August 2005, London. Three generations.
Yiran has a great capacity to love and has a great need to be loved. Wherever we see a street artist, she would ask money from us and give it to him/her. She and her brother did chores to earn money to donate to Katrina victims. She enjoys distributing plates and napkins in a soup kitchen at a local church. At home she helps us prepare food, tipping green beans, cracking eggs, slicing tofu, measuring rice, and making peanut butter balls. She does a neat job of folding her own laundry, packing her belongings when we travel, wiping the table after dinner and setting the table when we have guests.
A few months ago, one of her goldfish, Little Yellow, died. She cried for a whole day. About one month later, one afternoon, she was playing ball in the backyard with Luran and mommy. The ball rolled to the wooded area where Little Yellow is buried. Yiran went to fetch the ball. She stood next to the wood stick which bears her writing of the fish’s name, tears rolling down her cheeks. She said to mommy chokingly, “I don’t want to play in the backyard ever again. It makes me sad.” Luran was so moved by her sentiments that he wrote his best narrative essay about Yiran’s loss of Little Yellow.
When daddy or mommy needs to be away for a few days for work, Yiran will still cry, sometimes a lot. We tell her that love is not lost even if we are not with her. But she says “I know—but I just don’t like it!” One day daddy left her to practice the piano by herself. She sat there for a long time, sad and silent. When asked why, she said, “I don’t feel loved.”
Yiran is well liked by her friends. For Valentine’s Day of 2004, the last year she was in daycare, her teacher gave each kid a card, to be presented to a classmate. She ended up receiving the cards from more than half of the class!
