My mom was laid to rest Friday, after an overwhelming week of being around family (more so than usual), seeing people I hadn’t seen in probably a decade, getting pictures scanned, organized, printed and slideshow’ed. In the end it didn’t even matter about the slideshow (which Trinity and I worked on till 5:30 a.m. Friday) since the laptop brought to play the slideshow wasn’t DVD-enabled.

So, I decided to find a site that would host the entire 13-minute video. It took me all weekend, but finally got it to work with Blip.tv. (Hopefully, they won’t remove it because of the music. Also, I’m finding that the third song, Somewhere Over The Rainbow by IZ, got lost in the flash conversion. Argh. Update: I fixed it!) At any rate, enjoy, and I’ll also share with you what I wrote to say about my mom at the memorial service.

My mom and I delivered flowers for quite a few funerals and one thing she always told me was that the good always die young. In the case of my mom, she was not just good. She was extraordinary. My mom overcame crushing adversity with grace, humor and humility. She came through hardship after hardship and raised four children without help. Each of her kids went on to achieve a measure of success, thanks to the teachings and examples of their mother, who took a hobby and made it a successful flower business.

Now, I can only speak to my experience as an adult. As many of you might know, I’m a journalist by profession. It might be hard to believe but its very true that my experience as a florist’s daughter was possibly the best training I could have had to be a reporter and a journalist. Working with my mom, I had to learn how to call difficult people and demand information. So making demands of police sergeants and fire captains was no big deal later on. My mom taught me about deadlines better than any big story – trying to pack, deliver, unpack and set up for a 500-person wedding for a 5 o’clock dinner made reporting a massive police shootout a walk in the park. I’ve got an impeccable sense of direction after years of mapping out my mom’s delivery routes.

In fact, it was my mom’s love and passion for decorations, plants and landscaping that inspired my first award-winning story, a feature on landscaping in Old Town San Diego. But I couldn’t even take the plaque home that night because I left right after the competition to help my mom with a wedding in Los Angeles.

Through her flowers, my mom also beautified the lives of countless other young people and couples. My mom listened to brides during their most stressful moments and dispensed life advice during many wedding decoration consultations. So many brides confided in her, later telling me, “I love your mom. She’s so easy to talk to.” This was the case even at the end. A nurse checking up on my mom just two weeks ago came away with that wistful smile I’ve seen on so many other faces after they’ve talked to my mom. The nurse, along with so many other brides and grooms, said, “I love your mom. She’s so nice.”

I don’t know what else to say that would properly give tribute to all that my mom meant to me. One of the many things my mom encouraged me in was my photography, which many of you have been the focus of, so you can blame my mom for that. She loved my photography so much that she really didn’t like anyone other than me to take pictures of her work. Here are a few of the pictures I snapped of her – while she yelled at me to stop wasting film on her and use it on the flowers – and other snapshots from my mom’s beautiful life.

If any of you were worried how Trin was treating me during this stressful time (my work spouse actually asked!), not to worry. He was a saint and an angel, putting up with me and my family, letting me buy expensive stuff, running errands, driving long distances just to keep me from losing my mind. I even had to tell him yesterday to stop allowing me to buy so much stuff if he was doing it to make me feel better.

I want to thank everyone who commented their condolences and emailed their love and support. Not only that, FlutePrayer gifted me with a Flickr Pro Account, which I am going to use to put up the photos from the slideshow — the printable ones. All of them are already edited and if any family or friends want copies, all you have to do is print them off Flickr. (Update: I’ve removed the print ability; email me for copies.) Also, Mel and Iliki, you guys always come through for me. I love you guys so much and I thank God you are my friends.

Thank you to everyone who sent cards and flowers — Karl, who sent it to my work, my web team, Mayra Beltran (I’m totally touched by you in particular, since you only met my mom once!), Trinity’s coworkers at the Ventura County Star, Jinah Kim and the AAJA-LA board. Jinah, those flowers were absolutely gorgeous and I think I can add gardenias my list of favorite flowers (along with Casablanca lilies).

Don’t tell Trinity, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so loved before. Thank you all so much.