For Xue Jing, 1991-2025
Because you loved freedom more than the world
You are once again a free soul, flowing between lives —
From sins of the family, and curses for daughters
— To make forgiveness possible
Yesterday we were four children under the South Asian sky
Searching for the Big Dipper
I wanted to be an artist, you said, and I a physicist
Tonight in the Bay Area I saw the Dipper again
I knew nothing is lost —
Your dream is safe with me; I am the part of you that survived
And I finally learned peace in the chaos we shared
“Then I saw a new heaven and new earth, for the first heaven and first earth had passed away.”
And then I saw New Eden.
Good night, my sister
Farewell and godspeed
⁎⁎⁎
The night my sister died, I stood in my backyard. In the distance, I heard the traffic on Highway 101, and the droning of planes heading toward San Francisco Airport. There wasn't a moon, but the sky was clear, and I could easily see the stars. I could see six stars out of the seven that made up the Big Dipper. In the winter air of the Bay Area—charged with enterprising spirit, optimism, joviality and confusion—I knew that despite the grief, and the loss of what could have been—the joy and sorrow we shared in this life are eternal. I have found eternity in every moment of being.