Life after Shane.

Hi, everybody.  This is Kaye, again.  It was very difficult to go through the first week without Shane.  But we did and whaddya know, life goes on.  Thank you to everybody who contributed to the kids' trust fund.  It will be used towards the kids' post-secondary education, which will be in about 5 years for Zoe, 6 years for Nia, and 10 years for Tao.

Shane's funeral was very lovely.  We had quite a few speakers, and I'm planning to post most of the speeches in the blog.  I plan on keeping them for the kids, especially for Nia & Tao, so they could read them later on in life, because they're too immature to really understand right now.

For starters, I'll post my mother's speech.  She wasn't going to say anything at the funeral, but  my brother, Dalson Chen, convinced her to speak.  So she prepared this after the visitation, on the night before the funeral.  My mom has no problem with public speaking, but she feels self-conscious about speaking in English, because she thinks that her grammar and pronunciation isn't that great.  Everybody thought that she did just fine.

2012 Jan 22:

My name is Ming Chen, Kaye's mother, Shane's mother-in-law.  The first time my husband and I met Shane was also the day he told us he want to marry Kaye.  I looked at this young man - never met before, didn't know anything about him.  Wondering whether they will be good to each other.  But then he obviously was sincere, seemed to have a very calm personality, well educated, had a promising career.  Slowly we gave them our blessing.

After all these years, now we realized that they were meant for each other.  They respected each other and grew in their marriage together.  Shane showed Kaye how a life-long partnership worked.  They were more in love with each other.

With Shane's help, Kaye became a mother, a role she had longed to take.  Because of Shane, Kaye went through the tough training of karate and became a black belt.  Because of Shane, Kaye is more mature, more confident, more focused in life.

We thank you for that, Shane.  Now is the time to say goodbye.  Although you are gone, you are not forgotten.  Everyday I look at my three beautiful grandchildren, Zoe, Nia, Tao.  I know that your life will be carried on by them.

Well done, Shane!