When I first met Ti Ti, we played Scrabble on her living room floor, and she beat me. At the time, she was 9. I have written about this event hundreds of times. I enjoyed the time together, but Ti Ti wanted to win. It was apparent that Ti Ti was smart.

Over the years, Ti Ti went to a college preparatory high school. At her graduation honors assembly, she won first in math for the entire State of Shan. It was then that I realized that she was more than smart.

Ti Ti has graduated from Gusto University with honors. However, before graduating, she had to write what we would call a thesis if someone were getting a doctorate. She also had to defend her paper in front of several faculty members. This is a link to Ti Ti’s paper.

I have spent the last quarter of a century teaching at the college level. Imagine how many term papers I have read. I read Ti Ti’s paper and didn’t grasp what my granddaughter wrote. Ti Ti is gifted.

Ti Ti wrote an email to me thanking me for supporting her in preparing for her college education. I did financially and emotionally help her in the past decade with many wire transfers. I was doing so to benefit myself. I was happy to assist Ti Ti. However, I remembered attending the 19^th-best high school in the country and living in an extremely wealthy community. My father was transferred to Pittsburgh from a nice middle-class community and an average school system. I learned two things while living in Mt. Lebanon: I was dumb and poor. Those feelings were curses, but they drove me to achieve.

This is my response to Ti Ti’s letter thanking me for my support of her education. Historians will call my financial assistance my devil-be-damned email.

Ti Ti,

I want to play a game with you, but it isn’t Scrabble. I want to win this game. I want you to think about this story. What would you do if our roles were reversed? You were 83, and I was 21.

The story is that you have some extra money that you acquired from taking out a second mortgage on your home. You have done that for a long time. You know that sooner or later, borrowing against the value of your home will stop since there is no money left.

Now, you have two choices:

1. You can stop wire transferring money to me now. You say to me that after you go belly up, what is left will be divided up among my family. That may be next year or ten years from now. You just can’t be sure.

2. The other choice that you have says, “The financial devil be damned.” And you will send me the money now.

The question that you must ask yourself is, what would you do? Hmmm.

I couldn’t live with myself if I chose #1. It does bother me that I don’t know what my longevity will be, and therefore don’t have any real idea about my finances.

Nonetheless, I try to live my mantra: “It is giving that we get.” Who benefits from my giving to you? We both do.

The other mantra is what Morgan Freeman said to Jack Nicholson in The Bucket List. Freeman tells Nicholson that when an Egyptian dies, that person’s soul is asked two questions before that person is permitted an afterlife. “Have you found joy in your life? Followed by “Has your life brought joy to others?”

Essentially, both those mantras say the same thing. Giving and getting aren’t different. They are related. Your happiness with your graduation gift brings you happiness, but I’m just as happy. Ti Ti, you are graduating from college with honors. I’m benefiting from the good that you will provide the world.

Anything we share with each other, like time, talent, caring, concern, gifts, or money, we get back. It is a win/win situation. It is so simple and basic. Yet, most miss that message.

I love my granddaughter. I need to tell you that sometime.

Love,

PaPa Al