“It’s painful, loving someone from afar.
Watching them – from the outside.
The once familiar elements of their life reduced to nothing more than occasional mentions in conversations and faces changing in photographs…..
They exist to you now as nothing more than living proof that something can still hurt you … with no contact at all.”
By Ranata Suzuki
When I first arrived in the United States, I was a guest at a classmate’s house. He is a handsome and talented man, but he married a woman whose talent and appearance are far from matching. What is especially puzzling is that he abandoned his girlfriend who has been dating in China for many years and has long talked about marriage.
“My parents and brothers don’t forgive me!” He pointed around, “But look, I have a house, furniture, deposits, and a green card. Who gave it?” He sighed, “People After 35 years of age, many things are clear. I have worked hard all my life and hope to have a good life for a few days.”
It’s just that I think, who does he really love in his heart?
After reading “The Biography of Zhang Daqian” written by Mr. Xie Jiaxiao, after reading more than 500 pages, when I came to the “postscript”, I found an important passage, to the effect that Zhang Daqian’s wife Xu Wenbo was by his side in the second half of his life. But in the prime of life, Yang Wanjun is the one who accompanies him to share the joys and sorrows, and love and know each other the most. It was Yang Wanjun who helped Zhang Daqian escape the clutches of the Japanese, and it was also Yang Wanjun who accompany him to face the walls of Dunhuang and suffered from the wind and frost. But when Mr. Daqian was interviewed by Xie Jiaxiao, he rarely mentioned the most important woman in his life.
Mr. Xie Jiaxiao said: “Is he taking care of Xu Wenbo who is by his side, and avoiding praise Yang Wanjun?”
“He (Zhang Daqian) set aside his will at the age of 80, especially in the bequest part, stating that he wanted to give it to his lover Yang Wanjun. It shows that in Mr. Daqian’s heart, he never forgot a period of affectionate years with Yang Wanjun.”
Closing the book, I must admire Mr. Xie Jiaxiao’s attitude as a journalist, seeking truth from facts.13 years after the completion of “The Biography of Zhang Daqian”, and 10 years after the death of the old man, he finally said what he didn’t say.
Isn’t it something that Mr. Daqian didn’t say anything, but buried his heart for more than 30 years?
Lin Huiyin (Chinese: 林徽因, born 林徽音; pinyin: Lín Huīyīn; known as Phyllis Lin or Lin Whei-yin when in the United States; 10 June 1904 – 1 April 1955) was a Chinese architect and writer. She is known to be the first female architect in modern China and her husband the famed “Father of Modern Chinese Architecture” Liang Sicheng, both of whom worked as founders and faculty in the newly formed Architecture Department of Northeastern University in 1928 and, after 1949, as professors in Tsinghua University in Beijing. Liang and Lin began restoration work on cultural heritage sites of China in the post-imperial Republican Era of China; a passion which she would pursue to the end of her life. The American artist Maya Lin is her niece.
Liang Sicheng (Chinese: 梁思成; 20 April 1901 – 9 January 1972) was a Chinese architect and architectural historian, known as the father of modern Chinese architecture. His father, Liang Qichao, was one of the most prominent Chinese scholars of the early 20th century. His wife was the architect and poet Lin Huiyin.
Xu Zhimo (徐志摩, Wu Chinese: [ʑi tsɿ mu], Mandarin: [ɕǔ ʈʂî mwǒ], January 15, 1897 – November 19, 1931), was an early 20th-century romantic Chinese poet who strove to loosen Chinese poetry from its traditional forms and to reshape it under the influences of Western poetry and the vernacular Chinese language. He is considered one of the most important figures of modern Chinese poetry.
I still remember that Lin Huiyin, known as the “First generation talented woman“ in china, fell in love with Xu Zhimo at first sight. Due to the pressure of the secular and family, the two were eventually separated, and finally married Liang Qichao’s son Liang Sicheng.
Liang Sicheng’s talent is not under Xu Zhimo. He is a pioneer in the study of ancient Chinese architecture. To this day, his works 40 years ago are still considered classics by the world architecture community.
Liang Sicheng, who has travelled all over China and studied in the West, has a different mindset after all. After Xu Zhimo’s plane crashed, Liang Sicheng rushed to the scene specially, picked up a fragment of the plane and gave it to his wife. It is said that Lin Huiyin hung it on the wall of the bedroom for the rest of his life.
Everyone has his own spiritual world, and in the depths of that soul, he may not necessarily be the other half of the marriage.
“I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is ‘Abortion’, because it is a war against the child… A direct killing of the innocent child, ‘Murder’ by the mother herself… And if we can accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love… And we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts…”
By Mother Teresa
A friend who success in career said to me: “I do things all my life and I don’t owe anyone. To my parents, I am filial; to my friends, I am righteous; to my wife, I enjoy it. If there is any debt, I only owe one person-my girlfriend in high school. She was pregnant with my child, and I asked her to have an abortion, and she had to pay for it herself. I was so poor at that time that I couldn’t pay. The problem is that I am not only poor, but also seedless, and I dare not accompany her to the hospital.”
He sighed for a long time: “To this day, I remember her pale face after the abortion, she never complained about me, but I complained about myself as I got older…”
He looked for her for many years, used many contacts, methods, and even borrowed the name of a friend to post in the newspaper many times to find someone, but still no good news.
No wonder there is an emerging industry in Japan, looking for a first love lover for customers. It is said that many lovers, after 60 or 70 years, hugged and wept when they met, and found that the other party was still their favourite.
One day, he received a phone call from an elder, whose voice was distant and fragile, and it was an old friend whose mother had not seen her for more than ten years.
The mother was startled, got up from the bed in a hurry, and forgot to wear a hearing aid, babbling sentence by sentence.
He grabbed the phone and said: “Tell me something, and I will convey it again.“
The old man on the other end of the phone had a very calm tone: “Just tell her, I miss her very much!”
After a while, he received a letter from South America. The old man’s child said that his mother died soon after putting down the phone———–brain cancer!
He trembled to tell the old mother the news. The old mother, who was in her 80s, was not immediately moved, just sighed and said: “She hasn’t called for so many years, and when she received it, she knew something no good. She is really an old sister. We know each other since she was a child. She has not seen her for decades. She still misses me before she dies. It’s just that old friends are gone, and when I leave, who am I thinking about?”
The mother turned around, sat in the corner of the bed, and wept.
Are there some characters hidden in the depths of everyone’s heart, accompanied by joy and sadness, usually lock it up? I dare not touch it, let alone know it to outsiders, until some days when my heart is clear, or when I return to the light, my heart is weak, and I can’t lock it anymore. Finally, the character emerges.
Will one day, when we are near, suddenly find out that the person we love most in our lives is the one who has been forgotten for many years……
“Love was feeling the person everywhere, under your skin, in every strand of your hair, in your heart, in your bones, in the tone of your voice when you said their name. Love wasn’t always about being with the person, it was feeling that your world was better just because they lived. Even if you weren’t ever going to be together, he was the air you breathed, invisible but everywhere.”
By Jacqueline Simon Gunn
The Best Life Story 