in an open sea” in her suicide note. Hearing his words, I felt my spine dripping with cold sweat. He urged us to drive to the bridge and check out the parking lots. But Shau-Jin and I were already exhausted physically and emotionally after a day of fruitless searching. We did not have the energy to drive to San Francisco.
But I was able to find the phone number of the Golden Gate Bridge Patrol. I gave an officer Iris’s car license plate number and description of what she looked like. For the next few hours, I was in constant contact with the officer. He was patient and kind.
Eventually, however, he told us that no one who looked like Iris was near the bridge, and her car wasn’t there either.
A creepy thought engulfed me: if Iris had driven her car over a cliff and plunged into the ocean, we might never find her.
I also thought about how she had talked in recent weeks about “escaping.” What if she had driven to some remote place and planned to hide there indefinitely? “O, Iris, please come home,” I shouted to myself in desperation.
I can’t recall when I fell asleep that night. I just remember the frightening sound of a ringing telephone piercing the quiet darkness. It was Brett. He said he was coming to our home with a police officer. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was nearly midnight.
We opened the door. Brett and a plainclothes officer came in. Both looked solemn.
“I’m sorry to inform you that Iris is dead,” the officer said. “She shot herself early this morning and her body was found in her car, near Los Gatos.”
I felt as if I’d been caught in a violent storm. The thunder was deafening. The lightning blinded me. The earth seemed to shake.
Shau-Jin and I collapsed onto the carpet of our living room, and I found myself falling into an endless black tunnel. I heard my voice echoing:
“Iris, Iris, how could you kill yourself? How could you desert Christopher, me, and your father?
“How could you do such a thing to me?
“How can I live the rest of my life without you?”
But I would have to. All I have now are decades of memories—some haunting, but most filled with love.
Iris Chang was the author of a 1998 New York Times best seller, and when she died she was only thirty-six years old.
Her bestselling book, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II , published in 1997, on the sixtieth anniversary of the massacre, examines one of the most tragic chapters of World War II: the slaughter, gang rape, and torture of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former capital of China. The book made a huge impact on the global redress movement regarding the Imperial Japanese war crimes in Asia during World War II.
Her death shocked the world. No one believed a best-selling author, a young, beautiful rising star like Iris Chang, would kill herself. Her death was headline news in almost all the major newspapers throughout the world. The news was also immediately broadcast over radio and TV stations. The shockwave hit Chinese Diaspora communities hard, all over the globe.
On November 19, 2004, six hundred people showed up on short notice to her funeral in Los Altos, California. The chapel at Gate of Haven cemetery was too small for such a huge number of people; mourners overflowed onto the lawn outside the chapel. Many of them were Iris’s friends and supporters, but most were strangers and admirers. Letters, telegrams, and flowers of condolence poured in from all corners of the world.
During the funeral, James Bradley, the best-selling author of Flags of Our Father and Flyboys, addressed his eulogy to Iris’s two years old son. He said, in part (the complete text of the Eulogy is located in the Appendix ),
Christopher, your mother was Iris Chang. . . . Five years before you were born, I was struggling in my effort to write a book about the six flag-raisers in the photo.
For two years I had tried to find a publisher. Twenty-seven
But I was able to find the phone number of the Golden Gate Bridge Patrol. I gave an officer Iris’s car license plate number and description of what she looked like. For the next few hours, I was in constant contact with the officer. He was patient and kind.
Eventually, however, he told us that no one who looked like Iris was near the bridge, and her car wasn’t there either.
A creepy thought engulfed me: if Iris had driven her car over a cliff and plunged into the ocean, we might never find her.
I also thought about how she had talked in recent weeks about “escaping.” What if she had driven to some remote place and planned to hide there indefinitely? “O, Iris, please come home,” I shouted to myself in desperation.
I can’t recall when I fell asleep that night. I just remember the frightening sound of a ringing telephone piercing the quiet darkness. It was Brett. He said he was coming to our home with a police officer. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was nearly midnight.
We opened the door. Brett and a plainclothes officer came in. Both looked solemn.
“I’m sorry to inform you that Iris is dead,” the officer said. “She shot herself early this morning and her body was found in her car, near Los Gatos.”
I felt as if I’d been caught in a violent storm. The thunder was deafening. The lightning blinded me. The earth seemed to shake.
Shau-Jin and I collapsed onto the carpet of our living room, and I found myself falling into an endless black tunnel. I heard my voice echoing:
“Iris, Iris, how could you kill yourself? How could you desert Christopher, me, and your father?
“How could you do such a thing to me?
“How can I live the rest of my life without you?”
But I would have to. All I have now are decades of memories—some haunting, but most filled with love.
Iris Chang was the author of a 1998 New York Times best seller, and when she died she was only thirty-six years old.
Her bestselling book, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II , published in 1997, on the sixtieth anniversary of the massacre, examines one of the most tragic chapters of World War II: the slaughter, gang rape, and torture of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former capital of China. The book made a huge impact on the global redress movement regarding the Imperial Japanese war crimes in Asia during World War II.
Her death shocked the world. No one believed a best-selling author, a young, beautiful rising star like Iris Chang, would kill herself. Her death was headline news in almost all the major newspapers throughout the world. The news was also immediately broadcast over radio and TV stations. The shockwave hit Chinese Diaspora communities hard, all over the globe.
On November 19, 2004, six hundred people showed up on short notice to her funeral in Los Altos, California. The chapel at Gate of Haven cemetery was too small for such a huge number of people; mourners overflowed onto the lawn outside the chapel. Many of them were Iris’s friends and supporters, but most were strangers and admirers. Letters, telegrams, and flowers of condolence poured in from all corners of the world.
During the funeral, James Bradley, the best-selling author of Flags of Our Father and Flyboys, addressed his eulogy to Iris’s two years old son. He said, in part (the complete text of the Eulogy is located in the Appendix ),
Christopher, your mother was Iris Chang. . . . Five years before you were born, I was struggling in my effort to write a book about the six flag-raisers in the photo.
For two years I had tried to find a publisher. Twenty-seven
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