The 365 Miles and 365 Flowers

A shiny afternoon on the Montery Bay Beach, 2067, hundreds birds are flying over the sky, singing: "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Jamie, happy birthday to you....", below them, you see a few big canopies, 100+ people, "shouting" loadly to an old lady: "happy 100th birthday!"

A lady, sitting in the middle underneath of a big canopy, wearing a white shirt with flowers, is smiling to everybody...

One lady came up to her, wearing a T-shirt: "Hello, Ms. Browne, I'm so happy to see you, how have you been?",

"Katherine! Good to see you. I have been doing great: still reviewing student applications everyday, as a part time consultant for Catalina. How about you?" 

"I'm also retired and became a consultant now, for a "small" company" 

"what company?" 

"Here" pointing to her T-shirt.... 

"Google!? That's not a small company..... ha ha ha"

"Happy 100th birthday, Ms. Browne; happy 100th birthday Ms. Browne." one small "girl", carrying a big backpack, running fast to the old lady and gave her a big hug, .....

"Who are you? I don't remember...." the flower shirt lady. 

"Elizabeth, I mean Liu, Elizabeth Liu." 

"Elizabeth? Oh, I remember, you used to swim and run everyday at Catalina. That's why you still run so fast!?" 

"Yes, I still love swimming and running and do them everyday.... Here are 365 flowers for you", as she pulls out the flowers from her big backpack and insert them onto the old lady's hair one by one....

"How have you been, Elizabeth? What do you do now?"

"After I graduated from Catalina, I went on to study at Howard major in education. After that, I became a history teacher at Monrovia High School. On the side, I opened a Elizabeth Bakery shop and a Kids Sports Studio. In my bakery shop, I have an assistant working for me, he works there full time. In the evening, I go to the sport studio and teach kids dancing and gymnastics. On the weekends, I teach kids horseback riding and flying.... I have been so happy and successful these years, all thanks to you and your assistant Stephanie's efforts for "bringing" me to Catalina...." 

"So interesting.... You used to be a shy girl, now you are a boss, hire one employee? Who's he?"

"He's over there" Elizabeth points to a car, an old man sitting behind the wheel "My dad."

"Your dad? How old is he? Why doesn't he come down and join us?"

"He's 108 years old now. It's ok to let him wait there, because he's a little bit too shy to come here....." As she waves to her dad and he waves back.

"Stephanie, Stephanie... guess who's there? Elizabeth's dad." Jamie talks to her assistant. 

"Hi, Gang, how are you doing?...." Stephanie walked up to the car and started talking with the old man inside the car....  

"How's Stephanie? She's another person I feel grateful for a life time. What is Stephanie doing?" 

"She's my boss now, the admission director, doing great.... Wow, you poke my head.... It's ok, didn't hurt, just a little. Why you give me 365 flowers? That's too many...." Jamie asked... 

"In 2020, you walked the extra 365 miles to Monrovia with Stephanie, and brought me to Catalina, I have always wanted to pay them back to you. From this morning, we started driving early, on the way we stopped and picked one flower for every one mile, till arriving here. The 365 miles took us 9 hours instead of the normal 5 hour driving and made us stopped 365 times, but it was fun and we were happy to do that. By the way, when you and Stephanie walking to Monrovia, did you notice there were so many beautiful flowers? They are so beautiful...."

"We didn't pay attention to the flowers because all we saw were a much bigger object: the great potential in a Monrovia girl... it was more beautiful, significant and meaningful...."

"Thank you......"