The Last Rose of Shanghai

by Weina Dai Randel

Good girls listen to Mother; bad girls listen to jazz,

a jade leaf growing on a gold branch,

Each day I got out of bed, thinking of this hard truth: a family without a mother was like a pearl necklace without a string.

It was hard to imagine people were tormented because of their beliefs.

the music to his silence,

A love that couldn’t accept a lover’s flaws was a selfish love. He wouldn’t be selfish. He would love her, all of her, her beauty, her smiles, her secrets, her mistakes, and her faults.

You know what happens when people believe something? They believe they’re absolutely right and nothing will change it.”

“There’s karma between lovers, too; we call it yuan. It’s like a predestined chance or like a divine coin of happiness for lovers. You earn them by making good choices in this life, and you’d be paid in the next life.”

He wished them the light of peace, the eternal joys, the unbroken spirit for years to come.

“It’s like your heart is a leaky bottle that you’re trying to fill. All the love, joys, and happy moments go right through it, and it can never be filled up.”