Posted on 12/02/2004 10:46:16 AM PST by SteveH
A Sadness Set In
Commentary
John Harris Jr.
The article began Best-selling Chinese-American author Iris Chang was found dead in her car from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She was 36 and had recently been treated for depression.
Iris Chang spoke at my college graduation, here at Cal State Hayward. It was just last June. I remember sitting, thoroughly disenchanted by the regalia-clad mob swelling around me. Given it was a time of excitement and celebration, to the ceremony clung the uneasy sense of a population madding. It was in the way people fought in the stands for seats no better than many others yet unoccupied; graduates stood on chairs, cellphones in-hand, signaling to their air-horn-toting relatives in defiance of ceremony ... of decorum. The day smacked unfriendly and the ceremony, bleached both by rote and the summertime noon above.
Ms. Chang took the podium after two impressively lengthy (though awfully similar, having been cribbed from the program almost verbatim) introductions by the president, Norma Rees, and trustee William Hauck. When she spoke, it was clear and lasting; her presence made the rest of commencement seem subdued by comparison.
She spoke of hope and of future with an apparent conviction uncommon and unwelcome to the postmodern misanthropy of the stands. A marked departure from the safe, indecorously formal addresses preceding, Changs theme pitted personal responsibility and self-determinism, against the indomitable heft of mortality.
She challenged everyone there to simply write down their goals where they could be seen daily. In return, she promised direction. She challenged those in attendance to preserve the histories of their elders. In return, she promised vantage. It seems so telling now.
She took no more than 20 minutes, perhaps 15. But, the crowd was awash in wrest, thronging against her ardency and her sometimes-plaintive imperative for personal dialectic. The once-passable minority waxed both in rudeness and number with each of Ms. Changs five points. In keeping with this regrettable progression, the discomforted lot ceased interjecting audible boos when she announced her final point; instead, they erupted with castigating applause, a mocking and raucous air-horn fanfare.
I promised myself that I would write to her. I planned to express my gratitude for her words that day. Her unflagging candor and commonsense, though widely attributed, counsel struck me plainly, despite the interference.
When I learned of her suicide I was, like the many I told afterward, incredulous.
Though news stories reported that her depression stemmed from her work as an author/historian, I find myself unable to dissect causality as simply. I still feel somehow party to the sadness to which Ms. Chang eventually succumbed.
Though perhaps threadbare from overuse, a proverb is such for its indelible efficacy: Be kind, for everyone you meet is engaged in a great battle. (Philo of Alexandria)
John Harris Jr.,
CSUH Graduate,
Class of 2004
I mentioned in an earlier thread that very often mothers with young children who are depresed kill the kids before themselves..and sometimes, after they kill the kids, they're undable to "complete" the task. They'll also do a complete track of her movements, activites, the last 3-4 dys..If it is indeed a suicide, there would be signs of planning..or irregular activity..
I love police procedurals..guess it shows....one question..I don't recall..was there a note?..You'd think a write would leave on..
Yes, she left a long, detailed note to her husband but he only shared a part of it. The part we know about says something like "She hopes to be remembered for the lively, energetic person she was before she got sick." We will learn more. All the best. Keep up the good work "flat foot."
That kind of dot the "i", I think..unless it was written in WORD..
One more deserving bttt.
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