YOUNG CHANG -- Reporter’s Notebook

Death’s been on my mind for the past month and seven days.

I’ve been thinking about the thousands of strangers who died on Sept.

11, my college friend who died in a fire three weeks ago and a Newport

Beach arts patron who died of cancer last week. I wrote her obituary.

I told a friend recently that I didn’t know people really died. I

guess I’m lucky to have only just found that out. But thinking about

death, reading about death and, most of all, fearing death, has made me

want to do the most unexpected of things.

And that is, smile.

My college friend who died in a fire had this wave that slightly

annoyed me. I call it the president-of-the-world wave. He’d walk into the

library, wave as if to his constituents and stop by everyone’s table and

chat, as if being filmed.

But his trademark smile was more conspicuous than even his trademark

wave. He was handsome, actually, wore an army-green cap with no rim and

drove a huge, black Mitsubishi Montero that held a lot of junk when he

helped his friends move. And whether he was in his hat, in his car, drunk

or sober, the face I remember is smiling.

He died hours after taking his LSAT in New York. He died, we heard,

after a celebratory party at his apartment, where I’m sure he was merry,

where I’m sure he was smiling.

Loved ones of Jeanette Segerstrom also remember her corners turned up.

The president of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the president

of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the executive director of Opera

Pacific and her children all agree -- Ms. Segerstrom was a grinner.

The late philanthropist and lover of the arts cocked her head to one

side too -- a curious gesture that is said to have accompanied a gracious

wit. She wore elegant St. John suits. She attended every opera, musical,

ballet and symphonic performance she could handle before her health began

to deteriorate.

Her “impish grin” went wherever her shadow did.

According to a Los Angeles Times story, Touri Bolourchi, who died on

United Airlines Flight 175 on Sept. 11, had a smile just as reliable.

The Rev. Mychal Judge, the New York City Fire Department chaplain who

also died on Sept. 11, is said to have had an easy smile.

Nicole Miller, who died on United Airlines Flight 93, had a beautiful

smile and beautiful dimples, her mother has said.

Barbara Keating, who died on American Airlines Flight 11, is said to

have always smiled.

These smiles -- worn by a young Columbia law student who really wanted

to do something respectable with his life, by a generous 72-year-old who

gave money so others would love the arts as she did, by about 5,400

people who purposefully went about life though life held its own fate --

outlived death.

So I think I’ll keep smiling.