01-20-2021
Rachel is Carey’s wife, and Carey is my daughter’s classmate. Rachel and Carey have four children in middle or elementary school and two of their children are girl and boy twins.
Before I met Rachel, I had already heard from my daughter and Grace, my daughter’s other classmate, that Rachel is good at making delicious desserts, because her husband, Carey, brought Rachel’s sweets to the department for everyone to share.
In February 2020, before the COVID-19 quarantine, my daughter invited Grace’s and Carey’s family over to our house for a gathering. I finally met Rachel and tasted her fruit tart, which was both delicious and beautiful. Later the same three families had a gathering in Rachel’s place, and Rachel made a plateful of meat egg rolls. We all liked the tasty egg rolls. Rachel joked: “I made the meat egg rolls to show you that Rachel is not only good at making desserts.” Her humor made us laugh.
Rachel had been a missionary to the Philippines for about a year, so she is familiar with Asians and Asian Culture. I enjoy chatting with Rachel and listening to her funny stories. In one of our conversations, I knew that Rachel underwent a big surgery a few years back. After the surgery, she could only drink liquid food and she had no appetite at all. At that time, her body sometimes suffered unbearable pain and fatigue. While mentioning that difficult time, she said: “I believed in spirit power. As my ancestors came from Scotland, I often listen to Scottish special music during the difficult time after my surgery. I really felt the music gave me strength to recover.” Rachel’s words expressed her strong and cheerful will mixed together let me realize that everyone had suffered or is suffering…But strength will will pull us through. As a result, I admire Rachel’s cheerful and outspoken nature very much.
2020′s COVID-19 made parents stop their children from “Trick or treat”ing door-to-door as usual, which caused the Halloween tradition to lose its beauty. When Rachel invited me to join her family on Halloween to “watch the kids fumble around in the dark”, I was filled with wonder.
Halloween in 2020 is also September 15th in the lunar calendar, that night had a full moon in the sky and snow on the ground, it was indeed a beautify snowy winter night. In the evening, Rachel and her children dressed up in Halloween costumes came out, I walked with them to the woods. In the woods, Rachel passed fully-charged flash lights to her children and told them to use the flashlight to look for plastic bags filled with candies in the woods. Earlier, Rachel prepared the plastic bags filled with candies and hid the bags in the woods, so her children could enjoy candy hunting in the evening because door-to-door “trick or treat” was discouraged in 2020.
Under the full moon, the flashlights shone in the snowy dark woods at random places while the children were hunting for candies, which made for an unforgettable scene. I admired Rachel as a loving, creative, and capable mother, because she had created and directed a unique stage for her children to enjoy harvesting candies in a totally different way for Halloween in 2020.
2020′s quarantine created opportunities for Rachel and I to become good friends.
Little Episodes
The beautiful and tasty dessert made by Rachel (02-19-2020)
(School on break for a week, students on a evening gathering. Finally got a chance to taste chef Rachel’s secret recipe of fruit tart. Beautiful and tasty. I enjoyed the sweetness, which also boosted my immunization.)
Rachel self wrote and directed a stage for candy hunting on Halloween night. Sky and the ground, a unforgettable night.
(Hunting for candy: this year’s Halloween had no “Trick or treat”. A very creative mother planned ahead and hid bags of candies in the woods earlier, so her children could use flashlights to hunt for candies in the dark night. Under the big moon, in the snowy woods, hunting for candies, blaming the pandemic for this. Between the sky and the ground, Rachel made a unforgettable night.)
Rachel and I at the beginning of 2021.
