“Whole” or not “Whole”?

As a non-native English speaker, I’m familiar with the first definition of “whole”, that is entire , all of. Not until 2001 I came to US for my graduate school in Ann Arbor where in this little Michigan town there exists a Whole Food Market (WFM) store, I started to get the second definition of “whole”: unprocessed and unrefined, in short, healthy (yes, at least we hope). Nonetheless, people start to use “whole” everywhere: whole body, whole spirit and even whole kids!

In 2007, I got my first job in Austin, Texas. Our company, by coincident, at that time, rented the office space inside the Whole Foods Market (WFM) headquarter building. For us, trying to stay “whole” is as simple as running down a couple of stairs. Along these years, many changes happen. We moved out the WFM building into the Chase building; I have kids, two lovely boys (four and one ); we start to have a group of lovely local friends …

As a mother, I would like to provide my kids with healthy food and love;  as a wife, I would like to keep our marriage live and whole; as a daughter, I would like to ensure my parents happy and healthy and as a woman, I would like to enjoy and share the passions with all my girlfriends. What do I want to leave out? …. Nothing! I want to enjoy the “whole” life (no matter what definition is), or at least that is the goal I’m working on.