I
recently called Dr. Law to pick his brain further with regard to his life
story. Good natured as usual, he
volunteered to put on paper some of his remembrances and regrets. What follows is the edited version of what he
sent me.
Even now, knowing what had transpired to
drastically change my life, I would be untruthful to say that I regretted
knowing and marrying Moon Lee. For the
first four years of our relationship, from courtship through to 2004, she was
very much the “angel” depicted by many of her movie persona. Having grown up under harsh financial
conditions, she made it on her own through talent and hard work. During the initial two and a half years of
marriage, she was indeed the perfect wife, mother and companion. The reason for the free fall to hell after
she met the legendarily unworthy young lover at a Terracotta Warriors rehearsal
remains the most baffling puzzle of all time.
In so many aspects of life, Moon Lee was
too thoughtful and self-restrained. Yet
what she did in forsaking her family in favor of an illicit affair without a
future was the ultimate lesson in deceit and malfeasance. In order to mastermind such a cover-up of
passion of such monstrous proportions, she had to not only convince herself
that it was worthwhile but also she had to play act so convincingly that it
would fool family, friends and all employees.
In the end when everything fell apart for Moon, I cannot fathom how she
could rationalize the whole process to herself.
Adults, both men and women, have been known to self-destruct over
misplaced romance and passion from the beginning of time. So perhaps even I should no longer ponder the
reasons why the “angelic” Moon Lee went astray.
In the long run, however, the person most damaged and the life most
irreversibly altered belongs to her son from an earlier marriage, Aldo Chan.
Aldo was in every way the innocent
victim in the soap opera of family scandals that surrounded him in his early
life. Before he uttered his first cry,
his mother was aware that her then pilot husband was carrying on an affair with
a flight attendant. Named after a
Canadian shoe retailer, Aldo’s parents separated while he was a neonate. Moon Lee met me when Aldo was nearly three years
old, and in the year 2000, they started a new life based in the United States,
located at a fabulous estate in magnificent Denver, Colorado. For a youngster transplanted from Hong Kong,
this was a future without parallel. The
upbringing and the educational opportunities afforded to Aldo were without
bounds, especially considering the high academic credentials and standards of
everyone in the Law family. Yet,
starting in the summer of 2004, Aldo’s mother had put into motion dark and
perverse forces that would forever Aldo life for evermore. Through absolutely no fault of his own,
Aldo’s new and happy family life in America would come to beginnings of a
crashing end by late 2006. Since his
mother is too ashamed to be in Hong Kong and too financially indisposed to
reside in the United States, I believe Aldo now lives with Moon in Macau. I suppose there can be a worse place to grow
up in the world, but nobody sane would truly believe that Macau is the ultimate
land of opportunity for a youngster of today.
In the entire course of my life with
Moon Lee, I am not regretful of her scandalous misconduct --- after all, my
family life now without her is much better than what it could have been with
her! But I am truly sorry that the
disruption of my then marriage made it impossible for me to provide for Aldo in
a way that I promised him at one time --- to give him easy access to a
successful life in the new world. Even
in the process of divorce, his mother’s indecent actions and outright lies made
it impossible to keep her notorious behavior confidential. So Aldo was truly the innocent victim amidst
this scandalous real-life tale of the now famous “Closet Affair” – a forced and
unwilling accomplice of a world famous errant mother! The clock cannot be turned back, and history
cannot be rewritten. Being human, our
destiny is a function of our actions.
For
me, it seems amazing that Dr. Law’s most significant regret was not the betrayal
by his attractive, movie star wife. His
focus on the wasted opportunities in life for his ex-stepson is both convincing
and moving for me as his family publicist.
The philosophical conclusion that indeed we are all personally responsible
for our ultimate destiny and legacy is truly meaningful.
Natalia
Khan Daniel
