This week, I received a small pack­age from Brenda and Jack.

Thumbnail: Chinese New Years card
Thumbnail: Paper napkins
Thumbnail: Chopsticks
Thumbnail: Chopstick rest
Thumbnail: Guylian chocolates
Thumbnail: T'ai Chi Book
Thumbnail: T'ai Chi Page

It really touched me. Not because of the amount of things in it, but because of what was in it.

A T’ai Chi hand­book. Dark, thin choco­lates; my favourite kind. A chop­stick rest in the shape of a cat. They even put money in a red enve­lope, fol­low­ing the Chinese tra­di­tion of wed­ded cou­ples giv­ing money to the unmar­ried. Everything in a red bag with red wrap­ping paper, the Chinese colour of luck. This isn’t their cul­ture, but they’ve made the effort to under­stand it. They prob­a­bly had to go out of their way to find this stuff, things which aren’t avail­able just anywhere.

I’ve done noth­ing to deserve this.

The funny thing is that Brenda and Jack are the par­ents of an ex. I can hear John warn­ing me, “They laced the choco­lates with arsenic”. I’ve been for­tu­nate enough to get along with the par­ents of many of my girl­friends. I used admit to Pat that I wish they could replace my own.

It made me won­der if some­times, in the back of my mind, I would stay in those rela­tion­ships because of them.

These are peo­ple who know me and my interests.

More than my own par­ents ever did.