The Wisdom of Hector: Fall, 1st year of college

All Love Is: The 1st year of graduate school

Ghost of a Rose: Graduate School until Graduation

Until Tomorrow: The summer after graduate school

Though Hell Should Bar the Way: On a Fifteen Year Anniversary



EnNoblement: A New Life Begins

The Place of Fear (1): Outer Courts

I have lived...and I have seen life as it is. Pain, misery, hunger ... cruelty beyond belief...When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams -- this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be...I will march to the sound of the trumpets of glory...Forever to conquer or die!
- Man of La Mancha

From her bilge hiding place, up to her chin in slime and human waste, the little girl watched every member of her birth family systematically murdered by the pirates.

Abigail's family, along with hundreds of other people, had attempted to flee the victorious Viet Cong after the fall of Saigon in 1975 for safety elsewhere. Thai pirates found them first. By the time a US Navy destroyer found the shattered ship, there were only a handful of survivors, Abigail among them. Was Abigail three years old? Four? Noone left alive knew her true age, or her original name; her past utterly lost in the horror of death and slaughter. Abigail was just old enough to remember...and although young enough to recover, she has nightmares about the slaughter to this very day.

Brought to the United States, she was adopted by a kind-hearted couple named Peter and Nadine Taylor and spent her early years down in rust-belt Indiana. Her father was a foreman in the local auto plant, her mother a nursing student. As the only Asian child in an all-white, semi-rural area, she grew up with a lot of name-calling and bullying, that only got worse when the auto plant was closed and people blamed the Japanese.

The auto-plant's closure forced her family to move out of their home and into a trailer park, but it did not shake her parent's deep love for her. Their family did not have much money, but they had a great deal of love. Her father worked multiple odd jobs at night while spending days playing with Abigail, wiping her sniffles, tutoring her in her schoolwork, teaching her the violin, and helping his wife and Abigail's mother through school. Abigail's home --and her parent's love, for Abigail and for each other-- was an enduring shield from the darker world outside.

They stayed in the trailer park even when her mother graduated and found a job as a nurse, as they were sending what they could spare to help her mother's close sister Vivienne get through law school. Finally, in 1984, when Abigail was in the seventh grade, after years of sacrifice, her family was well off enough to afford a house. Life was looking up. Then her mother contracted AIDS from a needle stick.

As was unfortunately common in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, fear fueled by ignorance gripped their community. After an escalating series of protests and attacks, one night unknown assailants firebombed the family's trailer home, killing Abigail's parents. Abigail herself lived only because she happened not to be home, away on an orchestra trip. It would be months before Abigail would emerge from the quiet she went into, and more than a year before she was ready to start school again.

Abigail was taken in by her Aunt Vivienne, now a high-profile lawyer working for a great finance house in Tokyo. Aunt Vivienne had always been close to her mother, and to Abigail's family, and being a lawyer, the appropriate paperwork was swiftly done. More than that, the vibrant, tolerant multi-cultural community of expatriantes in Tokyo was a far cry from the shallow town Abigail had grown up in. And Aunt Vivienne was an active part of Abigail's life; as much older sister and best friend as guardian. They explored Japan together, played celtic music together, became best of friends. In such an enviroment, Abigail eventually recovered, emotionally, although the scars would never leave her. Abigail caught up in school over the years and under Vivienne's loving care blossomed into a vibrant, enthusiastic young woman.

It was also at the American School in Japan that Abigail first met Erin McGowan --on their mutual very first day at ASIJ, when they both took seats at the front of the high school auditorium next to each other. Where Abigail began quiet and withdrawn, Erin was a Scots-Irish-Japanese firey redhead, loud, brash, and vivacious, almost a bit reckless --and a loyal and true friend. It was Erin who was Abigail's first friend --they were so by the end of their first day-- and who in many ways, together with Aunt Vivienne, drew Abigail out of Abigail's own shell. The two of them became best friend: if Aunt Vivienne was the older sister Abigail never had, Erin was like her mischievious twin. Indeed, they ended up going to the same college, and later graduate school, where over time their relationship became only stronger.

-"Made in Heaven", Queen

By the time Abigail graduated from high school her natural talents had led her to excel. Abigail choose Northwestern University in Evanston, due to a "perpetual scholarship" that had made its way down her family. Abigail majored in biology (BMCMB) at Northwestern as part of the intense Integrated Science Program, excelling again there. She lived at Lindgren House, prankstering to a high degree; inspired by her Aunt Vivienne's stories, she joined the midwestern kingdom of the SCA known as the Midrealm and the shire of Tree-Girt Sea. Abigail became part of the Dream, as musician and singer. It was through the SCA and Lindgren that she met Thomas...

Thomas Carolan, one year up on her, was a fellow Lindgrenite, ISP-Mathmatics, and a harpist worthy of his surname. A native of Rochester, NY, of Irish and African descent, handsome, gentle, brilliant and humble in equal measure, a quiet, steady, loyal gentleman and Knight in every sense of the word, with a rich tenor that could capture a room. As an officer of the dorm, he came to Abigail's bed-and-breakfast in a taxi to help her move into the dorm the first day...and they soon fell in love, to the delight of all who knew them. They became an inseperable duo, his harp, her fiddle and pipes, and their voices cutting a swath across all the Midrealm, and at the end of her junior year, at the Midrealm Crown Tourney on Midsummer's Eve, after she had won in competition the title of Bard to the Dragon Throne, he asked for her hand in marriage. Before a cheering crowd of their friends, she accepted his ring.

Their world would be forever shattered forty-eight hours later.

It was an drunken-driver incident --a car out of control on Sheridan Road came up on the curb at speed, coming in right at Abigail's blind spot. Thomas managed to wrench Abigail out of the way --and was himself side-clipped by the same vehicle. At first it seemed he would live, joking from his hospital bed. Then that night, Thomas made a turn for the worse that he never recovered from. Worse yet, the drivers --two drunken fraternity brothers-- managed to get off with virtually a slap on the wrist --no more than probation-- due to some fancy legal manuvering by their wealthy parents. But what mattered to Abigail the most was not the miscarriage of justice --but the outpouring of kindness from those around her. All the Midrealm --and the Knowne World of the SCA-- mourned Thomas, and supported Abigail through her year of service as Bard to the Midrealm Crown. Their strength became her strength, and it was a strength that only grew with time.

Abigail's spectacular undergraduate record --Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Mortar Board and Golden Key, NSF and HHMI Pre-Doctoral fellowships-- would have allowed her to go to any graduate school in the nation in her field. But staying with her beloved friends in the Midrealm was the major reason Abbie choose Michigan for graduate school in Cellular and Molecular Biology in 1994. Abigail joined a fast-moving laboratory and was part of the ground-breaking work identifying the mechanisms underlying apoptosis, the integral process of programmed cell death critical to development and cancer. Abigail also quickly became a valued member of the Barony of Cynnabar, and together with Erin joined the Cynnabar Players as musician and singer, her music fired by the deep loss --and powerful love-- with which life had tempered Abigail's soul.

While Abigail had followed the path of molecular biology, Erin had taken the family tradition of engineering and military service at Northwestern through a Mech E BS and Army ROTC, and come to Michigan to pursue the same. Erin too had fallen in love with the Dream of the SCA; Erin's athletic talents and family background leading Erin down the fighter's path, rather than Abigail's road to the Laurel and Pelican. Erin became a stick-jock where Abigail was a Bard; indeed, good enough that Erin eventually became second queen by right-of-arms in the history of the Knowne World. Even for a stick-jock, Erin had a good sense of rhythm and Erin's natural physical talent made her one hell of a dancer, and so as percussion and dancer both Erin too was a part of the Cynnabar players.

It was also in Cynnabar that Abigail discovered the on-line world. Ever since she had been a young girl, isolated and ostracized by her peers in rural Indiana, Abigail had turned to drawing and art as well as music. Specifically, Abigail delighted in the cartoons of animals who walked and talked like people, like Snoopy, the denizens of Bloom County -- and Disney's Robin Hood, with its half-animal, half-human protagonists, a movie which changed Abigail's art forever. Abigail created a world filled with such characters, including her own alter ego --Abbie the golden retriever. At Michigan, she discovered she was far, far from alone in that style --thanks to a gentleman named Christopher Miao.

Chris was a life-long Michigander. Almost seven feet tall and more than 21 stone in solid muscle, barrel chested and belly like a plate of armor, he had a grizzly bear's build and courage and a teddy bear's heart. Impossibly nimble hands that played any of a dozen instruments beautifully, or drew with incredible skill, drew the same kind of art that Abigail herself loved. It was Chris who introduced Abigail to Yerf, to FurryMUCK, to fantasy roleplaying beyond the SCA they both adored; to the cello, the hammered dulcimer, the recorder, and more. Admist many, many friends Abigail was profoundly fortunate to have, Chris became one of Abigail's closest...

Chris and Abigail shared a wonderfully close friendship, as partners in mischief and music. They shared too a common history of deep grief; for a few years earlier Chris had been on a summer trip to Asia with his parents, siblings, and high school sweetheart, when he had been bumped to a different flight, and by that random occurance survived the plane crash that killed everyone else, leaving him utterly alone. Chris and Abigail understood each other's pain in a way few others ever could.

Chris and Abigail pursued their respective PhDs and merriment, and happy years amongst wonderful friends they had, and many adventures together. They were Chris and Abbie, like Mungojerry and Rumpleteaser, like Robin Hood and Little John, Bonny and Clyde. Five wonderful years together they had together, and the future lay ahead.

And then Chris was diagnosed with cancer.

Abigail was by his side every day, as Chris was wracked with pain, lost his hair, his strength, his sight, but never his humor. Through nine long months. After the last therapies had failed and the last hope was gone, they went to the British Isles, one last trip together. It was on that trip, from a small shop in Edinburgh, that Chris bought for Abigail the hound pendant she wears to this day. Chris slipped from this world a few weeks later, surrounded by the friends who had become the family he had lost, and his beloved Abigail by his side. As if to compound Abigail's loss, only a few weeks later, a madman would orchestrate the horrific Eastrail disaster from which only a single man would survive --unscratched-- while more than two hundred others would perish, among them, Abigail's beloved Aunt Vivienne.

Abigail still sings in Cynnabar. She still dances with the Players at Ren Faires, like the one Erin and Abigail left for most recently, still announces the fighters with a flourish at the tournaments, helps plan the feasts for the Barony, refree the games at the Cons, still draws and paints and laughs and dreams. She still romps with the children on Mott 7 West, and indeed, she has begun to consider seriously pursuing medicine as a career. She still makes mischief all over Ann Arbor with Erin, her faithful partner-in-crime, still roots for the Maize and Blue on Football Saturdays and carols through the streets on early December nights, each day, each action, each moment, one more blow against the darkness, one more act of defiance against despair.

For the memory of the fallen, and the hope of joys to come.

A field of white roses, stretching out to the horizon, with one single red rose standing amidst the rest.

"The world is filled with hearts held with secrets, hidden from one another. Such deception I can understand; but I cannot live that way. My loyalties and friendships I declare proudly, share openly, and serve actively, unshamed, unafraid..."

A cubicle-separator, of a drab uncharacteristic beige-coloured fabric. Right in the middle of it there's a small golden pin keeping a startlingly deep magenta ribbon twisted into a bow in place.

"...except love. That upon which Anchoring depends but the Windflower Law forbids; all the precious gifts of love --hugs, kisses, and the sharing of hearts-- lost forever to me, captured and pinned away like a butterfly in a collection."

A dinner party with revelers flitting from room to room, laughing, hugging, kissing; amidst them, a solitary woman stands watching. Her uniform, pressed and polished, she sadly takes in all the surroundings without ever becoming part of them. A tear runs down her face.

"A soldier now in the Valade Bellum, isolated and cut off from much of that which were life's greatest joys; never allowed again to indulge, express or share the most beautiful of life's gifts. Of all the costs eNoblement exacts, this perhaps, for me, the most terrible price..."

An androgynous figure, clothed in white and with a sad expression, is stepping into a river of what seems to be blood. On the bank of the river is a willow whose branches do not quite reach the flow.

"But I am no stranger to sorrow. My birth parents, my adoptive family, both the men I have loved as Truehearts; these among others the world has taken from me. Now too much of my humanity and my ability to ever share love with those dear to me ever again lost too. To travel the road of loss as well as joy has been my way..."

In the fading light, a woman's figure is silhouetted by the red glow of the sunset. She stands defiantly, atop a shingled roof holding a instrument in her arms.

"But I am hardly alone in that regard. Many others too have lost terribly; indeed, pain is the way of our world. But so too are moments of joy. As black as the world is, I will not let it crush my spirit. I will remain defiant to the last, to carry on for the memories of those and that I loved so dear."

A firey golden sun sets into the sea. Silhouetted against the magnificent sunset, a tall lighthouse stands on a hill, sweeping its beam across land and sea.

"In each of our lives, the night inevitably comes; and in the darkness that follows, nothing is more precious than those friends and family who guide us home in the gloom. Such others have been for me in my life, and so I hope to be myself."

In a cheerful tavern the patrons drink and carouse, laughing with one another and singing along with the minstrel in green and scarlet. The fireplace is lit, rain can be seen falling outside through the windows, and swords and wet cloaks hang by the door.

"In the heraldic tradition, Gules (Scarlet) stood for courage and Vert (Green) for hope; these are my colors, and I wear them proudly. Against the darkness of despair I strive to spread the light of good cheer and comraderie, while voice and life still remain.