Remembering my dear Dah-Miin

Dah-Miin and I were both born and grew up in Taiwan, and I am three months older. She had four brothers, and I have no siblings. We met each other in college. After graduation, we continued seeing each other during my military service and then graduate school, meanwhile, Dah-Miin worked as a geologist in Taiwan's petroleum company for these four years. We then decided to go abroad to the US for further studies, and got married a few weeks before departing from Taiwan. For the past 43 years, we had many trips together. I consider three trips to be milestones, marking the beginning of a new stage of our lives.

1st milestone – our trip from Taipei to the US. It was the first overseas trip and by far the longest trip for both of us. We were sad about leaving families, meanwhile excited for the future. It was the beginning of our journey together. In fact, I accompanied her to Univ. of Delaware, and I went to Yale, because we got scholarships from these two separate schools. It was some commute for some long weekends and holidays, between New Haven and Newark Delaware, by Greyhound or Trailways buses. Two years later, Dah-Miin finished her master degree and moved to New Haven. We settled on the third floor of a typical New England three level three family house, Sharon and Byron were both born in Yale New Haven, during the time. The house was small, but adequate for us. We didn't have much money, but never felt shortage, we got along with the nice Italian landlord lady like a family. With my thesis, Dah-Miin's part time job, two kids, bunch of graduate student friends, activities in the campus, and our nice host family, life was busy, and happy.

Then we had our 2nd milestone trip – a car trip from New Haven to Pasadena CA. We took seventeen days, with two young kids, equipped with a ten year old Chevy Nova, a stack of AAA maps and tour books, and a bag of quarters for making calls along the way using pay phones - there were no cell phones at the time. It was a very memorable trip which marked the beginning of our professional careers. After a year in Jet Propulsion Lab, I was recruited by Schlumberger Research, and came back to the green, beautiful, four seasonal CT. We have lived in our Danbury home for thirty five years since then. It has been mostly busy thirty five years, as you may expect, with two jobs, two kids, after school activities, getting together with friends on weekends, summer camps, winter skiing, and annual family trips. Yet, Dah-Miin often still had the interest and energy to add other activities - not always necessarily something I wanted to do. For example, one winter, she arranged for all of us to go to Quebec for one night stay in an ice hotel. Basically you bundle up and sleep on a big chunk of ice with one layer of deer or sheep skin in between. I experienced it for two hours, then decided to move to a heated backup cabin for the rest of the night. That's one time, and probably the only one time, that I quit before the rest of my family did.

She got us into the Kumon after school program when Sharon and Byron were in 5th and 2nd grade respectively. She argued that the enrichment was good for our kids and other kids, but no place nearby offered it, we could just take a few students using our after work time, and it would be free for our own kids. While I was reluctant and hesitant for the commitment, she got it started, and I had to help. So it became the third job for us. I did complain sometimes about the amount of time demanded by the teaching. But, as I think back, running the program made us spend a lot of time together working hand in hand, and, overall, the time was well spent as I have seen the program had made a significant positive impact on many students. It also saved us money, as we could not eat out or take vacations as much as we would otherwise.

So we did all these things together. Dah-Miin took care of me as my wife, we played ping pong, golf, tennis, and learned to dance together (though I was often awkward) like good friends, we worked closely and supported each other in Kumon like good partners.

After many years, I realized that a good time together did not require any special activities. Whether a simple meal together, or playing with grandchildren, having her by my side to exchange a comment or to laugh together, just made everything so much more enjoyable.

Since last week, the condolences we have received have been overwhelming. I see friends loved her for the same reasons our family loved her dearly. She is always true to herself and to everyone. She was full of love for family, friends, her work, and, basically, life. That love manifested as the devotion to people around her, and to everything she did. I'll just share with you what Dah-Miin had been up to in the past year. With Covid, life has been complicated and difficult for almost everyone. Dah-Miin was concerned about her mother in Taiwan, she decided to take retirement, finally, in order to make an extended trip. She put on the full protection gears, and the airplane cabin was nearly empty at the peak of the pandemic. After two week quarantine, she enjoyed her stay for almost four months in Taiwan, seeing family and friends. When she came back, we were all very happy. She turned my one-dish meal into three or four delicious dishes right away. I was glad to be the dishwasher. Grandchildren loved to snuggle with her, play with her, Alex sometimes teased her English pronunciation, she didn't mind, she would laugh with kids, then made a point that she would talk with him in Chinese. With all these, she still found time to take the lessons of video editing on phone and on computers, and quickly made some interesting clips. She played mahjong once a week with a group of old friends, online. In addition, she actively participated in the high school alumni karaoke group, also online. It's not just a weekly schedule, she was really into it, like how she approached most things. She applied what she was learning in video editing to make the virtual background with lyrics on the screen, she shared the ideas and results with other members in the group, she practiced her songs when she had some free moments, often with little Austin on her laps. Then she would save the recorded zoom video for each song she did – now they became a great gift to us – not in the way she planned or intended. July 31, Byron and Jane got married, we were both very happy for them and felt a sense of completion of the family. She unfortunately had a fall, fractured some bones of her right foot. About the time, Sharon, Rich and kids moved to Irvine California as required for Rich's work. I took care of her during her recovery from the foot injury. It's not that she never had a moment of frustration, but I was so impressed that she took the setback in such a positive way. A couple days after the injury, she received the knee scooter to ease the foot injury mobility issue. She was so excited like a kid receiving a new toy. She cruised around first in the house, then the neighboring school yard. It seemed she felt more fun than the discomfort of her foot. Other than the physical therapy time, in the clinic or at home, she didn't want to just sit around even though she was less mobile, all these online activities continued and got more of her attention, and more impressive products showed up, such as video editing and karaoke and the combination of both. One day, she came home after a physical therapy session with a guitar. It's an instrument she was interested in playing, and she noticed a music store close to the therapy place, thus she visited the store and started, bought the guitar, and signed up for the weekly lesson following her Friday therapy sessions. She proudly told me that the teacher was impressed at the second lesson and said she was already three lessons ahead of the planned schedule. She was talented, but also she did spend the time practicing, and she enjoyed the improvement.

Lately, when we two were at home, we talked about how finally we were both retired, we wanted to reconnect with friends, we wanted to go to California to see grandchildren, and we also booked a flight to Taiwan to see her family, my cousins and many friends. We were interested in learning and playing Pickleball. We'll have a family trip to celebrate our 70 together. We had not charted out a grand plan for our future other than these immediate items, we thought we had the time. I envisioned many happy days ahead, holding her hands together, we would decide what to do at the time; we would enjoy the time, and the rest are just details. This anticipated trip to California, in my mind, was the 3rd milestone to start our retirement lives. But it never happened. The scene changed suddenly and totally for me and the family.

Now what I have are the precious memories. I thank Dah-Miin for spending the most significant part of her life with me. I love her forever and will miss her everyday until we get together again. I want to thank you all, for contributing to her life and for sharing the moment with us either in this room or online, and for your friendship and support. I want to stay connected with all of you, and get together again when the time is right for you and me, so please stay in touch.