I was not sure why my dad and my uncle always disagreed with each other in the beginning. They spent many Sundays sitting at opposite ends of the table, arguing about everything. I didn’t think they got along well.

When I was eighteen, I got a call in my college dorm that my dad was having a health problem. My mom picked me up at midnight, so I could be there the next day when my dad was scheduled to transfer(转移) to a better hospital. I didn’t sleep that night, not a while. I was nervous and almost crazy when we arrived at the hospital early the next morning before the transfer.

That morning, as my mom and I walked down the hallway of the hospital, we could see straight into my dad’s room. A tall man wearing a stylish suit stood beside my father’s bed with his back to us. In surprise, my mom said to me, “How nice it is for a doctor to come by to see your dad so early in the morning.” The man was quiet and still, looking down, but he was holding both of my dad’s hands in his own. It seemed not to be a typical doctor’s behavior.

“It’s not a doctor,” I whispered softly to my mom. When the man turned around, we found that it was my uncle. However, little did I know I would continue to reflect on that quiet moment for decades. And it would be the beginning of something truly wonderful.

The hours that followed were some of the most hardest time of my youth. My dad had a serious stomach problem and had to be in hospital for quite a long time. My uncle stayed with us the entire time. For one thing, my uncle tried every way to get my dad to eat something. For another thing, he brought me healthy snacks and made sure I actually ate them even though I had no appetite. When my mother and I were scared that my dad’s illness would get worse, my uncle was always by our side.

Throughout those difficult days in the hospital, I watched my uncle in a new light.

From then on, the relationship between my dad and my uncle became closer.

It was eight o’clock on a cold spring night. Our apartment was full of the artwork of an energeic five-year-old. The house was in a mess.

I was so tired that night. I had depended on a walking stick to go anywhere for seven weeks, recovering from an operation, and I couldn’t find a way to cheer myself up.

The phone rang - for the sixth time in less than an hour. I knew who it was. My mother had been suffering from dementia (痴呆). Though we visited her every few days, she believed that her daughters had not visited in months. She thought that her friend Jimmy never wanted to see her again, but he called her and visited weekly.

She had no idea that she had repeated the things she was about to say a million times today and a million times the day before. She had no idea that I had an operation, nor could she remember her own grandaughter’s name. She forgot most of her own past and she drifted in the present. Also, she was lonely.

This time I cast my anger at the easiest target: my mother, the very victim of this chance horror. “Mom!” I shouted. “We visited two days ago! You have to believe me, and even if you don’t, I cannot talk anymore! Everything is fine!”

Silence. Then: “I was only calling to say hi. Why are you shouting?!” she continued. “Do you have a minute?”

“No, Mom, I don’t. I can’t stand this!”

I sat on the couch, defeated. I was suddenly aware of all that my daughter was watching me shouting at my mother and losing my patience. I have failed at being a good example to my daughter.

My daughter approached me, saying, “Can I talk to Grandma Ellie?”

After many kissing noises, they eventually hung up.

When I look back on my childhood, the first image that springs to my mind is the daisy (雏菊) kept in my dictionary, which always reminds me of my lunchtimes with my mother.

When I was in the third grade, I was picked to be the princess in the school play, and for weeks my mother had practised my lines (台词) so hard with me. But no matter how easily I delivered them at home, as soon as I stepped onstage, every word disappeared from my head. Finally, my teacher took me aside. She explained that she had written a narrator’s (旁白) part to the play, and asked me to switch roles.

I didn’t tell my mother what had happened when I went home for lunch that day. But she sensed my pain, and instead of suggesting we practice my lines, she asked if I wanted to walk in the yard.

It was a lovely spring day and the rose vine (藤蔓) was turning green. Under the huge trees, we could see yellow daisies popping through the grass in bunches, as if a painter had touched our landscape with a little bit of gold. I watched my mother casually bend down by one of the daisies. “I think I’m going to dig up all these weeds,” she said, suddenly pulling a flower up by its roots. “From now on, we’ll have only roses in this garden.”

“But I like daisies,” I protested (抗议). “All flowers are beautiful——even daisies.” My mother looked at me seriously. “Yes, every flower has its own beauty, doesn’t it?” she asked thoughtfully. I nodded, feeling pleased that I had won her over. “And that is true of people too,” she added, “Not everyone can be a princess. Hence, there is no shame in that.”

Relieved that she had sensed my pain, I started to cry when I told her what had happened. She listened and smiled.

“You will be a beautiful narrator,” she comforted.

Backstage on the night of the performance, I still felt nervous.