A Dad's Heart

This is my Dad's email about his two new boys written while flying from Xi'an to Guangzhou. These boys are brothers because they now share a father who loves them even though they only met each other a week ago. Without a doubt one of the best things of 2011 was getting to meet all of my brothers and sisters in Atlanta who share a loving heavenly Dad with me.



In air between Xi'an and Guangzhou:

Simon is in the air for the first time in his life. His eyes were as big as silver dollars as we were taxiing out to the runway and we saw another jet out the window just after it had taken off. Then we got to the end of the runway and the pilot throttled up and released the brakes; pure excitement in the heart of one little boy. Shortly after take-off we saw 6 nuclear plants that supply power to Xi'an, and then saw Xi'an from up above and also got to see a series of mountain ranges to the northwest of Xi'an. Soon the pilot whipped the bird around in the opposite direction and we were headed south south-west toward Guangzhou. We got one more peak at the majestic mountains as they were fading in the distance behind the plane.

One thing I failed to mention was that we could see the sun our last 3 days, and that is certainly something worth mentioning. I had asked Celine (our guide from Xi'an) after being there 3 days when the last time she had seen the sun and she could not tell me. This is noteworthy because with the combination of fog and smog (mostly) the sun does not make many appearances at street level for a good part of the winter time. In Urumqi, we could see the sun faintly on the 21st floor, but we only saw a grey smokiness as we were mixing and mingling with the shoppers on the streets. A strong weather front passed through Xi'an giving us one warm day (50F) followed by the past two days not reaching the freezing point. As a matter of fact, the ponds beside the walkway from the room area to the lobby and restaurants had a layer of ice on them this morning. The blue sky has been very warming and the cool clear air makes one want to breathe deeply and enjoy being alive.

Simon Zhien (11 years, 6 months) and Jedidiah Liqiang (10 years, 7 months) are destined to be best buddies if it is true that opposites attract. They are both all boys but Jedidiah is impulsive whereas Simon is thoughtful. Jedidiah jumps at the chance to be helpful while Simon waits for someone to do for him or at least tell him what to do. Jedidiah has the attention span of a tsetse fly, while Simon is focused. Playing ping-pong serves as an example: Jedidiah and I took 1 hour before we set our record of paddling the ball 26 times. Simon and I recorded 22 hits on our first attempt, establishing our personal best of 37. When playing together the other day, within 10 minutes Jedidiah wanted to move on to billiards or swimming; Simon and I played for 75 minutes. Jedidiah is very affectionate; Simon is reserved. Jedidiah is hardly ever without an ear-to-ear smile; Simon has to be coaxed to produce a smile.

On the plane there is flight data on an overhead screen; Simon studied each frame while Jedidiah glanced at it for less than a minute. He is napping now while Simon is committing the data to memory and is trying to imagine what is below the clouds outside. We just used hand signals to show that the plane must go through the clouds to get back to the ground. Museum excursion brings out the foremost distinctions; Jedidiah, like Catherine, whips in and out of each exhibit hall as if in a race, while Simon and I ready and study each panel as if there were going to be a final exam on exit!!! :o

The boys could pass for twins, although, as I have said before, they are not identical! But they are not totally opposites, either; they enjoy the same movies and sprinting to the elevators and seem to have an equal disdain for shopping! :) They are within millimeters of each other height-wise, and are only 0.2 kilograms different in weight. They were totally unaware that there was a bathroom scale in our room until today when I got it out to weigh our accumulations in each suitcase. They then commenced to weigh everything that they could lift that was not nailed down in the room, although Jedidiah ran out of interest before Simon had completed the experimentation. They also share hearty appetites, athletic abilities, and they seem to like ice cream equally well! They are brothers now and forever will be!

Oh, yeah, one other commonality that they share. They have two parents who love them wholeheartedly, unreservedly, and unconditionally, AND, bottom line, that is the most vital feature that they share!

jerry

ps - might be my last post from China as we cannot get to a VPN from this hotel, so I am left with a web-based mail program that only permits email to a limited number of addresses. It will probably take me close to an hour to get this in the phone.
We will still make the effort for Catherine to blog:
andyweiwright.blogspot.com
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