Julie Yip-Williams dies at 42. Know more about Candid Blog writer’s journey in life and Messages she left for her children!

Published on March 25, 2018 | Published By: resh sharma | In Career , Child , Health

Source: The New York Times (Julie Yip Williams)

Julie Yip-Williams died on Monday at her home in Brooklyn. She was only 42 years old.

Her husband, Joshua Williams has said the cause of her death was metastatic colon cancer.

She was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer in 2013. She started her blog, by writing about her siege with cancer, the life of struggles that began with being born blind in Vietnam, and her ethnic Chinese family’s escape in a fishing boat.

Not only that, but her blog also serves on love and family. She has also included messages about her illness to her young daughters Mia and Isabelle.

“Cancer crushes hope, leaving a wasteland of grief, depression, despair and a sense of unending futility. “Hope is a funny thing, though. It seems to have a life and will of its own that I cannot control through the sheer force of my mind. It is irrepressible, its very existence inextricably tied to our very spirit, its flame, no matter how weak, not extinguishable.”

Table of Contents

Family and Birth

Julie Yip-Williams was born on Jan. 6, 1976, in Tam Ky. Her birth name was Ly Thanh. She was born in Tan Ky which was a part of South Vietnam until the country unified with North Vietnam later the same year she was born.

Her father’s name is Diep The Phu, later known as Peter and her mother’s name is Lam Que Anh, later known as Ann. She also has a brother, Denton, and an older sister named Lyna Yip.

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Blind by birth

She was born blind. The reason for her blindness was Congenital cataracts (lens opacity present at birth). Her paternal grandmother was then the family’s head and to her, the newborn girl’s condition only meant a burden and no future.

Almost killed

Following Julie’s grandmother’s instructions, her father and mother took their 2-month-old daughter to an herbalist in the coastal city of Da Nang. There she was meant to be killed with one of his concoctions.

But the kind herbiest refused to kill Julie and also rejected any form of payment from the family. So Julie’s parents took her back home. The grandmother was very upset.

Julie has included this event on her blog.

“She would have found another way to kill me but my great-grandmother got wind of her daughter-in-law’s endeavor from her Da Nang home and commanded that I be left alone: how she was born is how she will be.”

Secret disclosed

She herself did not know of this event in her childhood until the age of 28. She was told of it only after the death of her grandmother. Furthermore, she calls this event “The Secret”.

Escape from Homeland

Upper-class families like that of Julie had their assets confiscated by Vietnam’s Communist government. So in early 1979, along with 3-year-old Julie and about 50 members of her family became the so-called boat people and boarded fishing boats from Vietnam to Hong Kong. The journey was a month long and tiring.

She wrote in her Blog,

“We were lucky because our boat did not sink as so many others did. We were lucky because we were not forced to engage in cannibalism, as some other refugees were.”

To the United States

After spending several months in a refugee camp, Julie with her parents and brother flew to San Francisco in November 1979. Soon they again flew to Los Angeles. Julie’s older sister also had arrived in the United States with two of her uncles ahead of them.

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Settlement

The family then settled in Monterey Park, a suburb of Los Angeles. To raise their three children, Ms. Yip-Williams’s father became a wholesale vegetable buyer, and her mother a manicurist.

Surgery and education

Julie underwent eye surgery at what is now the UCLA Stein Eye Institute. She did get her vision back after her surgery but remained legally blind. To see she needed thick glasses and a magnifying glass to read the small print. She was also not able to drive.

Julie went to Williams College in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard Law School. She received a bachelor’s degree in English and Asian Studies there.

Career

In 2002, she joined the law firm Cleary Gottlieb in New York. She specialized in corporate governance and mergers and acquisitions there.

In 2014, she spoke at a fund-raising event sponsored by the Law firm about her education in the world’s most reputed university

“I never felt like I belonged in any of these fine institutions: a poor immigrant girl who wasn’t that smart but was willing to work hard, rubbing elbows with America’s elite.”

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Husband and daughters

Her husband Joshua Williams is also a lawyer. She has two daughters – an older daughter Mia and Isabelle,6.

Julie is also survived by her parents, brother, and sisters.

“Rejoice in life and all of its beauty because of it; live with special zest and zeal for me.”

Messages she left

Julie was a wonderful woman. She was a strong woman throughout her life. She loved her husband and daughters very much.

After she was gone, she wanted her presence to be felt by her children while growing up. So she left them messages and instructions like “who your dentist is”, “when your school tuition needs to be paid”, and “about all the ins and outs of the apartment”.

“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.”

The blog turned into a memoir

Additional materials had been written by Julie to her existing blog. Her writing is now being turned into a memoir by Random House. They expect it to be published later this year or early next year.

Her editor said in a telephone interview,

“What makes Julie’s story distinctive is that she approached cancer consciously. She did not deny it and didn’t engage in happy talk. She thought this experience and this book might have something to teach people about facing hard truths and would be an exhortation to the living.”

CBS Sunday Morning also televised her profile this month.

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