From: Kamal E Y [email protected] >

To: Sabrina [email protected] >

Sent: 15 May, 2000 11:50 PM

Subject: footsteps

My Sabrina,

I knew Melody would do that. You are sincere in your job. You are stubborn. All the people who are sincere in their jobs are stubborn. You put up resistance against the misdeeds of the others in the company. You made your voice heard. When the time came, you stood up and asked to be heard. That is what I admire. You are a true professional. I admire you.

Behind all the office work, you have a heart. A heart that beat for the small things that happen in the office, for the little things which only a few notices. After all, the iron-lady in the office is a small girl who cries for everything in her silent house. You are so gentle. I love you.

You are the one who made me understand the true feeling of love. You are the one whom I married with all my heart. You are the one woman after my mother who saw me fully naked in the daylight. You are the woman whom I had complete sex with love. And you are the one who shared my bed after I completed 5 years old. I need you.

Whatever happens to your job, I will be with you. If tomorrow, you leave your job and decide not to do anything, I will be there to keep your head up. You don't have to be anybody's worker. You are your own boss. You are not working FOR Mr. Li. You are working WITH him. Keep it in mind. Some may like your opinion, some may not like your opinion, but one thing is sure, no one will neglect your opinion. You came to such a post with your talent and hard work. When you say something, the people who are supposed to hear will, of course, make a note of it. They may or may not obey you, but they will remember you. Keep your mind clean. You will respect you. You are not the boss of the company. So what you can earn is respect. And you know, respect is one thing which cannot be bought by money, which cannot be instilled with fear. It comes from mental toughness and a clean mind. You have both. You command respect.

I have never understood why you call yourself a failed person. I have told you and your job to my friends. We all have many times regarded you as a successful person.

And the other thing, which I was a bit afraid to tell you. We both have some common characters, you know. One is difficulty in accepting setbacks or defeats. We both consider it very personally. We fight for everything as if our life depends on it. And if we lose, we feel that we have lost everything. I was afraid of this because, if we ever have a serious argument, we will see this character of ours. But the good thing is that we keep our love outside our arguments. When we were in Frankfurt, we had small discontent a couple of times, right? But we always kept us above those.

Cheer up. I know your mind and I am with you. Do you know this story? Once a man died and went to God. He asked God what he wanted to know about his whole life. God showed him some footsteps on a beach and told him that those are the different stages of life, which he walked. During the first part of his life, there were a lot of footsteps.

The man asked, "Who are these people who walked with me when I was young?"

God replied, "They are your parents, siblings, and friends." And after that, one by one all the steps faded away except two pairs. One pair was his footstep.

He asked God, "Who is the other person who walked with me always?"

God said, "It is me."

And after that, the footstep became deeper in the sand. Those were the times when this person had a lot of trouble in his life. But he was shocked to see that during these times, no other footsteps were with him.

He asked God, "See, when I was troubled nobody was with me. Even you abandoned me. I can see only my footsteps. They are deep in the sand because of my trouble. You didn't help me."

God smiled and said, "Those lonely footsteps you see there are not your footsteps. They are mine. I carried you on my shoulders when you were troubled. That is why the footsteps are deep..."

Love

Kamal