Hao
Qiao, when I close my eyes, I see you on that escalator when I picked you up on your first arrival at Blue Grass Airport. I see you at my doorstep when you brought your girlfriend, later to be your wife, to our party for the first time (and you also brought roasted duck from Cheng’s). I see you performing a great save of a smash when we entered a 2v2 badminton contest. I see you taking out snacks you thoughtfully prepared for your girlfriend on your Christmas trip, when I happened to have booked the same flight and met you at the gate. I see you, a few seconds later, dashing back to the security check as you had left a luggage there. Too excited because that was your first trip together with a girl, wasn’t it? And I surely see you at my doorstep again, instead picking me up to your house for holiday, when I was at my weakest and loneliest. Now I open my eyes because I don’t want to resee you telling me your physical condition, or a friend calling me with the absolute worst. Qiao, I didn’t really have to put those in writing because they are from our shared lives and will forever live in our shared memories. What I’ve been failing to spell out aloud to you is that I admire you. You showed me the capabilities of a person when he has clear goals, confidence, proactiveness and self control. I still try to live up to you. I regret that we weren’t in much touch in the end. COVID did make travels harder but mainly, I thought we had another fifty years.
