In honor of a little girl who passed away one year ago today

November 30, 2006
From this day forward I had no happiness....

May 18, 2011

These nights I have been watching my daughter. She can’t sleep due to abdominal pain. I’ve been rubbing her abdomen continuously. In the middle of sleep she’ll suddenly cry out, “Mama don’t stop, hurry up, hurry up, rub my tummy, I can’t take it.” I tell her, “Precious baby, sleep. God will protect you.”

My daughter cries, “Mama, I wish an angel would come get me soon. Didn’t you say that heaven has no sickness? My sickness will be all better? I can see Grandpa and Grandma?”

I say, “I’m so sorry, Precious baby. Mama is so sorry…I could not heal your sickness. I’m a lousy mother.”

My daughter closes her eyes and says, “You’re a good Mama. You’re not lousy. You’re so hard working.”

I feel so guilty to hear her say that. I have no peace, just shame. Unbearable shame.

Day by day I struggle, my inner heart in torment. I fight fiercely as others try to persuade me the other way. I juggle everything. My heart is cut into pieces and bleeding. All the hard work of these five years has been shattered into nothing. I really cannot accept it. Life goes on; there is no one to sustain me. The doctor’s advice is hard to listen to but it’s true. The estrangement of friends and relatives has brought bitter disappointment. My own inabilities makes me want to beat and burn myself. I’m the most disgusting person in the world. The worst person. The most cruel. The most incapable, most selfish mother….

May 27, 2011

Around 6:00am the morgue vehicle came to take the child away. We went with the child; she lay upon a gurney. Once she was pushed into the refrigerated box and the door closed, at that moment I finally knew that this was not a dream. It was real; my child was really gone.... 

As I write this portion of the diary, it is May 28, 2011, midnight. Today was my daughter’s cremation day. At 9:15am, my daughter really went to live in heaven. I hope that in heaven she’ll be happy forever, healthy, and that they bring her favorite clothes and toys. I hope her life is good and beautiful – a blessed life just like an angel. I hope my daughter doesn’t blame me for my incapability. There was no way to cure your disease, making the beginning of your life so painful. You had no friends. You couldn’t go to kindergarten. You couldn’t play as you wished or eat whatever you liked. But now you’ve gone to paradise; happiness begins starting now. Precious baby, you will be happy. Mama will continuously ask God to protect you. God will definitely hear, so put your heart at ease as you go. Mama loves you forever. Mama will often go see you and be with you. You took Mommy’s heart with you, Daddy’s heart, Big Sister’s heart, and the hearts of your family members and friends.

(not the actual mother or daughter of this diary)

This winter and spring I translated a mother's diary from Chinese to English, recording the struggle for her young daughter's life as she suffered from congenital kidney failure, November 2006 through her death on May 27, 2011. 

The story deeply moved me as I followed a brave yet conflicted mother battle for medical treatment. I sympathized with her desperate feelings of inadequacy and failure as a mother, her anger and frustration towards uncaring individuals, her sincere gratitude toward merciful individuals, her joy and sadness as she watched her little girl grow and slowly die.

It is a remarkable, beautiful, bitter diary; a true human story that caused me to weep as I worked. It is my honor to 'know' this mom, her baby girl, and many others along the way -- to read and feel her most unguarded personal thoughts, and to render them in English so you can share in their experience as well.

Perhaps in the future there will be an opportunity to share the entire 35 page document with you. Until then, here are three brief excerpts, shared in honor of a woman who I have come to admire, and especially in honor of a darling little girl who I have come to adore.