Something special, and very well written from my mom.

Anna Patricia

I wanted to name her Davita, a female king, a female counterpart to Goliath, after a character in Chaim Potok’s novel Davita’s Harp.

But as a baby, she responded to my sisters’ “Patty” and so she’s now Patricia, of patrician taste and interests.

Anna Patricia, the girl who changed my life completely and absolutely. She’s now 16 and still growing into the amazingly wonderful person that she is fated to be.

When she was about 3 or 4 years old, Tring or Potpot, as we call her at home, asked me if the stars were simply holes in the blanket that’s the sky. What an imagination to match any astronomer’s.

When she was about 10 one summer vacation, she started selling pastillas. And after her first sales of P109, she came to me, wide-eyed, and said, “I earned P109. I can now build my pastillas factory. I have an inheritance to leave my children.” She went on to check the other available pastillas products in Waltermart, doing her own market research. She has quite a potential as an entrepreneur.

For the past couple of years, she’s been learning – on her own – Japanese and Korean. Using a combination of books, CDs, and the Internet, she’s been immersing herself in cultures quite different from ours. She’s even adopted a Japanese name. Her openness to what’s different will be useful for her when she becomes a diplomat, something she said she wants to be.

In a couple of months, she’s off to college, and like any paranoid mother who knows that it’s a step away from me, toward a life more independent of her parents, fuller of life’s perils, we – her father and I – keep the faith that she will not only survive, but prevail, because she has imagination, a willingness to engage life, and compassion.

I love you Tring. – Mama

------------
Credits to my dad for the photos. :)