Dedicated to…

To my grandmother, the cornerstone and inspiration of my being. I miss you.

I remember one year when I was four years old, you were about to leave Taiwan for America one summer. How many weeks I spent pleading and begging you to stay or to take me with you! I realized my efforts were useless and we were bound to stay apart for that one summer. Somehow, I decided that the best consolation for the both of us was to ensure that you could buy anything you wanted while you were away. Hence, I gave you a hand-drawn check. On the check, I wrote out (in very wobbly numbers) a number one, followed by ten zeroes. No dollar signs, no expiration date…just 10,000,000,000, from me to you.

But now that I think about it, it was 10,000,000,000 in the currency of love. Since there isn’t an expiration date, it will last forever. And if you could carry this tremendous gift across the Pacific, I am sure you could carry it anywhere on your current journey to worlds beyond.