The Best Day

 I always remember that day. It was the best day in my memory.

It was a day in June. The sky was blue, and the breeze was blowing. My best friend “Rabbit” and I had just been in the United States for two months. She was in NIH， while I was in Minnesota. She had already started research using MEG, that her enthusiasm ran high; my university also had MEG, so I was looking for opportunities to try. There was a meeting on MEG signal processing at MIT in June. At that time, NIH did not limit the meeting opportunities so that she would take the meeting. She shared the benefit with me, so we had our first trip to Boston. Everything was the first time; everything was so fresh.

After listening to the MEG signal processing conference report, it was a leisure time in the afternoon. Although it was June, the air was still cool. Rabbit suggested that we walk along the Charles River from MIT to Harvard. The Charles River was shimmering, dotted with white sails. Both sides were fresh and green. The scenery of Charles River was needless to say more, what caught our attention was that there were many bridges on the river. Because of these bridges, while walking, Rabbit told me the story of Guo Jing and Lotus Huang, who were heroes in “The Legend of The Condor Heroes.” Twenty years ago, when these kinds of Hong Kong movies were popular in China mainland, I was not interested in watching, so I knew little about them. What Rabbit was talking about was when Lotus Huang was injured by Qiu Qianren’s poisonous palm; an expert instructed them to find King Duan within 36 hours. “Guo Jing carried Lotus Huang on his back. They had to walk over 4 bridges to find King Duan, so they were counting when they walked,” Rabbit said.

We walked, walked, never even noticed that we walked for more than ten years. I never take the initiative to contact people, so I lose friends all the way. But she always called me almost every day when I was in Minnesota. We discussed experimental designs, data processing, and various ideas on the phone. I often argued with my mentor because of different ideas, and I always mentioned Rabbit: “My friend in NIH said…” My mentor asked me a couple of times:” Is your friend a boy or a girl?”  

We also chatted on the phone. I remember once she said that there were typhoons in their place. I was proud to say that tornado occurred here! She exclaimed: “You are stronger!”She shared with me her happiness, her troubles, sometimes housework, and so on. And sometimes, when I gave her some ideas, I thought of what she said: The rooster teaches the hen how to lay eggs. Although these words were from the time when she was giving birth to a child, her husband taught her how to relax.

Whenever I help her solve a small problem, she always says:” You save me!”In fact, she is the one who really saves me. Because we were professional peers, every opportunity for a conversation was an opportunity for us to meet. She always saved me the cost of the hotel; even sometimes, her family was with her. I am always adrift while she always gives me her hand when I change my way. She offered me application materials, looked for information for me, offered me all kinds of opportunities. She was a step earlier than me on applying for a green card, so she gave me all her materials as reference, without reservation. She always likes to say: “The door of my house is always open to you.”Once I got her call unexpectedly, the reason was that she had just listened to storytelling and was so passionate that she felt guilty for not being able to “fight” for me. After Rabbit has her little rabbit kid, little by little, we called less. After I changed my career once more, we had no chance to meet at conferences. However, every time she calls, we feel no strangers to the conversation, even if we didn’t talk for one or two years.

I walked, and when I looked back, I saw her by my side, just like the afternoon of then years ago, we walked along the Charles River, she was telling me the story of Guo Jing carrying Lotus Huang and crossing bridges.