day. Though it appears empty, it feels full every time I walk through. Full of memories of her, full of her work, full of her spirit. I miss her so much every day, but I feel lucky to continue to live in her presence.

Our dear dear friend and master woodworker Vicco Von Voss made us a beautiful butsudan for mom. A butsudan is a little shrine that many japanese people have in their homes. Usually there is a Buddha inside and little remembrances for family members. Ours is hanging in our living room, between the window and the bookshelf, next to the couch.

The kids jump past mom’s butsudan about 100 times a day, leaping from the couch to the armchair to the cat tower down to the trampoline and back again. I feel like it’s a pretty perfect spot for keeping mom in the thick of things.

When Vicco started thinking about making the butsudan for us, he remembered that he had long ago given mom a large slice of a tree trunk that she had used as a base for flower arrangements. His idea was to use it as the door to the butsudan. We found it in her gallery, propped up against the wall, waiting for the next big show. It was a very large piece of wood, almost 2 feet in diameter. In the original plan for the butsudan, Vicco was going to use the whole thing as a set of doors that opened down the middle. After sitting with the idea for a while, though, we decided something that large would probably feel pretty ostentatious for mom (though she liked to make a splash, she didn’t like it to seem like she was trying to make a splash). So he cut it down and made a simple door that opened from one side.

I love that the contour of that piece of wood leaves a little open space in the lower corner, so that even when the door is shut, it doesn’t feel like it’s completely closed.

Vicco created hinges out of contrasting strips of inlaid wood.

It makes me so happy to think of that piece of wood (which mom loved) being a part of her butsudan. Vicco also was able to find a piece of maple that he had actually used to make a box for me that was my graduation present from mom: a large, gorgeous inlaid box that housed my thesis – an oversized children’s book with illustrations done in hand-pulled lithographs. Vicco just happened upon the exact piece of wood that he used for my box when he was looking through his piles and piles of inventory, and ended up using it as the outside casing for the butsudan. Vicco and I were both so delighted by the discovery, and so glad that piece of maple hadn’t gotten used for anything else in the intervening 15 years.

The butsudan was specially designed with a shelf to hold little souvenirs (“souvenirs” in the french sense of “remembering”, not in the American sense of buying tchotckes at the Hard Rock Cafe).

On the part of the shelf that is outside of the door, I have the candle holders that mom made as giveaways for our wedding guests. We use one to light incense, and the other one holds a dried hydrangea from Uncle D and Annie’s house. Mom would often go over and clip hydrangeas from their bushes to use in her arrangements. I’ve never particularly liked hydrangeas (too big, too showy) but mom loved them. I remember once asking why she liked them so much (frankly, they don’t seem her type) and she told me that her mother loved hydrangeas, so she has a soft spot for them. Which is why when I see hydrangeas now, they make me really happy.

When you open the door, there’s a hidden drawer inside to hold the incense and matches. Vicco designed it so that a natural knot in the wood made a little handle to pull the drawer open with.

On the inside, I have my favorite photo of Mom – smiling and holding Kato. I spent a long time looking for the perfect frame for it. I finally bought a simple pewter frame off of ebay, but when it arrived, it just didn’t feel right. Then, one day I was looking at some crafty mom blog and found the idea of using kenzan (or “frogs”) to hold photos. Kenzan are these little spiky things made out of brass and lead that hold flowers for flower arrangements.

In the many many years that we had a booth at the Philadelphia Flower Show, my job was primarily selling the kenzan. So it seemed like the perfect solution to hold the photo.

I also put a pair of mom’s glasses in there. They’d been sitting on a table downstairs, right where she left them the last day that she was here. The last two things that are in the butsudan are a little clay bear and a ceramic frog.

Dad often spent his entire day downstairs working with mom, and sometimes passed the time by sculpting these little bears. The kiln room still has some little guardian bears in it, one for each of us in the family. The ceramic frog is a little giveaway that we had at the booth at the Flower Show – the word for “frog” in Japanese is “kaeru” which is also phonetically the same as the word for “return.” So japanese people often carry these little ceramic frogs in their wallets so that the money that goes out of the wallet will return to the wallet. And even though mom is gone, I know that she returns to us, all the time, every day.

I see her in Alden’s tenacity.

I see her in Kato’s goofy charm.

And I see her in August’s indomitable smile.

We miss you, Mom. But we are lucky to still be able to visit with you every day, in so many, many ways.