My Chinese last name means leaf. The Chinese love their idiomatic sayings, where four syllables can carry deep and profound meaning. There is one in particular that I associate with my time in Los Angeles, both while at UCLA and in the weeks after, and that is “A fallen leaf always returns to its roots.” I was undeniably a fallen leaf then, and I had returned to the place where I grew up, where so much of my family and so many friends remain, and where new friends gathered, where they encircled me, Josh, and our girls in love and protection, where I started the process of rebirth into a new
...more
