Wisdom often buried itself in the most unlikely place.
Standing face-to-face with Meredith's mother, the patient's chart Cristina held tightly to her chest was too small to conceal her reservation.
She was a mother, who made her best friend miserable; she was a surgeon, who could no longer cut.
The eyes of Ellis Grey were lucid and fierce, but they were quickly overcast by the gloom and confusion on her wrinkled face.
Her tongue was sharp like a blade but in Cristina, Ellis had found the best companion.
Did mothers always only get disappointed with their own daughters? If only Cristina's own mother had had half as big an interest in her career aspiration as Meredith's mother did.
Just as Cristina thought the perceptive eyes of Ellis Grey would pierce through her, she was reassured by how fitting the descriptions of a cardiothoracic surgeon seem.
Petite as they were, the two brightest female surgeons Seattle Grace had ever harbored were rapidly filling up the entire room with a pride in what they were, and a fear of what they might become.
Her hand still resting on Ellis' carotid artery, Cristina's fingers went soft.
Here was a magnificent woman who was at the top of the world, someone Cristina aspired to become. But if Ellis had known she would lose it all in the end, would she have made a different choice?
Bailey fell off the track when she became a mother. Ellis stayed focused but almost lost her daughter. Cristina's own mother wasn't even a surgeon, and still she never won her daughter's heart.
Cristina Yang was destined to be the definition of the most talented female surgeon of her era, just like Ellis Grey.
If everybody had failed the challenge of marriage and motherhood, how could Cristina allow herself to fall prey to that?
Lifting her hand off Ellis' neck, Cristina acknowledged the eerie connection they shared while distancing herself from a life of misery.
Eight days since the proposal and finally Cristina got the answer from a woman who had lost five years.
Nobody could have it all, but if she tried harder, maybe it would work.
Coldness reoccupied Ellis' eyes like her last defense, but under that overbearing façade was a woman who was going to crumble.
Tenderness wasn't always in her element and surely it didn't have to be reciprocated, as long as it could be felt.
Cristina couldn't handle mothers, nor could mothers bear with her.
But Ellis Grey was different, for she was more than a mother. In her was a woman whose intellect was being eaten away but whose wisdom hadn't subsided.
Whatever she didn't get from her own mother, she got it from Ellis Grey.
Squeezing the wise woman's hand in gratitude before fleeing the shock on her face, Cristina's heart swelled in joy as she leaped out to head for the OR.
It was about time.