Jenny Lin and Anne Frank
It was with sincerity and curiosity that I recently attended a concert at the Performing Arts Center at Chabot College. The event was the Jenny Lin Summer Music Program, which is sponsored by the Jenny Lin Foundation. From my perspective, it was much more than an evening of music. It was an evening of high art. It was based upon appreciation, gratitude, and love. It was also based upon remembrance. The remembrance was of a young lady – Jenny Lin. Her life ended thirty years ago in an unsolved murder. It was at her home here in Castro Valley. She was only fourteen years old. Her parents and her family, as well as our community, have not forgotten her and continue to memorialize her with meaning. This is where art and love dance together in the perpetuation of this program in honor of Jenny Lin.
The orchestra was composed of approximately one hundred young musicians. They were of a common age, being students at local schools in the range of middle school and older. All were attired in dignity – wearing black suits and dresses. Their performance was exceptional. With my eyes closed, they sounded like the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. They were that good. They played with maturity and spirituality in appreciation for the moment and the memory. It made me reflect upon the wholeness of life. They also watered my eyes.
Although I never met Jenny Lin or her parents, I felt their presence while I watched and listened. The fact that they took the tragedy of long ago to create ongoing goodness in the memory of Jenny Lin is a true display of high art in life. To take darkness and turn it into light takes hearts and minds of greatness within. There have been thousands of young adults that have performed music with beauty under the auspices of the Jenny Lin Foundation. It is as if they have planted a rose bush in the desolateness of a desert to flower for all to benefit.
Given the significance and substance of this story, I turn to another young lady that lost her life through tragedy. Her name was Anne Frank. She was fifteen years old when she died. Although her world had turned dark, she still found the light in life. In the diary she kept, the eclipse of an encroaching holocaust, was ending her life. As it was happening, she wrote, “Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” To us here in Castro Valley and East Bay, Jenny Lin was our Anne Frank. She remains an inspiration. Her short life continues to gift us with measurement and meaning, and how to find the good despite the bad, and how to bring light to darkness. As I end this article, I think of two sisters that never met. Yet, they continue to live, with inspiration, with us and within us. To Jenny and Anne - Thank you.