A Powerful Memory

David got a tattoo about a month before he died.  It was two Chinese characters that Dave claimed the tattoo artist said represented his name.  He was so proud of that tattoo and while his mother had a long standing objection to tattoos generally in the end we were both so glad that we allowed him to get it.

May 2001

About a year ago I asked a colleague Rick Ward at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis where I worked if he knew someone familiar with the Chinese language who could verify the meaning of the characters.  He was kind enough to put me in touch with Shiaofen Feng an Associate Professor of Computer and Information Sciences who verified that the characters were indeed the Chinese equivalent of David.

I must admit that I was more than a little relieved to know that they did indeed mean what they were supposed to since they could easliy have been misrepresented to a midwestern boy who had not clue about the Chinese language.  But having the confirmation of its meaning I began to look for ways to  honor this memory.  It came finally in the work of the spouse of one of my wife's cousins Linda Li Dorado.  Linda is second generation Taiwanese and an accomplished artist who with great care and skill created two identical works of art that she framed and then inscribed the words of Robert G. Ingersoll

Download DSCF1611.JPG

In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing."

What had once been our young son's dream, that was in many ways onerous to his parents at the time...has now become a lovingly crafted work of art that contains a powerful memory for us.