Several months passed, life had pretty much went on as normal in the Carter-Chen family, when the phone rang. "Deb, it's for you" Carter called out to his wife in the other room. As Jing Mei came to the phone, he let her know it was Linda. Handing her the phone, he watched her with great concern.

"He did?...When?...What happened?...Why?...How, did…When?" Quietly and slowly she hung up the phone.

"Deb?"

"Michael passed away…he was almost done with his second round, he was doing well. They were looking forward to him being released next week…then he got pneumonia…his immune system was too compromised."Tears falling freely down her face, Carter wrapped her in his arms, stroked her hair, let her bury her face in his chest and just cry.

Composing herself, she told her husband "I'd like to go to his funeral, the girls too, all of us."

"You ready to tell them?" Carter asked tenderly.

She squeezed his hand as she turned to living room. Gracie was there playing a concerto on the piano.

When she sat down on the bench next to her daughter, Gracie stopped playing mid piece. She sensed her mother was very upset. "Mā ma what's wrong?" she asked. Jing Mei ran her fingers thru Gracie's long dark hair. "I need to tell you about someone" she began. With honesty and love, she told her about the brother she would never know in this life, about his birth, his adoption, his bout with cancer and his death.

As her mother rose from the piano bench, Gracie did as well. She lifted the lid and rifled thru her sheet music. She took out Chopin, Nocturne in E minor, closed the lid, sat back down and began to play. Jing Mei stood behind her daughter with her hands on her shoulders. She stood this way for a few moments, taking in the haunting melody that seemed to aptly sum up her emotional state.

Mei Li walked in the front door and exclaimed "God Gracie, that's depressing music!" Jing Mei walked over to her older daughter, took her by the hands and led her across the entry way to the stairs, sitting her down on the third step as Gracie played on. Now it was her turn to learn about Michael.

"Mā ma, you think Lǎo Ye and Lǎo Lao don't love us, accept us or Bà ba?" Mei Li asked.

Jing Mei leaned her head against her daughter's. "You know what the wonderful thing about heaven is?"

"That Jesus is there?" Mei Li replied.

"And all skin is the same color." She kissed her daughter on the forehead and together they sat as Gracie played on.

Listening to his wife explain the situation to their daughters, Carter couldn't help but love her even more. He loved that never in her life, was she too proud or too afraid to ask for the help she needed. He loved that she took her weakest moments and made them her greatest strengths. He loved that out of her adversity, she found the courage to make the world a better place.