(Minghui.org) My mom was known as a “tough woman”–kindhearted but strong. Many years ago, she led the women’s federation of our commune. She could easily carry a 100kg sack of potatoes on her shoulder and walk with ease. Even young men in our village were not her match.
Mom told me that she used to vomit blood for about four or five years, and each time she would lose a full basin of blood.
We lived in the mountains, and she couldn’t travel to get treatment in town, especially with four young daughters, so she had to carry on.
“I didn’t take it too seriously,” Mom said, “I just believe that if you are destined to die at night, you cannot last till dawn.”
Later, she developed a cancerous tumor underneath her armpit. However, she was not meant to die.
There was a person named Meng Er in our area. He was very skillful in Chinese medicine, but very few people could get treatment from him due to his eccentric character. Mom was an exception, as he respected her.
My mom was very capable. She opened up a lot of wasteland to grow grains to feed the family. When we had more than enough, she would give our grain coupons to Meng Er and his family. (Note: Grain coupons were issued to households in the 1950s by the Chinese government as part of a rationing system to keep control of the supply and consumption of rural produce. Consumption that exceeded what was issued had to be purchased at a much higher market price.)
There were eight people in Meng Er’s family, including his six sons, and the grain coupons issued to them were never enough to feed the family. Meng Er was very grateful for my mom’s kindness and treated her like a sister.
He gave his best in curing my mom’s illness, and in the end he managed to kill the cancerous tumor with fire needle acupuncture treatment. He also saved my mom’s sister-in-law’s life after the hospital failed to treat her cancer.
Meng Er was also good at fortune-telling, feng shui, exorcising evil spirits, drawing magic characters, etc. If a child was terrified, he would write a few magic characters on a piece of paper and put it underneath the child’s pillow. The child would recover the next day, looking happy and jolly.
Once, he revealed a heavenly secret to my mom, “When the Dharma-ending period and the last phase comes, there will be upheavals in the human world. Good people will be put in jail, with bad people in control. There will be catastrophes and plagues. After all these sufferings, good people will stay and bad people will be eliminated.”
My mom firmly believed what Meng Er told her, and it laid a strong foundation for her faith in Falun Dafa later on.
Our family moved to live in town in 1982. Meng Er came to see my mom in 1990, and soon afterward he passed away. I often feel sorry for him. He could be described as a “half-immortal” in the secular world. If only he had lived a few more years, he would have been able to see the grand era when Falun Dafa is spreading far and wide!
Mom was fortunate because three of her four daughters practice Falun Dafa. After we took up the practice, mom also changed a lot. She began to cherish lives much more, even those of small animals. She would not kill anything and was always full of righteous energy and spirit.
Mom’s Righteousness during the Persecution of Falun Dafa
Like millions of others in China, Mom also suffered unimaginable mental torment after July 20, 1999, when the Chinese Communist Party started its rampant persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners.
My sisters and I were forced to leave home and live a displaced life. Some of us were later arrested and jailed. One of my brothers-in-law was also imprisoned twice for a total of 12 years. Although my mom never practiced Falun Dafa herself, she always believed that Falun Dafa is good, even during the most difficult times.
My parents were very hospitable, and our neighbors all enjoyed coming to our place for a chat. Mom was a generous person and always entertained them with tea and cigarettes. By and by, our home became a popular place for social gatherings.
One day, while a group of people were chatting and watching TV in our house, a program slandering Falun Dafa and its founder, Master Li, suddenly appeared on the screen. Before everyone realized what was happening, Mom turned off the TV and said, “Who would listen to that bullshit? It’s all lies.”
When the state-owned CCTV was broadcasting the “self-immolation hoax” on Tiananmen Square, Mom switched off the TV again. My father couldn’t understand why she did it and argued, “How could CCTV be wrong? Why don’t you let us watch it?”
“Just take a look around,” she said. “There are thousands of people practicing Falun Dafa in our small town, and there are dozens of them living near us. Have you ever heard any one of them committing suicide by self-immolation? Obviously, the Communist Party is framing Falun Dafa. How can you believe such lies?!”
My father went quiet, and the neighbors nodded in agreement with my mom.
One day, Mom said to me, “I’ve always remembered what Meng Er said to me. The upheavals he talked about are happening now. Good people are thrown into jail and bad people are in control.”
“It’s not because I have good inborn quality, but I got a hint from Dafa’s Master,” Mom said to me with a smile on her face.
“Once when the two of us were chatting in the small room, I saw an aura on top of your head. I didn’t tell you, for fear that it might go away if you felt pleased with yourself.”
“I thought, wow, Falun Dafa is truly amazing, an ordinary person could develop an aura!”
“It’s a real pity I had never been to school and am an illiterate; otherwise, I would also practice Falun Dafa. Although I’m not a practitioner, I believe in Falun Dafa’s Master,” Mom went on.
“Once a few people from the neighborhood committee came with some police to search our house and tried to arrest your older sister. I hid your sister’s Dafa books before they came. I didn’t know where to hide them, so I wrapped them up with layers of plastic sheets and hid them in the coal pile.”
“I said while doing this, ‘Master Li, it is not that I am being disrespectful to you, but there is nowhere else I can hide these books to keep them safe. Please don’t fault me!’”
“Indeed, when those people came to try to find evidence to arrest your sister for rewards, they couldn’t find anything. They looked everywhere, even our vegetable cellar. They would have certainly found those books if I hadn’t hidden them in the coal pile.”
I was very touched by what Mom was telling me and her righteous thoughts and actions.
During the time when both my elder sisters were unlawfully arrested and my brother-in-law was sentenced to prison for five years, I was also forced to live a displaced life after I came back from Beijing to seek justice for Falun Dafa. Mom endured enormous mental pressure as people gossiped about what happened to my family. Still, she remained unmoved in her faith in Dafa.
She would often go out or take a walk where there were a lot of people, and start a conversation with them, telling them that her children were arrested not for stealing or doing bad things, but for trying to be good people, and that she felt proud of them!
Mom’s righteous demeanor also had a positive impact on the local people, and most of them held a positive view about Falun Dafa, except for a small number of people who were following the Communist Party for personal gain.
One of them was actually a good friend of Mom. She made some false accusations against my brother-in-law, hoping to get some reward money. As a result, my brother-in-law was again arrested and sentenced to prison.
People living nearby all blamed her, saying: “We’re all folks who came to the Northeast to make a living. The young man didn’t do anything wrong. It’s all political persecution. How can you do such an immoral thing!”
The woman felt really ashamed and fell ill soon after. She spent a lot of money on medical care.
Later, she apologized to my mom in tears many times, “I went astray with a muddled head at the time, thinking I would get some reward money if I reported him. In the end, not only did I not get money, but I also became very sick and ruined my own reputation. I feel so bad that I did such a shameful thing.”
Mom took pity on her and forgave her.
I remember feeling rather scared when I was living a displaced life, and I always felt that someone was tailing me. Once while Mom and I were passing by my jurisdiction, I noticed a police car behind us. I said in fear, “Mom, a police car is following me. What should I do?”
“Don’t be afraid,” Mom said calmly, “Rest with a clear conscience. You’re a Dafa practitioner, and you have Master to take care of you. Why should you be scared of them?”
Mom’s words inspired my righteous thoughts, and I immediately let go of my attachment to fear. The police car rushed past us. Later, I called mom and asked her to accompany me to clarify the truth about Dafa to the local neighborhood committee and the police.
With Master’s protection and Mom’s righteous support, I ended my displaced life with dignity.
Mom’s Life Was Prolonged Thanks to Her Kindness and Righteousness
My grandpa passed away when he was 54, and according to a fortune teller, my mom had the same fate and would die when she was 54. However, Mom was a lucky one. She held herself to a high moral standard and enjoyed helping others throughout her life.
In the 1970s, every family in our area was poor. Still, Mom helped a couple with their wedding arrangements. She gave half of our kitchen utensils to the newlyweds. The bride said emotionally, “Auntie, you’re treating us even better than my own mom and mother-in-law. I don’t know how we can ever repay your kindness!”
Mom helped others whenever she could, and her kindness and her firm belief in Dafa was rewarded with blessings from heaven.
“I’m blessed and my life has been extended by two dozen years,” Mom said confidently.
However, one still needs to repay one’s karmic debts. Mom experienced several dangerous situations, but she survived each of them with minimal harm.
Once, Mom was riding a tricycle through an isolated area. Suddenly, she felt as if someone overturned her tricycle from behind. She fell and her face landed hard on a concrete surface. Blood was running all over her face. She picked herself up slowly and tried to see who had done such a thing, but she could see no one around.
She thought to herself: “This place mustn’t be clean. I must have come across some kind of ghost.”
She saw a pool of rain water nearby, so she went over to wash the blood off her face. Just then, a young man came to her and said, “How come your face is covered with blood? You shouldn’t wash your face with the water in the pool. It’s very dirty with germs. You could get tetanus.” He then took out some tissues from his pocket for her to clean her face.
Mom thanked him. She didn’t go to the hospital, but her face healed soon afterward.
On another occasion, while Mom squatted by the stove to heat up the brick bed, there was suddenly a loud explosion. Tiny coal slags in the stove blasted out, and many pierced Mom’s face, disfiguring her.
My father and his friends in our house were terribly scared. They tried to pick out the coal slags in her face, but mom remained very calm as if nothing had happened.
They tried to persuade her to go to the hospital for a checkup, but she refused, saying, “I have Dafa’s Master taking care of me. There is no need to go to the hospital.” Everyone thought she was very lucky as nothing injured her eyes. Soon her face was fully recovered.
One year, mom experienced a sharp pain in her abdomen. It was so painful that even the “tough woman” could not bear it anymore and went to the hospital for a checkup. Doctors said the pain was caused by gallstones, but due to her advanced age, they opted for conservative treatment with Chinese herbal medicine.
My elder sister took Mom to her place to take care of her. She said to mom, “You have held such firm belief in Master over the years. You protected Dafa books and spoke out for justice for Dafa. Even though you are not a practitioner, Master has been looking after you because of what you have done. Those medicines cannot cure your illness. You are already in your 70s. You’d better practice Falun Dafa. It would be such a shame to miss the precious opportunity.”
Hearing what my sister said, mom put aside the medicine and started to learn Dafa. She watched recordings of Master’s nine lectures and practiced the exercises with my sister every morning. A few days later, her pain disappeared.
After she got back home, she got up at 3:50 a.m. every day to do the exercises and kept listening to Master’s Fa teachings during the day. We all thought Mom had become a practitioner.
However, the interference to prevent her from practicing was very strong. When she heard that my brother-in-law almost died as a result of torture in prison, she began to waver in her will to continue to cultivate. Even though she wanted to start again later, it was very hard for her to get over the interference that discouraged her from doing the exercises and listening to the teachings. She was aware of the interference and knew that she was losing the precious opportunity to cultivate in Dafa.
Mom’s greatest wish was not to burden her children before she died, and what she dreaded most was to become bedridden for years and to need others to look after her. She often said, “How fortunate I would be if I could pass away in my sleep.”
When she was 78, mom did pass away peacefully in her sleep. Many of her long-time friends were deeply saddened by her death, but at the same time they also felt happy for her, as she didn’t suffer in her final days.
I know in my heart that although Mom has left us in this human world, she is in her rightful place somewhere in the universe.
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