One dark day, during that mostly dark week when Alan was in a coma, the hospital dietician Nurhaan had recently met, during her hospitalisation for a sudden hypertensive crisis, walked into his room to  replace his life-sustaining nasogastric nourishment.  She was, coincidentally, now Alan's hospital dietician. Surprised, she told Nurhaan the room was, coincidentally, the same one she'd sat in, holding her husband's hand through the lonely days and nights before he passed away. After a brief but important moment of feeling the connection between them, Nurhaan was jarred by her parting words, "The sun will shine again".

"I don't want the sun to shine again"

For the next several weeks, these words would replay, at times bringing comfort and at others resentment, anger, disbelief, resistance.

Called to the Land of the Rising Sun

On a different day in that long week, the sun suddenly set for the last time on Ani's father in China. The news reached her in the hospital waiting area and, overwhelmed, we began to laugh. We laughed at the exquisitely terrible timing, knowing there is no wrong time. We laughed at the painful irony of our upcoming holiday planning: "Not China, not now. There'll be plenty of time to visit him later". We laughed at the loss of someone and something she never really had. Later, reality landed harshly when Ani, his only child, was traced and summoned by the Chinese government to perform the duties of a child for someone she'd never known as a parent. 

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Offers of help flood in from the well-meaning, usually taking the form of food. While Nurhaan and I are firm believers in the comfort of eating, there's only so much pizza can do before it starts becoming part of the problem. 

"Yes ... You can go with me to China."

So when the call to arms came, it was obvious. Of course we would do what we had to. But, more than that, it was what we knew we needed. And what better place for finding our Way than the source of The Tao.

Heeding the call,

we fly...