There are moments in your life that you will never forget.
Ask anyone what they were doing on September 11, 2001. Wherever they were, they remember. It is as if time froze the minute they learned about what has now become known as Nine Eleven.
The day the earth stood still.
I was about to attend a staff meeting in a room above Penn Station in Manhattan. It was a day I will never forget.
Thirteen years later, I remember Black Tuesday.
It was a Tuesday evening in early July that I tried calling my father. There was no answer. I had woken up too late that morning to make the promised call. Knowing that he was hard of hearing and an early riser, I thought it would be easier to speak when it was his morning and my evening. We were exactly twelve hours apart in our time zones. His morning on Wednesday July 9th would be my evening on July 8th.
That Tuesday night, an insatiable number of mosquitoes invaded the old farm house hidden in the middle of the wilderness in Antrim, New Hampshire. Unlike our host who was immune to these persistent creatures, we were foreign and exotic bait. Each mosquito I caught was quickly replaced by another, like an evolving horror movie. Thinking the critters were attracted to light, I switched off the last lamp and aimed for them in the pitch dark. Eventually I was able to mute them simply by listening for their buzz alone.
At some point, I gave up and gave in. I drifted into a restless slumber. When morning came, I turned to my iPhone to check the time. A single message from Facebook appeared on the screen.
I blinked twice. Was I still dreaming?
I read it again. Was this sent in error?
I had not seen my cousin since our grandmother’s funeral ten years ago. On Facebook, she appeared quite the successful career woman, wife, and mother. She wrote:
Dear Sister,大伯今晨逝世了,至上哀悼，祝福他安息天堂！
My cousin, the eldest daughter of the older of my father’s two brothers, was referring to her big uncle 大伯 — my father. 今晨 This morning (meaning Wednesday July 9th in Taiwan) 逝世了 passed away. May he rest in peace.
I shook as I got up. This could not be.
Why was she the bearer of this news?
- Dad outside his condo in Taichung, Taiwan 2013