Hi Ying

We miss you so much each day, especially me. How can I forget the first day we met at the Vanness Bakery? You helped me learn Cantonese and I helped you learn English. Together we worked as a team. Then our relationship blossomed, we traveled to Reno together with PHUONG. You helped me purchases our first house. You spent your commission to replaced the garbage and hot water for us bc we were broke. You listened to my life stories and kept all my secrets within you. Beto and i miss you very much. Oh and remember my cousin Nam? He found a picture of you driving Beto to the weeding. Life isn’t fair my friend. We love you always and you are always in our hearts.

At the QMS main office there is of course the small conference room with the extraordinary view:  the Bay, the two bridges, on the other side the silhouette of San Francisco.  Sometimes Jess would stand at the window just looking out.  She would stand there, sometimes in her favorite off-white blazer, her left elbow on the ledge or a cup (tea? coffee?) in her hand.  At what she looked I had no idea.  What she thought of I had no idea. 

One day (a cold, rainy day) when she was standing there, I approached her softly and stood beside her.  “You know,” I said, “when Tony Bennett worked for QMS, he stood at this same place, looked at the same scene.  And the words came to him:  ‘I left my heart in San Francisco.’” 

It was a silly joke, a silly reference to Jess standing and thinking perhaps of her own heart somewhere in San Francisco where she lived.

And her answer, in all seriousness:  “Really?  He really stood here?”

“No,” I said at once.  “Just kidding.  I was just kidding.”

I think of that incident sometimes.  I do not know quite what to make of it.  I do not know what the “moral” is.  That Jess was too sweet and nice, took me literally and didn’t get my joke?   That the joke was too silly, low-class, not worth “getting”?  That she did get the joke and was mocking me (or least playing along) in return? 

What the answer is, I still do not know.  But the memory—the image—of it remains.  And I like the image, I like lingering on it.  Jess standing at the window, her elbow on the ledge or a cup in her hand.  And looking, thinking.  Thinking of what:  The sky?  The clouds?  Her family?  Her heart?

Yes, as I say, I like the image.  So sometimes in your honor, Jess (and not only on cold rainy days), I will stand at the window and look out as well.  Your friends at QMS (so many) might join me.  Do stop by sometimes, say hello.  When you come, bring an orange, an apple, a cup of tea.  Or if these things are hard to find, just bring yourself.  We will talk of Tony Bennett, music.  Or if these things tire you we will talk of the things you do like:  the angels in heaven, all the new friends you have made.  We will talk, talk—maybe even miss a few project deadlines.  “Our angel is here,” we will say.  “The special one.  You know, the one who brings smiles to a few faces.  Fills a few empty hearts.”