Hello again world. This will be brief as I have people to meet and things to share with amazing people. I'm setting off in my journeys again, but this time for me. Here's to World Domination (I'm at the World Domination Summit) 

SF -> Portland -> Seattle -> Hong Kong -> Somewhere along the Silk Road/Gobi Desert with my Dad in a SUV traversing sand dunes -> Beijing -> Shanghai -> Bangkok -> Malaysia -> Borneo -> Sri Lanka. Also, if I have time and the money India, Nepal, Paris and Stockholm (somebody please buy me a lotto ticket). 

Epic trip. But what am I really doing? I'm collecting stories and profiles of amazing everyday people doing awesome things. If you know any people I should meet please let me know. I'm also writing about my experiences these last few years and capturing family stories. Here's to you Mom, I need to write about our stories, if only for my kids and my brother's kids on how awesome you are...

I've met some pretty amazing people so far. I'll get back to this when I have more time. Ahhh... So many things...

Life is too short not to do beautiful things. :) 

"When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, I was at the Oracle OpenWorld conference back in San Francisco. I was extremely jetlagged and had just flown in from Beijing. I was staying at our family home. She sat me down, looked at me and said “I am really sorry... I am really sick. The doctors say it doesn’t look good.“ 

I will never forget that moment, that rare occasion of extreme clarity on what I had to do. (And why were you apologizing Mom?) I was riding a huge wave as a corporate bd/marketing manager in a venture backed company abroad that was going IPO… It was never a question. I left my fancy pants job, fancy pants apartment (that I loved) and my fancy pants boyfriend (that I was figuring out if I loved enough) to make sure that my immigrant mother had all the resources she could have to fight her disease. She barely spoke English. And I stayed, initially taking a leave from work, then quiting, then giving up my apartment, then giving up the bf. And I don’t regret a thing. In fact, strangely this was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.

I ended up working at a job that I really hated. The global financial crisis had just hit and I was lucky to even have a job. As my mom got sicker, the harder I worked at doing interesting things. I stopped being depressed about the situation and got creative (although those were dark days). I learned about tech startups and marketing and entrepreneurship on the side (and at every opportunity I could). I created dreams way beyond what I was dealing with on the day to day - chemotherapy treatments, radiation, sick mom, anxious dad, anxious me, shitty job, and quite a non-existent love life (who has the emotional capacity to deal with more?). I spent a lot of time with my mother at those chemotherapy sessions, and in many ways it was only then that I truly got to know her, not as a mom, but as a person. We talked a lot during those sessions, these words that we spoke of, dreams that we dreamed of.

When the doctors had told us that she just had a few weeks, I quit my job and take her to live some of these dreams that she always dreamed about. She’s always wanted to see the great outdoors, so my brother and I developed a scheme, took a flight to LA to pick up a RV (that was a great deal) and drove it up that night (not knowing how to drive a RV). We went traveling around Yosemite and all over. We took a cruise to Alaska so that my mom could she glaciers and icebergs, penguins and playful humpback whales with their beautiful tales flipping up and down from the water. We got the catch to take her to Taiwan where my mom had only dreamed about the charming restaurants, delicious snacks, and quaint little towns amongst the bamboo covered hillsides. We got the catch to bring her back to China and her hometown, the little city she grew up in, to meet with old friends knowing that this might be her farewells. She stayed in the apartment that her and my father bought for their retirement there. It was a beautiful apartment on the top floor overlooking the river. And she knew. She always knew…

There is something very profound when you know you only have a limited time to do something. It makes you love, live and achieve more than if you did if you had as much time as you wanted. In dealing with imminent death, all ego melts away, you spend more time on things that give meaning to your life and the people you love, and you learn to appreciate every single joy. 

My mom passed away a good year after that initial 6 week diagnosis. The key to that I think was being able to keep dreaming about all these wonderful things to do and we definitely gave her things to regularly look forward to. She passed away as I was launching my first startup. We helped inspire each other to live each other’s dreams. It was the biggest gift she could have given to me and I carry this with me each day. She used to find clipping in the Chinese newspapers about crazy startups in the Valley and encouraged me to find the courage to be who I really was. This is not easy as I honestly tend to be the shy sweet introverted girl next door type, as opposed to the "go for it" "take over the world" type. 

Life is truly a gift, sometimes you don’t realize or appreciate it’s fleeting nature until forced to tackle it head on. And I say this often and truly mean it when I say that I am a really lucky girl. I am just barely able to talk about it without the typical emotional outpourings.

The only way I can reconcile this in my head most days that to believe and truly believe it was all a lesson - to teach me that life is short and how to find my strength and live the life I’ve always dreamed about. Sometimes the only way to really fight death is to truly live. It has taught me how to find my courage. To find the resources and strength that I’ve never known existed."

From my private journals. Happy Mother's Day...

Hot sticky humid summer nights in Shanghai. We are holed up in a small cramped hotel room on a busy street near the tree-lined French Concession area of the city. We are on one my my family's now customary workcations (work vacations) during the summer off from grade school. 

My lil brother isn't feeling well and has a fever, coughing waking in and out of sleep. My mom gets up and makes it her singular goal to get him porridge at 2am in the morning. She went out not knowing the area, alone; Dad was away on a business meeting. She found only small street vendors open that late. They were slowly closing up for the night. This is Asia at 2am. They didn't have to-go bowls, nor a solution. She looks around frustrated. "How much for the whole pot?" 

She bought the whole restaurant sized pot, making some random stranger's night, and brought it back, porridge spilling over on the sidewalk as she walked back with the gigantic metal cauldron. We are a family of happy Chinese kids as we eat late night porridge out this gigantic pot, the glow of busy neon red lights flickering outside the hotel window. She smiles. And what a smile. We smile too.

A couple days later, my brother is still not well. We had to take him to the hospital. Chinese hospitals are nothing like American hospitals. The nurse couldn't find my brother's vein for the IV. Mom gave her signature annoyed look and found his vein herself. "Stupid commi nurses" she says...

"I brought you flowers today because I love you and you always listen..."

This is my mom. Clips of memory of my awesome awesome mom and just one of the numerous stories remembered today. 

I can't believe it's been exactly a year. Sometimes I am afraid to write about you because I think I could never stop -if it weren't for the fact that I know I have to keep writing... 

And I covered you today with your favorite flowers, scattered the petals in the wind to remind myself of how fleeting and beautiful these moments - and watched the sun shine over you waiting for the phoenix's rebirth.