Julie Yip-Williams lived a life of incredible hardship, defying the odds and inspiring countless people along the way. One of the biggest lessons she learned is that pain can propel us to become better people. This understanding is a big reason why the final letter she wrote to her daughters is so powerful.
Yip-Williams was born in 1976 in post-war Vietnam, totally blind. This caused her grandmother to take her to an herbalist to have her murdered. Her grandmother believed she would be a burden on the family and never marry. However, the herbalist refused to do such “dirty” work, and she lived.
Her family later came to America as refugees and settled in California, where a doctor partially restored her sight. Fueled by a life of hardship, she got into Harvard Law and became a corporate lawyer. At the age of 37, she was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer and documented her struggle on her blog, which was turned into a book, The Unwinding of the Miracle, after her passing in 2018 at 42.
In 2017, Yip-Williams wrote an open letter to her elementary-school-aged daughters, Mia and Isaabelle, sharing advice on how to cope with her passing. The letter is heartbreaking because no mother should ever have to write it, but it’s inspiring in how she encourages her daughters to push through their grief to become stronger people.
In the opening ot he letter, she explains the pain they will likely feel:
I realized that I would have failed you greatly as your mother if I did not try to ease your pain from my loss, if I didn’t at least attempt to address what will likely be the greatest question of your young lives. You will forever be the kids whose mother died of cancer, have people looking at you with some combination of sympathy and pity (which you will no doubt resent, even if everyone means well). That fact of your mother dying will weave into the fabric of your lives like a glaring stain on an otherwise pristine tableau. You will ask, as you look around at all the other people who still have their parents, Why did my mother have to get sick and die? It isn’t fair, you will cry. And you will want so painfully for me to be there to hug you when your friend is mean to you, to look on as your ears are being pierced, to sit in the front row clapping loudly at your music recitals, to be that annoying parent insisting on another photo with the college graduate, to help you get dressed on your wedding day, to take your newborn babe from your arms so you can sleep. And every time you yearn for me, it will hurt all over again and you will wonder why.
I don’t know if my words could ever ease your pain. But I would be remiss if I did not try.
One of the most powerful parts of the letter is when Yip-Williams explains why her daughters should never think life treated them unfairly.
My seventh-grade history teacher, Mrs. Olson, a batty eccentric but a phenomenal teacher, used to rebut our teenage protestations of “That’s not fair!” (for example, when she sprang a pop quiz on us or when we played what was called the “Unfair” trivia game) with “Life is not fair. Get used to it!” Somehow, we grow up thinking that there should be fairness, that people should be treated fairly, that there should be equality of treatment as well as opportunity. That expectation must be derived from growing up in a rich country where the rule of law is so firmly entrenched. Even at the tender age of five, both of you were screaming about fairness as if it were some fundamental right (as in it wasn’t fair that Belle got to go to see a movie when Mia did not). So perhaps those expectations of fairness and equity are also hardwired into the human psyche and our moral compass. I’m not sure.
What I do know for sure is that Mrs. Olson was right. Life is not fair. You would be foolish to expect fairness, at least when it comes to matters of life and death, matters outside the scope of the law, matters that cannot be engineered or manipulated by human effort, matters that are distinctly the domain of God or luck or fate or some other unknowable, incomprehensible force.
Yip-Williams also urged her daughters not to shy away from the pain of her death. As someone who has lived a life of incredible hardship, she urges them to experience the pain, so that it can make them stronger. Her words remind us to embrace life’s natural balance. There is no joy without sorrow. No good fortune without bad luck and no light without dark.
My sweet babies, I do not have the answer to the question of why, at least not now and not in this life. But I do know that there is incredible value in pain and suffering, if you allow yourself to experience it, to cry, to feel sorrow and grief, to hurt. Walk through the fire and you will emerge on the other end, whole and stronger. I promise. You will ultimately find truth and beauty and wisdom and peace. You will understand that nothing lasts forever, not pain, or joy. You will understand that joy cannot exist without sadness. Relief cannot exist without pain. Compassion cannot exist without cruelty. Courage cannot exist without fear. Hope cannot exist without despair. Wisdom cannot exist without suffering. Gratitude cannot exist without deprivation. Paradoxes abound in this life. Living is an exercise in navigating within them.
I was deprived of sight. And yet, that single unfortunate physical condition changed me for the better. Instead of leaving me wallowing in self-pity, it made me more ambitious. It made me more resourceful. It made me smarter. It taught me to ask for help, to not be ashamed of my physical shortcoming. It forced me to be honest with myself and my limitations, and eventually to be honest with others. It taught me strength and resilience. You will be deprived of a mother. As your mother, I wish I could protect you from the pain. But also as your mother, I want you to feel the pain, to live it, embrace it, and then learn from it.
Be stronger people because of it, for you will know that you carry my strength within you. Be more compassionate people because of it; empathize with those who suffer in their own ways. Rejoice in life and all its beauty because of it; live with special zest and zeal for me. Be grateful in a way that only someone who lost her mother so early can, in your understanding of the precariousness and preciousness of life. This is my challenge to you, my sweet girls, to take an ugly tragedy and transform it into a source of beauty, love, strength, courage, and wisdom.
At the end of the letter, Yip-Williams shared a wish she has for herself after passing: to be made whole and to experience the world without the limitations handed to her at birth.
I have often dreamed that when I die, I will finally know what it would be like to see the world without visual impairment, to see far into the distance, to see the minute details of a bird, to drive a car. Oh, how I long to have perfect vision, even after all these years without. I long for death to make me whole, to give me what was denied me in this life. I believe this dream will come true. Similarly, when your time comes, I will be there waiting for you, so that you, too, will be given what was lost to you.
You can read the entire piece at Letters of Note.
Julie Yip-Williams passed away in her home in Brooklyn on March 19, 2018, at age 42. She was survived by her husband, Joshua R. Williams, and her daughters, Mia Seng Williams (8) and Isabelle Yip Williams (6). Her book, The Unwinding of the Miracle, was published the next year by Random House and became a New York Times Bestseller.
