My Belated Regards (By Wang Denan)
Created by Jingde 13 years ago
In the early stages of Jiali’s illness, Jiali had sent individual thank-you letters to fellow friends and classmates who showed support to him. Although I do not remember us having ever spoken to each other during the three years when we were in college together, he wrote in the letter, very touchingly, about a memory of us sitting next to each other one time in lecture, a small memory that suddenly seemed to shorten the distance that spans between us.
He had asked about my husband Ruhong, but I had no heart to tell him that cancer was taking its cruel toll on Ruhong as well. To avoid discussing Ruhong with him, I never did end up writing back. My negligence has been weighing on me.
So today, I’ve come to send him my belated regards, and lift up to him a poem by Mary Frye, which reads:
“Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.”
The poem is so eloquent, and I am afraid that my translation might detract from its beauty, but here I wish to convey, through this little labor, my heart that goes out to Jiali and his family.
Jiali had always loved nature and everything beautiful. Now, he too, has become a part of nature. He has become the wind, the rain, the mountains, and the earth beneath us. He is everywhere. He has not left.