Balboa Sushi House

   The afternoon that I began writing this blog entry I had been walking on Balboa street to buy a nice desert from a Russian bakery near my apartment called Cinderella. The  bakery is located just down the block from my favorite San Francisco Japanese restaurant, Balboa Sushi House, and as I passed the place, I looked in to see if the co-owner, Annie, was available for me to say hello to (I felt badly if I passed by here without at least looking in to smile). There were a few people standing outside the place, and as Annie peeked out for a moment, she saw me and came over to tell me that her husband had died the day before.
   A young man came out to join us, and Annie introduced him to me as her son, just in from their native Korea. Annie hugged me as her son bowed and thanked me, and she proceeded to tell me about her husband's heart attack in the restaurant the night before, how suddenly everything had happened, and that he had too young to die. It was very sad and somewhat unreal to me, as I imagine it was for her, too.
   She went on to thank me for being so nice to her over the years, and told me that she loved me. I didn't know what to say to her when she said that, but I must say that it was really touching. I wondered whether Annie had said those words a bit too easily somehow, as I often question if people really mean it when they say things like that to people that are in some sense strangers, at least in my eyes. I rely didn't know anything about Annie, not even her last name.
   Wondering if I should be feeling those feelings too, I realized then that it had been nearly ten years that Fernanda and I had been going there, and I really did feel a warmth for her in my heart when I would enter her place. My desire to consistently return there was partly for the sushi, but mainly for the warm service and sweet decor, filled as the restaurant was with plants, small figurines and various artwork and mementos from regular patrons.
   Annie, with her colorful clothing, ran the front of the place, while her husband made the food in the back. I had only met her husband once, when he came out from the kitchen to say hello after I had told Annie that I had never actually seen him. Interestingly, when I called to order takeout a couple days before, her husband picked up the phone, which he had never done in the years that I had called there.
   Strange that I had had this encounter with him, only the second verbal exchange in these years, just a couple of days ago, and now he was dead.
   Annie was so gracious with me today as she mourned with friends at the restaurant; I really felt like I meant something to her, even though really just a customer. Perhaps the reason she had told me that she loved me was because she has a lot of love in her.
   She told me that she will be returning to Korea to live. It seems that the strongest ties that she had to San Francisco was her husband, and the restaurant they ran together.
   As I think about Annie and the loss of her husband, I feel that there is less sweetness in my life, too.