Death
On September 8, 1995, Chang was found dead in her apartment on Rochester Avenue in Westwood, Los Angeles by her landlord. That she was found days after her death testifies to her seclusion. Her death certificate states that she died from cardiovascular disease. According to Chang's will, she was cremated without any memorial services and her ashes were released into the Pacific Ocean.
She willed all her possessions to Stephen Soong (宋淇) and his wife Mae Fong Soong (鄺文美) in Hong Kong, but they later died. Their daughter Elaine and son Roland inherited the estate of Chang's works. Roland, who writes the influential EastSouthWestNorth blog in Hong Kong, has spoken about her works.
Chang's brother, Zijing, died in 1997. Neither he nor his sister had any children, and the family has no descendants.
Read more about this topic: Eileen Chang
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Could any death be so horrible as birth? Or any decrepitude so awful as childhood in a happy united God-fearing family?”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“If I can, I shall keep my death from saying anything that my life has not already said.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“If I had my life over again I should form the habit of nightly composing myself to thoughts of death. I would practise, as it were, the remembrance of death. There is no other practice which so intensifies life. Death, when it approaches, ought not to take one by surprise. It should be part of the full expectancy of life. Without an ever- present sense of death life is insipid. You might as well live on the whites of eggs.”
—Muriel Spark (b. 1918)