Together for 38 years, I’ve witnessed Ling’s transformation. At the beginning, Ling is like a hibiscus flower fully bloomed under the mid-day sun. Wide open and cheerful, she will instantly brighten the day for those approaching. As she aged, Ling became calmer, more thoughtful and wiser, yet those open and cheerful characters have never faded. She’s honest, says what she thinks. Sometimes people would take offense, but there’s never any menace in her.

The word ‘Patience’ did not exist in her dictionary, but plenty of ‘joy’s and laughters’. I’ll never forget those moments when she came back from work and discovered that she forgot to pick up her son from daycare, or when she was waving her overcoat madly trying to catch a bunny rabbit on the street, or when she sprayed “weed-killer” on my newly planted annuals thinking
they were weeds, or move the ladder away to tidy up the place while I was still in the attic