I began this essay for myself, and for the family who will come after me. Back in our old Shenyang apartment, I opened my maternal grandfather’s annotated photo album and returned to the letters he wrote when I was struggling at school. I had new questions for a man I could no longer ask.
The most absorbing part was discovering how those old pages still spoke to my present: leaving McKinsey, learning to work on my own, and helping my daughter study. His advice had acquired another reader, and another meaning. Writing let me think with him again.