Xia Ping, it is you that make this all worth living. If it weren’t you, I would have surrendered myself to all
the guns and fires. Although life is hard, I cherish the every single day that I am able to think about you. I love
you and that’s all I need to know.
7
th August 1941
I don’t want to lie to you, I am badly hurt. Don’t be sad if you don’t ever see me again. I love you Xia
Ping.
Huang Yong.
“
Papa, what’s the matter? Let’s move! It’s getting bored.”
“
Let’s head home,” I said, “There is something important that I need to do.”
“
What’s the matter?” my wife asked.
“
I’ve finally got some answers,” I said.
***
“
Ma, I have something to tell you,” I spoke with a sigh lingering at the back of my throat.
“
Mama, I know this is going to be difficult for me to tell you, and for you to hear,” I said, “I know this is
unbelievable, but I have found papa’s diary engraved on the Great Wall. The truth is he has never forgotten you
and he has always stayed true. The reason why he never came back to us is probably because he died in the war.
In the last entry, he said he was badly hurt and he told you not to feel sad if you never saw him again.”
My mother didn’t speak, nor did she question anything that I was telling her. She just sat there. Tears
rolled down her cheeks uncontrollably although she was trying desperately to hide it. There was a long moment
of silence, but it was all very comfortable. It was as if we didn’t need words. Words would just underrate the
feeling that we were experiencing. We had searched for the answers for half of our lifetime, but we could not
find any. All of a sudden, it was all there, just in front of me stood the very section of the Great Wall with all the
things I ever wanted to know. Life was just funny this way.
“
I have to go there to take a look,” she said assertively.
On her walking stick and with me at the side, my mother walked up the Great Wall of China. She was 86
years old when she walked up there. She walked every step with care and affection. I walked with her and
guided her to where my father’s diary entries were. When we finally got there, my mother traced her weary little
fingers against the carvings. She traced herself back to the every single day of struggles and regrets, of also the
moments of sorrow and despair. We stayed there until sunset when she was so exhausted that she requested to
go home.
My mother died just a month after she visited the Great Wall and read my father’s diary entries. In the last
four weeks of her life, she finally understood what she had lived for. “I have lived for love,” she told me.
“
Nothing hurts as much as love, but still I would rather have loved and lost than never loved at all. I mean, it’s
love! We learn to cherish love whether it heals or hurts because not many people can understand love and live in
it in their lifetime.”
* * *