In one, at a train station in China, the main character meets her twin sisters from her mother's first marriage for the first time. In another, a daughter tells her mother that feels she can never please her, as they both stare in a beauty salon's mirror at the other's reflection. This revelation, however, is what pleases the mother, and as they begin to cry, I'm sobbing, too.
Family is so important, yet so easy to take for granted.
We have to earn our friendships, but are born into our families. I could very well be related to the person behind the grocery store check-out stand, who patiently waits while I rummage through my purse for my Maika'i card. I could be a distance niece of the man in the car trying to nudge into my lane. I'd better wave him in. In tiny Hawaii, especially, we are all connected.