the basics

TingTing was my favorite stuednt in China.  My first day at school was her first day at school.  After a week or so we went to lunch--I had fried pork with potato and she told me about her life.  What I remember about this day is her telling me about missing her grandfather.  She and her grandfather shared a bed from the time she was very young.  One day about six weeks earlier she had awoken to find her grandfather dead.  Although many people from the village came it was too late, he had died in the night.  Her family blamed her for staying asleep and not knowing he was dead.  She hung her head and tears flowed into her lunch.  She had no western concept of a soul and for her death is final.  I was struck by an overwhelming passion to protect this child.  Over the time I was there we began to discuss the possibility of her coming to the U.S. to study.  It was a huge, unbelievable dream.  And we began the process of realising this dream.  And I made a promise.  And now she is here...sitting on the couch, surfing the net, eating popcorn and talking to the cat.