Dragon Boat Festival, Going Home

These few days are the Dragon Boat

 Festival — one of our oldest holidays here in China.

For most people, it means rice dumplings and dragon boats. For me, it means one more thing. This day is also my older brother's birthday.

There are four of us, siblings. Our parents loved us dearly. So this festival, for me, was never just a holiday. It was the whole family, gathered together — celebrating the day, and celebrating my brother, all at once.

This year, I want to take my husband and my son, and go back home, to spend it with my family.

When I was younger, I carried a few things in my heart. Some of them weren't easy. But as a person grows, slowly, you come to forgive the world.

I often think of something Michael Jackson sang. That on this earth, every day, someone is born, someone passes, someone falls ill.

So those of us who are alive, and well — we are, in a way, the survivors of this earth. We are the lucky ones.

To wake each morning, to breathe the fresh air, to notice the small flowers and grasses by the road, to play a while in the yard with a dog you love — these are all luck.

And since we are this lucky, let's use that luck, that energy, to love the world, and to love our families.

So this Dragon Boat Festival, I'm going home. Back to my mother and father, to celebrate my brother's birthday, to watch children run around in the middle of a big, full family.

Just the way it was, when I was small.

— Marie, Founder of Lyfairs