A Thank You Letter to CACC Community

July 24, 2005

Dear CACC families and friends,

On behalf of my family, which includes Sharon Cao’s mother, Meihua Zhou, Sharon’s younger sister, Susan, I am writing this letter to express our deep appreciation for your compassion, generosity, caring and support during the days we suffered from the loss of our beloved daughter, Sharon Cao.

Some of you came to our home showing your sympathy; some of you delivered the flowers for Sharon; some of you did great deal of work at the memorial service; some of you generously donated to CACC Sharon Cao’s foundation. Some of you left their names in the guest book, and some of you helped a lot but kept them anonymous. Some of you we have known each other for many years, and some of you we have never had a chance to meet before. For all what you have done, light or heavy, in the front or at the background, we have been moved from the bottom of our hearts. If Sharon’s soul can feel, she will greatly appreciate it and rest in peace.

It has been more than a month since Sharon left us on June 12, 2005, which was only a few weeks to her 16 years birthday. Our family is traumatized for the unbearable sudden loss of such a young life. Sharon was a healthy, energetic and responsible girl. The city police and Alameda county coronal have so far been unable to identify the cause of the tragedy.

For the past month, we have been suffered from heart breaking pain and experienced many decisions we never thought to make. I am supposed to discuss with Sharon in which way to deal with my body should I die, but I never expected to decide hers. I am supposed to tell Sharon where to bury my body or ash, but how come I should be responsible to design the marker to bury Sharon. Sharon was compassionate, helpful to her friends and teachers, and she was academically one of the most capable students in the school. She was confident. She gave us a lot to be proud of. She was even well planned for her future career towards being a medical doctor. She is our future, and she has a brilliant future waiting for her. How can we use our hands to bury our own future?

Yes, we are grieving, and we will continue to own the grief for the loss of Sharon, simply because we love her more than love ourselves. Sometimes we may prefer to be isolated from the outer world and other times we may prefer to have our close friends to talk about the good memories with Sharon. Sometimes we may be impatient and other times we may be unreasonably depressed. However, no matter what we behave, which is sometimes out of our control, we don’t mean to ignore your good intention and your willing to help. Instead, your help is highly appreciated and will not be forgotten, just like Sharon will never be forgotten from our hearts.

Thanks again for CACC and its society. Your compassion and love will definitely help to heal our pain. Your help will be just like Sharon, forever with us in our hearts.

Yuming Cao

Sharon’s father

P.S. We just set a website to share the memories of Sharon Cao. It is: www.sharon-cao.org