When my father was celebrating a milestone (里程碑), birthday, I pulled together a surprised gift that he would never forget.

On his 60th birthday, I had a fun idea: What if I could get the memories people had of him, put each one into an envelope (信封) — 60 in total — and have him open them, one by one, on his birthday? So I wrote an e-mail to family and friends, explaining my idea.

I sent the e-mail and waited. And then the replies started coming in and I was very, very astonished. There were so many memories, and they were all so lovely. They came from the ′50s, ′60s, ′70s, from every decade (十年) between now and the day my dad was born. They came from my mother, my siblings, my grandma, my dad's friends from high school, his sister, my dad's first boss, a colleague at his first job, from people who hadn't seen my dad in 40 years, from people I myself hadn't even informed. They typed them and hand-wrote them. They mailed them and e-mailed them.

The night before Dad's birthday, my sister and I stayed up late, putting the mails into envelopes.

The next morning, after breakfast and presents and cake, we gave the pile of envelopes to him. "Just one more thing for you," we said.

It took him along time to open them and read. Each one was a brief ticket to another time, a leap (跳跃) backward over years and decades. There was a lot of laughter and a few tears in his face.

I was kind of sad when the project of the memories about my .father was over because it was, great fun to collect these memories.