Yung-Ming

I need to talk about the miracle of male grief (maybe next time) but at the moment I’m going to go back to an earlier mention and tell you about Yung-Ming.  I drifted to him just now because I was thinking about gaming, which led me to Hector, and Hector had qualities that reminded me of Yung-Ming.  

Anyway, on the surface Yung-Ming Shih was a Taiwanese man that I worked with at Gartner, a few years older than myself, quiet and very smart, who died of cancer.  All in all, though, Yung-Ming had a profound impact upon me by the example he lived.  I’m welling up just remembering him, that’s how deep he goes.  He is probably the only actual Christian I’ve ever met.  Yung-Ming never displayed anger.  I don’t even know if he ever felt it.  To quote from John the Balladeer, my heart is a sinful one, and each day I pray it will be less so.  Every person I’ve known is like that, has evidenced some bad, some dark mark, everyone except Yung-Ming.  If saints exist, Yung-Ming was one (and his name literally means “forever bright”).  To put it simply, Yung-Ming deserved to live.  I love him and I miss him to my bones.  I had a dream about a year ago in which I was shopping and everywhere I went I thought I saw him.  I’d run up with hope bursting in me only to find a similar looking man.  After this pattern repeated several times, my dream-self stumbled into an alley, fell against a cold brick wall and slid down sobbing.  I awoke in the same state.  

My greatest wish for the afterlife is that I’ll see him again.