How I saw in her my own true nature. What was beneath my skin. Inside my bones... Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain. This is how a daughter honors her mother. It is shou so deep it is in your bones. The pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must forget. Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.

My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten.

I was intelligent enough to make up my own mind. I not only had freedom of choice, I had freedom of expression.

I like to go somewhere where I learn something I didn't know before, like the Dry Tortugas between Florida and Cuba.

I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control.

I saw what I had been fighting for: It was for me, a scared child, who had run away a long time ago to what I had imagined was a safer place. And hiding in this place, behind my invisible barriers, I knew what lay on the other side: Her side attacks. Her secret weapons. Her uncanny ability to find my weakest spots. But in the brief instant that I had peered over the barriers I could finally see what was finally there: an old woman, a wok for her armor, a knitting needle for her sword, getting a little crabby as she waited patiently for her daughter to invite her in.

And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.