A Special Movie Night

It has now been 12 years since my wife's first husband, Kai's biological father, passed away about a month before Kai was born.

As she does every year, my wife lit a yahrzeit candle in memory of Kevin.

This year, however, we also commemorated the occasion by watching a special dvd that my wife had created.

Long ago, she had put away most of her old photos, the pain of her loss making it too difficult to relive those times. I don't think I fully appreciated her grief and depression during the first few years we were together.

But a few months ago, as she was sorting through things in our crawl space, she came across those old boxes of photos and was finally able to look at them and enjoy the memories. Along with the photographs were various videotapes -- from the wedding, vacations they took, and even a television commercial from Japan that her late husband had starred in. She had highlights from those tapes digitized into one dvd.

Last night, we all viewed them in a special movie night. For the first time, Kai got to see and hear his first father.

Kai seemed to get the most kick out of seeing his mom and other relatives when they were much younger. But he didn't react too much to seeing the father that he never knew.

I think that he's just too young to really appreciate it right now.

But I have a feeling that as he grows older, he will treasure having these photos and videos. Hopefully he will feel like he got to know his father.