After watching The Joy Luck Club I wonder about a lot of things. Maybe mostly I wonder about hatred, I wonder about hate and love and about individuality, about feelings and about the importance of people. I see the sadness of people who have to leave their children under trees to die only hoping that they live and then go off themselves to die because they have not the food or means to stay alive. I see the hard reality that children cannot truly know the hardship that parents often face in spite of their own futures. I see in that sense sacrifice and I see love, I think what I would call true love, the love of a mother and the love a father. The love that a person gives to another when they wish for something better for the other person. The love that says “I want better for you than I have ever had, not with payment, not with any reward other than your freedom and happiness.” I have long asked myself if I can give that kind of love to other people around me. Can I give that kind of love to my children? What can I do to earn that love and repay that love to my family, to the families of the men and women who saved my freedom in this country? What of the love given to families five generations ago who saved my freedom in this world? What of the love of the generations thousands of generations ago? In honest inability I say that I am not sure than any effort I could give could earn the love and respect of generations which have come before me. I do not think any monument could be built to show the thankfulness that is due to those millions of people and things which have brought me to this place where I stand. I think that no thing I could ever build, no thing I could ever spend material time on could ever match the thankfulness necessary. I think that instead I am looking at time and service to others. An aimed service that would wake up each morning and say thank you, thank you for everything that I have received. I wish to work today in a way that shows loves and effort to everything before me, that makes our former generations proud, and shows pride to the greatness in the future that we are all sure to have.
