mahjong

Yesterday I got a package in the mail. In it was my mom‘s Mahjong set. Playing was truly her happy place and I knew when she was able to, she was OK the last few years before she died. She got to be social. She got to entertain. She got to think and strategize and serve desserts

Back in the way - way back - she played twice a week. She baked delicious things that we couldn’t taste until the mahjong ladies dug in first. Every Monday night and Thursday afternoon that she hosted I’d hear the clacking of tiles and chattering of women as our house filled up with cigarette smoke. You couldn’t ask people not to smoke in your house. And the day the new mahjong card came out? Thrilling in her world. 

As she got older and sicker and got lost in dementia or whatever else was causing her mental struggles, being able to play was a very big deal. The game came to her every week because she couldn’t travel anymore. Every time she played, we would talk about what desserts she was serving, who was there, and what they talked about. Even when she’d say she wasn’t up for it, after she played she was delighted. Exhausted and wiped out, but happy. 

Inside one of the bags of tiles I found her latest mahjong cards: 2020 and 2021, in almost perfect condition. She never played in 2022 - she spent much of that year in the hospital before she died in June. A bit of concrete evidence of her much longer journey. Tearful moment. 

I need to find a box to keep everything in. Hers must have fallen apart. I need to find a place to store everything. And I need to figure out if I want to learn to play and continue her joyful, friend filled tradition.