Flying High

Yu Sheng was flying high. In a short time, many things had changed in his daily routine.  He was excited.  He also felt terrified.  He was soaring.

A Big Month

I too am flying high.  Since I left home on March 28^th, I have been moving from one country to another, one project to another and wondering when It will stop.  I need sleep.  Tonight, I am in the Taipei airport about to fly to Seattle and into the arms of my long suffering and very stable husband.

I left over a month ago to Mexico City, for the wedding of a dear sister and friend and partner of Bunnies By The Bay (my real job) Yadhira Carrillo.  If you Google her, you’ll know who she is.  She was gracious and invited my sisters and I into her life and home and we felt like family. We are going to do big things together in Latin America.

I then flew on to Taipei and have been there almost a month.  HOME!  Where with my incredible partner and sister Maio Wang of Kidsmall, we opened together three themed Bunnies By the Bay stores in three weeks.  Many, many all nighters.

As many of you know, my business partner and brother Carlson Lin passed away in December and his brother Yu Shen took over his brother’s responsibilities. I was invited to come down to Wu Feng to the Lin family gravesite as they prepare to make room for the next generation.  Later we went to visit the Lin Family homestead in Wu Feng (Taichung) which ahs been refurbished as a historical site.  This is where my brothers grew up.  A very moving time.

 Yu sheng, An and Pei Lan at the Lin family homestead.

But the most incredible experience I had was just a few days ago in Guang Zhou, where my younger brother Jonathan and his wife Judy, finalized the adoption into the Brantingham clan of Maggie Catherine. She is two and so full of life and drama and spunk.  She is awesome!  At the time my brother had to go to the American Consulate for her American visa, I happened to be an hour away in my factory and so met them for an afternoon of “visa picking upping.”  I was so privileged to also meet the other families who had gone down this same path and who had forged such a bond together.  All of the children, including my niece are special needs.  But I think we need them. 

When my little niece Maggie woke up from her nap, she rubber her eyes and called me…”G uGu!”  (auntie of my father’s side)  I melted.  Talk about Family.  I brought freshly baked Bunnies hot off the line and passed them out.  The afternoon moved me to my very core, for it reminded me why I do what I do.  Why making babies happy and giving them glad dreams is important work, no matter the sacrifice and no matter how many sleepless night.

I am reminded again about the Red Thread.  That thread that connects us all.

Jeanne-ming

Maggie Catherine Brantingham with her parents