i saw your mother today,

edwin. a crushed soul. crushed ... and shattered. and the shards cut deep. oh, edwin, such sorrow oozes from each of her pores. and still, she asks how i'm doing. when i touch her hand -- it stings. it stings me, edwin ... you know the stinging when you touch your eye after chopping onions? like that. her pain engulfs me. there's so much of it. it fills this place, this store where you got shot in the head over $47.

i now know why i have felt such fear of entering the store. the energy of your death, the crushing grief your parents feel, at missing you. i feel it. every molecule, every drop of sorrow and grief. my heart, my soul ... they remember this pain, this suffering. plucked away, edwin - this feeling, it's the feeling of 'plucked away.' the most beautiful, well-rooted and healthy feather ... plucked away. your parents, they witnessed what no parent should have to -- watching their own son die violently at the hands of another human. and they continue to live and work in that very place you lost your life.

Edwin ... can you breath some gentle comfort into the heart of your mother ... and shine some soft hope onto your father's anguished soul?

a note from malva: edwin yue, age 19 was shot in the head (and killed), the evening of 20.02.06, while working in the family convenience store. an escaped convict (who had been deemed a high risk to violently re-offend, and who had been missing for several months) killed him, over $47. the shooting happened less than 1 block away from my home. i am trying to come up with some way to immortalize edwin's memory ... something that involves the white lighter i purchased from him the last time i saw him ... i cannot let this boy be forgotten