something personal -

I am feeling particularly tender tonight, so perhaps would like to reveal something that has been going on in my family for a long time.  I sit with it tonight, as there was a shift last night, and I feel a need to speak.  Know that this is all my interpretation, my need to share something that stirs with passionate love in my heart. 

Many of you know that Jeff and Jan met as freshman at University High School in, I believe, it was 1987.  I first met Jan when she was chasing Jeff around the table where I was selling books for the school.  She was cute, and she was chasing him.  Her mother sat next to me, and laughed too.  It was so cute, and, so sweet, and  they were so young, and yet, her parents would not allow them to date because he was not Asian, and yet, she gave him rose bushes which I still have, and I gather roses from them every year - Sterling Silver and Granada, and these two people love each other in a way that would make your heart curl,  like whipped cream.  They went to the same college, and, had to hide their love.   They made an attempt at seeing other people.  This was their first love, and perhaps, needed testing.  Jan studied medicine in Philadelphia.  Jeff flew back and forth.  She is doing her residency in Santa Rosa.  He keeps his place in Mountain View, and has driven up and down that horrendous drive every week for over two years, almost three now.  He gave her a beautiful engagement ring, and still, she could not tell her parents, because she was afraid they would disown her, as they said they would.   When I was up at her hospital after the operation,  she introduced me as her mother-in-law.  She has sent me a Mother’s Day card for years.  This has been breaking my heart.  I struggled to honor her fears around her parent’s response, her loyalty to her lineage, and my own seeing of a beautiful and precious love.  I could not believe her parents would not understand, and I am not Asian.

Last night, after agonizing on how to do it for years,  Jan called her parents to tell them.  Her father hung up on her.  Her mother seems receptive.  She is grateful that Jeff is intelligent, and he is.  Who could not adore Jeff?   I want to meet her mother again.  She wants grandchildren, as do I.   My niece is a mix of east and west, and I believe that two people who love like Jan and Jeff will produce only love, and I pray, and I ask you to pray, as fervently as you did for my red and white blood cells, and, by the way,  they are doing super-great, that Jan’s parents see that times have changed.  We are out of the caves, and we are mixing blood all over the place, and it is good.  Let these two children, now beautiful adults, have peace in their life, and the fulfillment of grace. 

Jeff and Jan spent last night here.  They needed to be here.  I am grateful for that, and I want these two people to have the peace and honoring they deserve.  I want them to marry with the love and support of four parents.  I want to unite two families.  I pray that her parents, especially her father, come to see that we no longer live in a world where we have to marry within a race.  We marry for love, and that is what I see here.  I pray for peace.   Thank you for letting me share this extremely private piece of my heart.