Wise Words from Jodiann

My beautiful friend, Jodi-ann wrote this on her FB page yesterday.  I know that I was so lucky to have met her 12 years ago, when we both first arrived in Hong Kong.

Early 2009, Jodes was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer of the blood and she was 34 weeks pregnant with her third son, Timothy.  Today she is cancer free, strong and positive - (huge smiley face!)  I'm so sad and excited that it is now their turn to leave 'home'.

Jodes wrote this letter from her heart and she captured it beautifully that I really wanted to share this with you.   Love you girls xxxx

To Hong Kong,

You have been a wonderful, safe and exciting place to live over the last 12 years. You offered yourself as a ‘city on a silver platter’, with more options and more to offer than we could ever exhaust.

We came to your bright lights and late nights with fresh faces and the travel bug. You were expensive and exotic, and gave us the taste for Asia that we will never know how to shake off.  We marveled at your skyline and "can do" attitude. Sure, we encountered the "can not" for a lot of things too, but that all became a part of the new game plan we enlisted to adjust to our new city.

24/7 this city embraces you, it's like a Merry-Go-Round that keeps you on the go; the heat, the hacking, that fragrant smell that winds through the markets and those cramped city streets. 
The bamboo scaffolding, the people that squeeze your hand and touch your life forever, it's just the way this city rolls.

We've learnt to compromise our personal space, channel our own Australian version of "momen tai". We haven't tried to change the locals, we have become more accepting and colour blind to a melting pot of culture that lives in harmony better than any place in the world.

And now it's time to say goodbye. It's not forever, because you could never leave Hong Kong and never return. It's a break in the history that we have built over the last decade. It's a pause... really, though, "it's not you, it's me". I need to share with my young family a life in the land "down under".

We need a home and a backyard to create new memories for our family. We are all feeling softened by our pampered and fortunate lifestyle that we fell so easily into. Deep down, we are seriously patriotic, we're independent and secretly feel undeserving of this easy lifestyle; us Aussies, we're tough and can do it ourselves. We were raised that way. It's just our time.

So it's "jik hoi", it’s farewell to our silver linings and our best friends, but we're off, searching for what we've already had - the time of our lives!

For Timothy, Corey, Jake and Matt,
Whom I live for each day, I love you guys

Jodes, Mones and Lis - I adore these girls