So long, David

It's rainy the day you had the last breath Friday, July 11th. At Golden Ladies lunch gathering, Lydia told us you were admitted to ICU due to septemia, the situation was not optimistic. I told Lydia secretly that I'd dreamt of you the week before. We went mountain climbing and you fell from the cliff and died of heavy loss of blood. At night, I was notified by Michelle that you passed away.

I forgot when and how we got to know each other in Toastmasters, but your smile seemed to be your trademark. Whenever I needed help from you to entertain Toastmasters from Japan, you never turned me down. You even invited me for afternoon coffee once at a cozy cafe' on Mingshen East Road, remember? Our little secret!

It's sunny today. More than two hundred toastmasters friends attended your funeral service in Taoyuan Thursday, July 31st. When they saw the huge photo with your big trademark smile hung high on the altar, tears flooded in the eyes of your friends. Everybody missed you, a sunny and supportive big brother. Lydia, Kate, Michelle joined the chorus to sing "Thee in Me" and "Amazing Grace" beautifully. It was a touching and solemn toastmasters gathering.

On the way back from Taoyuan to Taipei, we had an impromptu tabletopics session in memory of you on Chartered Bus One. Toastmaster Daphne Wang, Charter President of Fu-jen University, was the topics master, Toastmaster Fannie Liu, Charter President of Soochow University, was the timer. Moses Mo from Galaxy, Soy Chen from Art Class, Incumbent Area C1 Governor Jeffrey Huang, and IPP Irene Tsai from Galaxy were tabletopics speakers. Mike Yang made the closing remarks before we arrived in Taipei. Twenty toastmasters stayed for the second party for an hour and a half at Milk King near Chung-shan MRT station.

Dear David, we were sad to see you go, but you are gone to share with your new friends your love of arts and beauty in another world. Thank you so much for brining so many toastmasters and friends together on your last day on earth.