Talk#389

Bonnie and A Chai met in the mid-60s, and were married in early summer of 1971.

Michael is their first son. He was a very cute kid, very bright and gifted. He went to Berkeley ( B.A. in Physics) and on to University of Michigan (Ph.D. in Astrophysics). Mike now works for NASA in Maryland. Peter is the second son, also went to Berkeley ( B.A. in Linguistics). The youngest is Jonathan, who went to UC San Diego
( B.S. in Biological science), now works for the Scripps research institute in La Jolla. They are all great kids, and were taught well by their parents about the value of education.

Bonnie does not seem to speak Chinese at all, except when ordering her favorite Chinese dishes in restaurants. On the other, hand she does not mind all of us speak Cantonese all the time when she is around. She knows whenever the Lighters get together, we are on a time machine that takes us back to Waterloo Rd (the current PC front gate is on Pui-Ching Rd.) in "Ho Man Tien" in the 50s. There is no stopping of Cantonese flying around. She is patient with the Lighters.

Bonnie was very good at hand-painting X'mas cards. I used to look for cards from her and see what she came up with year after year.

Somewhere along the way, Bonnie and A Chai got divorced. They continued to live in the same house for many years. This is another rather interesting relationship between the two. They were divorced, but "lived in sin" together.

Eventually she moved to her own place. One day A Chai got into this accident. He was immobile and hospitalized in Santa Clara.

To my knowledge, among the first few persons who went to take care of A Chai at the hospital was Jean Yee ( the first daughter of our fellow Lighter Jai Yee). Jean was working in San Jose at the time, She would go to visit A Chai after work, prepared food for him often, and set up e-mail for him at his bed. We were greatly moved by the
kindness bestowed on A Chai by Jean. She and others took care of A Chai for months. Her parents taught her and brought her up well. There is no greater gift than kindness received in time of needs. We, the lighters, thank Jai and Mrs. Yee for bringing up such a nice daughter. It was also heartwarming to see A Chai enjoyed the support and friendship of the Lighters around the world during the most difficult months and beyond.

It was time for A Chai to go home after a few months in the hospital, Bonnie got the house wheel chair ready for him.

She continued to visit and help out at the house from time to time. Gradually she spent more time at the house and eventually moved back in, and started "living in sin" again. It was just like old time.

In the summer of 2001, they got married to each other for the second time. They invited every lighter to attend their dinner party on Dec. 29th, 2001, and they expect some 100 guests to show up.

A Chai is a loyal and a great Lighter. The courage he displays far exceeds the ordinary. A Chai skis and plays tennis all in his wheel chair. We are blessed with such a courageous Lighter among us. I came to respect his courage and I believe firmly the " time spent at Ho man Tien, the Lo family garden and Dong San" helped A Chai to overcome long- term adversity. I believe the stories
his father told us about Pui-Ching have very positive effects in fostering the Red-Blue spirit we all come to cherish.

We are all glad the Bonnie and A chai are no longer living in sin, but in joy.

And we thank Bonnie and A Chai for a lesson in "Love is lovelier the second time around". ( This article has been sanctioned by A Chai.---55)