Letting Go & Song of Enlightenment (Chapter 14 & Epilogue)

The final chapter of When Heaven and Earth Changed Places focuses heavily on leaving.  In both sections of the story, she is departing.  As a young woman, she is leaving Vietnam for a better life in America with Ed.  She has left all of her family and lost connection with the most influential person in her life: her mother.  As a grown woman, she is leaving her family to go back to U.S. to create ways to make her homeland a better place.  She has rediscovered her way back to her family and especially her mother. 

In the end, the resolution presents itself through her being able to do and see everything she wanted to on her journey back to her homeland.  In the end, she has finally completed what she came to accomplish which was see her family and village again and to reconnect.  This end is also a beginning for her, in which she sets forth on a mission to make Vietnam a better place.  She is accomplishing this task through the East Meets West Foundation and The Global Village Foundation.   
http://www.eastmeetswest.org/
http://www.globalvillagefoundation.org/

In the final paragraphs of the memoir, Le Ly writes some of the most inspired words I've ever heard.  She writes, "I can only say what I myself have learned: that life's purpose is to grow.  We have time in abundance--an eternity, in fact--to repeat our mistakes.  We only need to correct them once, however--to learn our lesson and hear the song of enlightenment--to break the chain of vengeance forever".  I believe this quote states Le Ly's main goal in writing this memoir: to show people how easy it can be to make the world a better place.  All one has to do is to forgive one person or correct one mistake, and he makes the world a better place.  This quote reminded me of a song that presents the same idea.