Dorcas Leung. November 25, 1944-June 27, 2006.

My beloved mother, to whom I owe all that I am and aspire to be, whose gentle but strong spirit will always live on in me.

***

Quite the year, 2006.

Had I known last January that my life was about to change forever, I would question if I were truly prepared for such hardship. Was I – at the tender threshold of young womanhood --spiritually, mentally, and emotionally prepared for the death of my mother? In retrospect, the answer is yes. God prepared me.

Make no mistake that nothing in the heavens could have prepared me for the pain of that wretched moment when I watched my mother take her final breath. My cries broke the terrifying silence of the hospital room, as darkness penetrated my spirit. For months I lived for this moment – observing with quiet horror the changes in her bodily functions, her appearance, her personality, her zeal for life. What passions can one have when confined to a bed and unable to eat, shit, or move? I watched as Death inched closer every day. And when it finally came, alas, the tremendous weight of the moment rested on a single puff of air, so brief and delicate. It was an ending, and a beginning.

If an artist sees poetry in life, then one thing is for certain: Out of darkness must come light. Only having witnessed the ugliness of death do I have a richer understanding of the hope I have in a Savior. Everything I once knew about God and life assumed new meaning.

Music is a beautiful thing. It is beautiful because it requires a life dedicated to the unstinting service of the highest ideals. This, too, is what God requires of us as citizens of this world. Our time on this earth is limited, but God is the beginning and the end. He is the definition of the highest ideals.

Two months after my mother passed, I moved to London. Who could have guessed that I would be studying at one of the finest music schools in a cultural hotspot like London – certainly not me, not considering my insecurities when I returned to music after having so stubbornly quit piano altogether to study English. How could I have known the goodness of God’s plans for me? The fact is that I didn’t know. But I believed that they existed.

So. In light of all that has happened, I can honestly say that life has never been sweeter, and God has never been greater. And this, I’m sure, is what my mother would have wanted.





With anticipation for 2007, I wish you all a very Happy New Year.