Friends and relatives are very concerned how I am doing these days.
I have tried my best to look brighter, but in fact, can't help myself from weeping every day.

Yeung Kong was so much stronger than me.
Ever since he fell ill, I had never seen him shed a single tear.
I knew in my heart, he didn't want to make me worry or sad.

Looking back at those difficult days, it was so hard to strive through.
Finally we made it,  though it wasn't easy at all.
I earnestly wish to share with you here.

Many of you knew that we found peace and spiritual support from believing in God.
Besides, we thanked my sibblings for bringing us two great books during our stay in the hospital. When facing life and death issues, we had more knowledge to lean on as a result.

(Tuesdays with Morrie  Morrie Schwartz, a social psychologist lecturer, suffered from ASL in his seventies. His student Mitch who lost track with him for twenty years, paid him a visit every week during his final months, receiving his final one-to-one lecture. The old professor's wisdom on life and death flourished in Mitch's little book.）

(The Purpose Driven Life  It's a very famous religious reading among Christians. I came to terms with why God chose Yeung Kong to suffer from this terrible disease with the help of this book. As he grew weaker each day, my love and patience for him also grew as well, and I know the love between us will persist even though he's no longer beside me. That was the reason God prepared this plan for us -- to fulfill the promise between Yeung Kong and I to love each other eternally...)

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE (MITCH ALBOM)

p.57
“(Disease) It's only horrible if you see it that way,” Morrie said. “It's horrible to watch my body slowly wilt away to nothing. But it's also wonderful because of all the time I get to say good-bye.”
 He smiled. “Not everyone is so lucky.”
 I studied him in his chair, unable to stand, to wash, to pull on his pants. Lucky? Did he really say lucky?

p. 81

 “Everybody knows they're going to die,” he said again, “but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”
 So we kid ourselves about death, I said.
 “Yes. But there's a better approach. To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time. That's better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you're living.”

P. 91

 “The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn’t the family. It's become quite clear to me as I've been sick. If you don't have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don’t have much at all. Love is so supreme important. As our great poet Auden said, ‘Love each other or perish.’”

p. 103

 “Take any emotion – love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on emotions – if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them – you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.
 “But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right, I have experienced that emotion. I recognise that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’”

p. 115

 “I'm an independent person, so my inclination was to fight all of this – being helped from the car, having someone else dress me. I felt a little ashamed, because our culture tells us we should be ashamed if we can't wipe our own behind. But then I figured. Forget what the culture says. I have ignored the culture much of my life. I am not going to be ashamed. What's the big deal?
 “And you know what? The strangest thing.”
 What's that?
 “I began to enjoy my dependency. Now I enjoy when they turn me over on my side and rub cream on my behind so I don't get sores. Or when they wipe my brow, or they massage my legs. I revel in it. I close my eyes and soak it up. And it seems very familiar to me.
 “It's like going back to being a child again. Someone to bathe you. Someone to lift you. Someone to wipe you. We all know how to be a child. It's inside all of us. For me, it's just remembering how to enjoy it.”

p. 128

 “I'm dying, right?”
 Yes.
 “Why do you think it's so important for me to hear other people's problems? Don't I have enough pain and suffering of my own?
 Of course I do. But giving to other people is what makes me feel alive. Not my car or my house. Not what I look like in the mirror. When I give my time, when I can make someone smile after they were feeling sad, it's as close to healthy as I ever feel.
 “Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overwhelmed with what come back.”

P. 157

 “In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right?”
 His voice dropped to a whisper. “But here's the secret: in between, we need others as well.”

p. 170

 “You'll come to my grave? To tell me your problems?”
 My problems?
 “Yes.”
 And you'll give me answers?
 “I'll give you what I can. Don't I always?”
 I picture his grave, on the hill, overlooking the pond, some little nine-foot piece of earth where they will place him, cover him with dirt, put a stone on top. Maybe in a few weeks? Maybe in a few days? I see myself sitting there alone, arms across my knees, staring into space.
 It won't be the same, I say, not being able to hear you talk.
 “Ah, talk…”
 He closes his eyes and smiles.
 “Tell you what. After I'm dead, you talk. And I listen.”

P. 171

…Morrie told (his friend) of his cremation plans.
 “Make sure they don't overcook me.”
 (His friend) was stunned. But Morrie was able to joke about his body now. The closer he got to the end, the more he saw it as a mere shell, a container of the soul. It was withering to useless skin and bones anyhow, which made it easier to let go.

p. 173

 “It's natural to die,” he said again. “The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves a part of nature. We think because we're human we're something above nature.”
 He smiled at the plant.
 “We're not. Everything that gets born, dies.” He looked at me.
 “As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on – in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.”
 “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

The Purpose Driven Life (by Rick Warren)

p. 127
Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it. You can make more money, but you can't make more time. When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you'll never get back. Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time.

The essence of love is not what we think or do or provide for others, but how much we give of ourselves.

The most desired gift of love is not diamonds or roses or chocolate. It is focused attention. Love concentrates so intently on another that you forget yourself at that moment.

p.197
Since God intends to make you like Jesus, he will take you through the same experiences Jesus went through. That includes problems. The Bible says Jesus “learned obedience through suffering” and  “was made perfect through suffering.” Why would God exempt us from what he allowed his own Son to experience? Paul said, “ We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!”

p.199
Refuse to give up. Be patient and persistent. The Bible says, “Let the process go on until your endurance is fully developed, and you will find that you have become men of mature character…with no weak spots.”
 “If you are facing trouble right now, don't ask, “Why me? Instead ask, “What do you want me to learn?” Then trust God and keep on doing what's right. “You need to stick it out, staying with God's plan so you'll be there for the promised completion.” Don't give up – grow up!

p.222
Be patient with God and with yourself. One of life's frustrations is that God's timetable is rarely the same as ours. We are often in a hurry when God isn't. You may feel frustrated with the seemingly slow progress you're making in life. Remember that God is never in a hurry, but he is always on time. He will use your entire lifetime to prepare you for your role in eternity.

p.233
God wants to use you to make a difference in his world. He wants to work through you. What matters is not the duration of your life, but the donation of it. Not how long you lived but how you lived.

p.247
God intentionally allows you to go through painful experiences to equip you for ministry to others. The Bible says, “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”