As Nadia's passing was recognized as a reality in my mind, I started to have the desire to gather all the pieces of small memories of her, confirm each of them and organize them. I am writing this to make sure I have all the puzzle pieces with me.
The following day of the funeral. Supposedly this morning Nadia's final funeral was taken place and she would have been cremated. And there were the mass on the following Saturday, Sunday and Monday from 6pm at San Miguel Church in Tijuana.
Friday night I exchanged messages with Barbara on FB. She talked to me at the funeral. As far as I saw her on FB, she seems to be interested in Japanese culture. I wanted to know Barbara's relationship with Nadia, what she saw about Nadia.
Below is what I learned from Barbara:
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Nadia and Barbara were coworkers at the company called Hyson, which manufactures and provides services to Rain Bird the sprinkler and irrigation maker. Nadia was with the company almost 2 years since May 2013.
When Nadia talked to Barbara about me, she would call me "Mi Amiga La Japo." Barbara said "You know Yazmin never really verbally called me friend. But we already knew that we were so we didn't need to say it out loud." I don't remember Nadia ever called me a friend either. I did to her though. In my best assumption, she might have avoided the word "amiga" as it is "too Mexican". In any case, it was one of her aspects.
"And she talked about your good news too. She was looking forward to being an aunt. She was very glad for you." This is something Nadia did not tell me and I just heard. It makes me happy even it were not really true.
"Well, she thought about you in the silliest ways. Do you remember the umbrella you gave her from Japan?" It did not click me first, but after thoughts I gradually remembered that I actually gave her an umbrella, a folding type. Beside it was a used one. I think I gave what I used to use. It was about 10 years ago.
"Yes, it was blue." It was my umbrella, no doubt. Because blue is my favorite color. I would have picked some other color if it was for Nadia.
"She said it was awesome and it is. I also had one from Japan, and we compared note and decided that the Japanese made the best high quality umbrella. So we made plans to visit the 4 floor building of the brand the umbrella you gave her was from." I laughed.
"So she thanked you for that umbrella, it was very useful to her, and she wanted to buy her sister and mother another one too, from the retailer in Tokyo." I thanked Barbara for sharing all what she said because I totally forgot about the umbrella until she brought up. "Those are some very good memories of Yazmin that I want you to have. You see it was silly, but it meant a lot to her."
"She also LOVED Maquillage from Shiseido. You gave her some nail polish years ago, she still had it. You don't know how many times we visited Shiseido shops in LA and San Francisco asking for that line. Apparently it was exclusive to Asia. " Nadia traveled to LA and San Francisco with Barbara and other friends last couple of years.
I remember this one. It was a big hard homework for me to think what gift to bring for her whenever I visited her from Japan. Eventually I learned that something "made in Japan" would be a good option. And once I got three nail polishes for her, her sister and her mom.
Also, Nadia and I stopped by Shiseido booth at the Macy's in San Diego. That time she got her a foundation. Now I think Nadia was a Shiseido fan.
Nadia y Ximena
Speaking of Shiseido, I once gave her an eyelash curler for her because I remember she once said that eyelash curler here hurts her because she's got more like Asian eyes. She was actually using a spoon to make her eyelashes curled! She loved the curler, it was pain-free curler. Barbara said she had heard about it too.
Then Nadia lost the curler when she was playing with her friend's kid Ximena. The little girl lost it somewhere. Barbara said she was very upset about it. I said jokingly that I was disappointed too.
"She even kept the pamphlet of Maquillage, and asked me to search where we could buy that when we went to Japan."
Nadia's one big habit was she used to keep lots of stuff once she likes it or she has good memories with it. Even very old things, pictures, packages, papers, or anything. One time she got a tea bag of coca tea from a friend as a souvenir of Andes. She opened it and tasted when I came back to San Diego. Later I saw her still keeping the yellow tea bag package with her. She preserved stuff pretty well and of course her room was filled with lots of stuff. And I kind of do the same, so this might be something we had in common, but she was obsessed with more stuff.
"Well, I was impressed that every pamphlet she had was very well preserved. The pamphlets from NOLA (New Orleans), OMG May, she wouldn't shut up. Really, it was something annoying, but now I look back and can't help but smile."
What I remember her about our New Orleans trip was she loved Bourbon Street, where there are lots of bars and restaurants are on both sides of the street. She said she finally knows why people loves to come Revolucion Avenue in Tijuana.
'But Cafe DuMont, that was the one of the things she talked about NOLA the most. She could almost taste the beignets and coffee. She tried the beignets in Disneyland but would always complain that they will never be as good as the ones in Cafe DuMont. You spoiled her. Hahaha. Even whenever she had coffee, she would complain it's not as good as the one in the Cafe DuMont. She was hard to impress."
"But I'm glad I saw some genuine surprise from her. Sometimes it was something as simple as just gifting her chocolate." Sweets were Nadia's soft spot. Like Barbara said Nadia loved sweets and she was like a child on this part. She was not the person to waste money, but she would buy chewing gum here, and candy there.
Also, Barbara told me that she advised her to use red lip sticks, which is a truly good advice as red lips definitely suited her light skin color. It was surprising that Nadia actually considered to visit Japan this year as I know she was not really interested in Asia generally. Barbara said it was a hard sell, but they was talking to go visit Tokyo Disneyland. (Late years Nadia was with Disney fan friends and she got influenced by them.)
Lastly Barbara said "She talked a lot about you, so I kind of knew you from out talks :-)"
My desire to find the missing puzzle was getting satisfied much more than before the talk. I was so happy to know that Nadia got to know such a great friend at work.
