This vacation allowed me to see my Mom as a REAL person. Some friends of mine possess amazing relationships with their parents, treating them like best friends or soulmates. Me, brought up in the best Asian tradition, gave them loyalty, fealty, and respect (though no grandkids yet). For the longest time of my life, I only saw my Mom and Dad as my Mom and Dad; not real people with their own hopes, dreams, fears, insecurities and faults.

A child, for good reason, sees parents as omnipotent beings for many formative years; and this often carries over even through the rebelliousness of adolescence. College and the USMC took me away from home and for years I failed to enlarge the picture of my parents, my understanding of them, my empathy for them.

Prior to this, I only received glimpses from afar, like spotting an animal in the jungle. A rustle here, a phone call there, a letter or email. A jumbled mosaic, which I can try to interpolate. I could try and analyze my parents, try and figure out in neoclassical "lay-down-on-the-couch" psychology who they are and why I am who I am.

I could try to figure why I was an overachiever. What weakness did I hide through academic honors? What vulnerability hid behind the facade of the Marine officer? What insecurity bred behind the Wall Street material success? What drives me to seek something by travelling around the world?

But I don't do that. I don't feel any particular need to do that. Not right now. Perhaps I squander a chance that may not present itself again. Perhaps not.