MY BELOVED LITTLE DAUGHTER, JANICE PAI
March 9, 1986- July 11, 2003
Hui-Yu Pai

“Janice, you were pure like an angel.
This world does not deserve to have you for long.”

There is a triple-meaning for Janice’s Chinese name, 若晨. It means “like the morning,” “beautiful morning,” and since its second character sounds the same as my wife’s last name, it also implies “just like her mother.”

She was a very quiet child. After having learned to walk, she just followed my wife around the house, quietly complying with her mother’s every instruction. In later years we joked about her talkativeness, at least with the family members, as a revenge for the lost opportunities at a young age. She was very sensitive, shy and private, but genuinely sweet, tender and considerate. To those not privy to her situation, she might seem reclusive, but she craved for companionship. She really enjoyed chatting with friends on the phone and going out with them, but her shyness and ill health prevented her from initiating invitations.

Janice was a brave fighter, she did not give up easily. She had started playing tennis seriously for about half a year, intending to try out for the Torrey Pines JV Team, before the cancer diagnosis. She was forced to stop during the first treatments until February 2001. In July that same year, the cancer came back but she kept on practicing when she was able to. She was supposed to start an inpatient chemotherapy during the tryout week. After having seen her play, the coach accepted her into the team. But the treatment got delayed for several days, and she made the cut on her own merits, scoring among the highest. She took one year off for the treatments, but was able to attend several practice sessions and joined a couple of games. Having earned the team’s T-shirt was one of her happiest times during her short life. Who would have known that she was anemic most of the time!

School was the most important thing to her, even more than saving her own life. She could have had the allogeneic BMT much earlier, but she insisted on finishing the school year. She just did not want to be delayed from her planned graduation any more. All she wanted was to be a normal teenager, ordinary and healthy, just like everybody else. She did not want other people to know about her situation and to treat her deferentially. We postponed informing her teachers about her illness until the last moment. School was her life, because that was what everybody was doing. She got great satisfaction from a study well done, a good grade hard earned. When she returned to school after being away for one year, she registered for all AP/Honor classes, getting straight A’s and earning a 5.0 GPA. (She postponed the transplant for one week so that she could take 2 of the 3 AP tests she had registered, and she scored the highest, 5, for AP Calculus B/C as a 10th grader. We had suspected that she got A’s at school partly through teachers’ sympathy, but the AP test score completely refutes it! She also got a 4 for AP Spanish which certainly would have made her a happy girl.) Studying as hard as she could was the ONLY THING she could do to prove her own worth throughout the treatments. But frequently she also put herself under undue stress. We initially tried to dissuade her but eventually relented, because allowing her to do whatever she liked was the most we could help her.

Janice enjoyed reading, playing piano & tennis, collecting pens, stickers & beanie babies, cooking, doing origami and going on cruises. She was happiest when on cruises and we were able to do so together 4 times in her life. Her most favorite places were Taiwan and Japan and we were able to make one separate trip to each last year. All these indelible memories are hurting me now, but they surely will change, becoming sweeter all the time. Janice, I love and respect you. I would not have grown so much without you. I will set up a charity foundation, JANICE PAI MEMORIAL FUND, in honor of you. You had honored me as a father. Farewell, my beloved little daughter.