Memorial Speech for Barry Chai on June 17,2010
Good afternoon, we are here today to mourn the loss of a young life, Barry Chai, a son, a brother, a friend, a classmate, and a decent young man, his demise is an irreparable loss to all of us.
Even more certain than tax, we know death is probably the only thing guaranteed in our life regardless of who you are or where you're from. The inevitability is not the issue here; it is the untimely loss of a young life that deeply troubled us.
I am Jyanwei Liu; I'd like to say a few things about Barry and his family. I get to know Barry and his family through my wife. Barry's mom Christine was my wife's roommate in college and my wife was her bridesmaid.
My wife and I moved to Bay Area in early 90's after finishing our graduate study, around the same time, in searching for a better educational environment, Barry's parent brought him and his sister to Bay Area from Taiwan to spend one semester, to try out in an elementary school in Sunnyvale. Barry was in 3rd grade at the time, he was a handsome boy full of energy and with good manner. My wife and I spent several weekends playing with him and he was very happy, busy in exploring the new environment, I remember the day when they about to leave Bay Area, we can tell Barry is already missing us, he said it all on his face; we like him so much and we know we will miss him too. Their family settled in Vancouver, Barry came back to visit us in his sophomore year in college, we were delighted to see a handsome boy turned a handsome young man, still full of energy and still with very good manner. Probably more mature than his same age peer, he asked us many questions of career development and seems very conscious about his study and his future.
The last time we see him was in March this year in Menlo Park, we had a dinner with him and his parents; again he asked us a lot of questions about career development, the relevance of pursuing either Ph.D. or master degree with respect to his career development, pros and cons about taking industry or academic job, government or private sector. My wife and I shared our graduate school experience with him and what we learned in our career, the good, the bad, and the ugly; not to scare him (nothing seems to scare him anyway) but to prepare him. That was a wonderful two hours spend with him, a decent young man full of optimism, planning and dreaming of his future. What conversation can be more pleasant than that?
My wife's nephew is coming to the US in July to pursue graduate study, she was planning to invite Barry over to interact with him and be an inspiring role model for him. All of this planning ends when we learned the unthinkable last Saturday. We struggled to comprehend why God allow this to happen and we know no words are kind enough to comfort parent's sorrow.
Still, Ted and Christine, please accept our hearty condolences at this difficult time. You brought up a very good young man and you should be proud of yourself. The physical part of Barry ceased to exist, we all miss him very much, but the spiritual part of him continues; Barry is in a better place. We pray God to give you and the whole family strength.
