I had always assumed we had an unspoken understanding about these things: that she didn't really mean I was a failure, and I really meant I would try to respect her opinions more. But listening to Auntie Lin tonight reminds me once agian: My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other's meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more. No doubt she told Auntie Lin I was going back to school to get a doctorate.

A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour more tears into it. And really, he's just another bird drinking from your misery.

My mother had a look on her face that I'll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate.

Why do some memories live only on your tongue or in your nose? Why do others always stay in your heart?

Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever.

To come so far, to lose so much and to find nothing. -Jing-mei

For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.