My memories of my father are divided into parts and shares. Alive, and then dead. Healthy, and then helpless. And further back in time, the first and most division: Present and then absent; loving, and then indifferent (漠不关心的).

He used to be a good writer and loving father. When I was a 16-year-old girl, he was fired from his company, a public, gossip-based dismissal that he would spend decades refusing responsibility for. This was the first crack that divided my relationship with him into poles of before and after. To escape his shame, he pushed away those who reminded him of it, first divorcing my mother, then alienating (疏远) my sister and I.

As an adult, my relationship with my father was one of low expectations and high boundaries. He spent most of his time travelling. But when he died of heart failure in August, I was knocked off balance by the weight of the blow. I thought, after years of setting up delicate fences around our relationship, that I had already begun letting go. His death delivered a realization: despite years of analyzing his complicated love for me, there were pieces of my father I never understood—until I found my father’s notebooks in his cupboard.

In the notebooks, he often collected documentation: train tickets from Rome or a photograph of San Francisco’s Prescott Hotel. But what he was also doing was offering fatherly guidance, the kind I could only receive after he died. His life, in which what he had was never quite enough, was eventually exposed. In his final decade, he realized he had built a castle for himself upon sand and regret. Now in his entries, I hear his voice. “Debaleh,” I hear him say, using his pet name for me, “learn from my mistakes.”

I read these pages among my dad’s clothes, and wept. I hadn’t known that my father, too, lived with that familiar ache for new horizons in his heart, the one that can only be comforted by traveling.

Parents often think that their kids should be good at studies and do well in sports. That’s usually the case because parents feel that could help their children go to top colleges. However, Melissa and Mark Wimmer think differently.

Their 14-year-old son, Mike, is a prodigy. He is a member of Mensa, which is the world’s top IQ club. He completed his high school, associate’s and bachelor’s degrees all in three years. That’s not all. He also ran two tech companies, founded a third one that works towards controlling the population of lionfish, an invasive species.

But the parents are proud that they were able to help Mike with his social skills along with his intellectual skills. Melissa told CNBC that people expected “Young Sheldon” before they met her son. Young Sheldon is a television show about a child talent who is an indoor man and lacks social skills. “But once they talk to Mike, they understand that he’s just a normal 14-year-old that happens to be able to do amazing things,” said Melissa.

Mark and Melissa got to know about their child’s intelligence when he entered preschool. A child psychologist told them that their son would need a different course to support his fast development. Many parents aren’t comfortable with putting their children with 18-year-olds, but Mike’s parents saw the value in letting their child go through it. “I wanted him to be social and be able to deal with all the different personalities in the classrooms with older children,” said Melissa.

The parents shared that they were able to do this by letting Mike find his own voice and put it to use. “We let him order food when he’s 3 or 4 from the waiter or waitress and introduce himself to people. Those kinds of things are done to encourage him to engage with everyone else and be more comfortable talking to others outside of our environment,” said Melissa.

Thanks to his parents, Mike has learned to get along with young and old alike.

How can I speak in 10 minutes about the tight bonds of women over three generations? This is not a finished story. It is a jigsaw puzzle still being put together. Let me tell you about some of the pieces.

The first piece of the jigsaw is my mother. She was 18 when her father died in an accident and she had an arranged marriage. She had only a wish hidden in mind—to escape from her family and start a new life in Australia since she was tired of current life. And after 4 years’ preparation, we went to Australia by boat.

Then, four women across three generations shaped a new life together. My mother worked on farms, then on a car assembly line, working six days, double shifts. Somehow, she found time to study English and gained IT qualifications. We were poor. All the dollars were allocated and extra tuition in English and mathematics was budgeted for whatever missed out, which was usually new clothes; they were always second-hand.

And the next piece of the jigsaw is about myself. I, a refugee and social activist, was invited to speak in venues. I had never imagined that I had the capability to address in public. I told my mother I couldn’t do it. She reminded me that I was now the same age she had been when we boarded the boat. “No” had never been an option. “Just do it,” she said, “and don’t be what you’re not.” So I spoke out on youth unemployment and education. And I realized that it is OK to be an outsider, because being an insider can so easily mean collapsing the horizons.

The last piece of the jigsaw is about my grandmother. Her father died soon after she was born. Her mother raised her alone. With no support from her husband, my grandmother caused a sensation by taking him to court and prosecuting (起诉) her own case, and a far greater sensation when she won. “It can’t be done.” was shown to be wrong.