Michele Wiegand, RIP

When one thinks of Michele Wiegand, the words "caring," "brilliant" and "tortured" come to mind. Michele was a thoughtful, insightful writer who produced jewels of creative wisdom; a caring young woman who took care of old people and was loved by them; a Peace Corps volunteer who loved African people; a social worker who dealt with the worst in humanity; and a Caltech-educated biologist whose promising career in science was interrupted by her sudden death on October 10, 2002, 10 days before her 26th birthday.

Michele had a keen sense of rightness and a keener sense of spirituality. She constantly wrote about the injustices in the world and was trying to find solutions to them. Not a part of any established religion, Michele was nevertheless a profoundly spiritual person, practicing a spirituality based in self-reflection, in nature and in curious, serious and involved examination of Buddhist, Christian, pagan and humanist thought. She felt especial affinity for the works of Bertrand Russell, even as she integrated her scientific knowledge with her spiritual understanding.

Michele found the world a difficult place to inhabit; as a friend said, she was a lot like a child who was trying to recapture a sense of innocence. And yet she was far ahead of her years in wisdom. She did tremendous amounts of introspection and intellectual work, and she was able to see through what kept everyone else ensnared. As in many cases of insight, she was tortured by inconsistencies between the intellectually defensible and the way the world was.

Michele was competent and hard-working, intelligent and full of creativity. She was self-effacing and yet strong-willed, hiding behind a gentle exterior great inner power and resolve. She was romantic, often full of flowers and tenderness, at other times serious and demanding. Michele was a loving, caring person who had compassion for many and tremendous inner beauty that she imparted to those who knew her.

Michele had many ambitions and many desires. Harboring a desirous character against a backdrop of strong morality and powerful conscience, Michele was torn in many directions and found peace extremely difficult to come by. Her life was tragic, and her death was more so. It is to be hoped that she is in a better place now than she was while she was here.

Michele's posts

Sunset of the Soul, memorial poem by Ilya Shambat.