Chapter 105 Chapter 1 Mother's Rest

Entering 1983, August was extremely hot. It was the hot season in July in the lunar calendar. Mother's health was gradually declining. We sent her to the Tri-Service General Hospital to see the cardiology department for some examinations. At six o'clock in the morning on the third day after she was discharged from the hospital, a call came from Neihu's home, saying that the old lady had passed.It was so sudden that I was horrified and inexplicable. I ran home with my younger sister Ning Yuan and saw my eighty-four-year-old mother lying peacefully on the bed.She got up in the morning to wash and wash herself, went to the balcony to water the flowers, went back to her room and sat on the edge of the bed and asked the maid to make lunch for the old man, and then said clearly: "Lord! You told me to go, so I will go." She died while sitting up. ——At that time, my father was sitting in the chair by the door and could hear clearly.It was our greatest comfort to have such a definite sense of attachment when she passed away.

Mother Han converted to Christianity in the early 1950s. She had just moved from my shabby room with sugar cane boards to Jianguo North Road. At that time, the Mandarin Chapel on Nanjing East Road had just started meeting in an old wooden house.Elder Wu Yong, who presided over the sermon, used very strong language to explain the joy and sorrow in the world by using the contrast between good and evil such as heaven and hell.My mother, who lived in misery for half her life, arrived in Nanjing after ten years of hard work. She traveled with my father for twenty years and never had a home of her own.Now I cross the sea and come to Taiwan, which is completely unfamiliar, and my daughter-in-law and my family are squeezed into a Japanese-style house with 30 tatami mats. I cut off yesterday, I don’t know what kind of tomorrow will be, and I can’t think of the meaning of suffering.Although she didn't believe in the strong rewards and punishments of heaven and hell, she began to read the Bible seriously.She gave me a wedding gift, a big-character "Bible" (a gift from my father, Uncle Dong Qizheng, with the words "Do to others as I want to be done to others") on the room page, and read it tens of thousands of times in thirty-five years, and recited the scriptures with red pens.There must be some chapters that answer her confusion.Perhaps this is the way she truly worships, and it is the only spiritual world that belongs to her besides living for her husband and children all her life.

I should be her most persistent and steadfast bosom friend... I followed her step by step through all the lonely days.Although our times and educational opportunities are so different, there are various "gaps" in the sixty years, but we all easily cross them with love.When I need help the most, she always reaches out her hands at the right time to help me get out of trouble and move forward.I have been in Taichung for seventeen years, and every time I pick her up and see her off at the train station is a turning point in my life; my three sons, during the years when I went to study, have never lacked maternal love because of her.In Taichung, she had to reunite with old friends who lived in Wulangxiang, who were on the way to escape, and had a holiday mood every year.My father gave me the depth of ideals, but my literary feelings and attitude towards people are derived from my mother.During my formative years.On the wandering road, under the tree sheltering from the bombing, my mother told the story of the wilderness of her hometown and the history of the family.My children and grandchildren all know the story of her encouraging reading: "Don't become a wolf beater!" Don't fall behind because of laziness and be devoured by wolves.A hundred years ago, her childhood hometown in Northeast China.It's like a grassland infested by wolves.The cold wind and night in her stories, the threat of tigers and wolves, and the joy of rebirth of pastures in spring and summer have inspired my imagination all my life.

Before the sudden death of our mother, although we knew that our parents were getting old, we never thought that they would die, let alone talk about the funeral.In a hurry, my sister Ning Yuan followed a gentleman from the Legislative Yuan to Tamsui Sanzhi Township to find a hillside land.The terrain is open, facing the Pacific Ocean, and the slopes rely on the huge Tianshan Mountains.In this way, my Qi family seems to have gained a foothold in Taiwan. After my mother was cremated, her bones were buried here. When my father was still alive, he often came to sit in front of the tomb, and he could clearly see the ocean-going ships passing by.He said that if you look ahead, you will see the northeast, and if the sea flows to the Bohai Bay, you will find Dalian, which is the way home.Yuchang and I also bought a cemetery next to their feet. In the future, they will live permanently under the knees of their parents.Now that four generations have been in Taiwan, this should be the place where I can return to my fallen leaves!