Professor Chang, how is your life in the heaven? Do you know May 9 is the 3rd anniversary of the day that you left us?

I wonder if you are enjoying this beauty and fragrance of May, the queen of seasons there, too.

If my memory serves me correctly, I came to know you back in the spring of 1987 as I first saw your article in The Korea Times through the most pathetic column, “Crazy Quilt.”

Your essays would always reflect the abundance of daily life and touch the heart of human concerns, leaving us thoughtful and caring with ingratiating and witty style.

Like many readers, I was soon possessed by your charming mix of insight, humor and refreshing candor and would clip your biweekly masterpiece as an ardent reader, eagerly looking forward to reading your next article.

Your articles would play a critical role for me still poor in English as a freshman and cub-reporter of the English campus journal at my alma mater at that time. My three-year-long campus journal life in the late 1980s would not have been possible without your readable English essays along with The Korea Times as silent English teachers to me.

It was my best memory to get your articles and print them in my university paper in March, 1988 and I still cherish your original typescript as if it were your posthumous work left for me. From then, you did not spare your care and love for me and my family with your sincere letters, emails and encounters whenever I had a hard time in my life and every time taught me to relish it as a beautiful memory to cherish forever in the future though you were busy your whole life.

Professor Chang, you taught me not to be so sensitive to what other people would think of me. You taught me to try and listen before I spoke aloud and criticize others. You guided me to a proper passage till now.

I wonder why you were so hurried to leave me and others in May 2009. But, keeping my fingers crossed again, I hope to see you again in heaven.

What is most meaningful in my life is that I have somebody to remember forever and somebody to be my lifetime mentor. You made me realize that one’s life is worthy of living after all.

Even if my life assumes a certain seriousness which at times stifles me altogether, I will always try my best to do all this in a virtuous and righteous manner as you would do and tell me in your lifetime. Thank you again for your teaching, professor Chang!