Picture by the courtesy of "Miya of the Quiet Strength" website
On November 1st, 1991, physics graduate student Lu Gang went on a shooting rampage, killing five and injuring Miya Rodolfo-Sioson before turning the gun on himself. The shooting left Miya paralyzed from the neck down.
I was studying theatre at the University of Iowa at that time. I wrote a play about the event from Lu Gang's perspective entitled "Mad as the Blood Sound", where Miya has a short but strong role in it... I went to see Miya in her house, where she was surrounded by her friends. I talked with her for half an hour...and she said with a profound humane voice : "I'm not angry at him anymore"...She asked me if I can leave my play for her to read ... I left it with her, fearing if the play would revive the painful memory and make her uneasy, disquiet... I walked home...profoundly moved...profoundly touched and effected by her transcendental soul, by her deep understanding of human situation...wanted so urgently to write about her... wanted crucially to remind myself of someone who is not the same as the others...and whose life is an eternal poem of our time...
A few days ago I found out that she has lost her battle with cancer. She touched many lives over the course of her lifetime.
She will be always in our mind.
See the video on Miya Rodolfo- Sioson, the quiet Strength
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