I had a memory for everything, and here is my memory of that winter morning. A hundred times I have gone over that morning when Precious Auntie wrote it down. It is there in the oldest layer of my memory, and I cannot dig it out. I know all this, yet there is one name I cannot remember. So we are the same but for opposite reasons. She was born in a Water Dragon Year and I in a Fire Dragon Year. The names of my husbands were Pan Kai Jing and Edwin Young, both of them dead and our secrets gone with them. I learned her real name, as well as that of my grandmother. On the last day that my mother spent on earth,

I give them credit for anything good, and have already promised them I will try harder the next time. The heart of this story belongs to my grandmother, its voice to my mother. I am blessed to have had the help, kindness, and protection of Lou and Greg, the guidance of Sandra Dijkstra, Anna Jardine, and Aimee Taub, and the spiritual sustenance of the late-night posters on AOL's Caregivers' Support for the Elderly.Īs luck and fate would have it, two ghostwriters came to my assistance during the last draft. I also much appreciated the heavy doses of optimism during times we can now acknowledge as dire. Thank you, Molly, for your keen eye and ear, as well as for suggestions that were always true to my intentions. My writing teacher and longtime mentor, Molly Giles, took over as editor and resurrected this book during those days when I was scared to turn the pages. She promised she would see me through this book, and though she died before I finished, I believe she kept her promise.

To my astonishment, she could always sense the difference between what I was trying to write and what I wanted to write. I give endless thanks to my dear friend and editor, the late, great Faith Sale.

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan