I Want You to Live
So many years have passed.
So many days have slowly disappeared into time.
But one thing I have never been able to let go.
I have always known: I should write you a letter.
A letter I know can never be mailed,
yet I still want to write.
Only, I have never had the courage to start.
Because some pain
does not disappear with time.
It only sinks quietly down.
Sinks to a place very, very deep in life.
Until many years later,
you rise up again,
in a different way.
—
Dear Ming:
I love you.
Even today,
I still find it hard to believe
that you have been gone from us for so long.
I still remember:
the way you tried with all your strength to tell me something.
Your mouth
could no longer make a sound.
Your hand
had no strength left.
But still,
you tried desperately
to leave those words behind.
It took me a year
to finally understand:
what you were trying to say was:
“I love you.”
And I have always regretted
that at that moment,
I could not say back to you:
I love you too.
Not because I didn’t love you.
But because,
at that time,
I was too busy fighting the hospital.
I was too afraid of losing you.
I remember it very clearly.
It was a hot morning.
The ICU director walked into the room.
Coldly, he told me:
the hospital had decided to stop your blood transfusions.
In that instant,
the whole room
seemed to drop to freezing.
First I tried to reason with him.
Then,
I began to beg.
Finally,
I was almost pleading.
But still,
he would not budge.
He said:
Your husband is going to die anyway.
He didn’t want to waste the hospital’s blood supply.
He even refused donations
from church friends.
In that moment,
I felt for the first time:
a person can truly be this cold.
And what I could not accept most of all:
the hospital had made repeated mistakes.
A year earlier,
we had done the tests.
But your abnormal blood report
was delayed an entire year.
We only received it after you were hospitalized.
And after your surgery,
the wound kept bleeding,
and the doctors did not address it in time.
Too many mistakes.
Too much negligence.
That day,
I finally could no longer hold back.
I told him:
Doctors are not God.
A doctor’s duty is to save lives.
Not to decide who deserves to die.
The ICU director stood there.
With an almost elegant posture,
he told me:
the hospital has the right to stop blood transfusions.
In that moment,
the last thread of restraint inside me
suddenly broke.
I lifted my head
and looked directly into his eyes.
Word by word, I said to him:
“If you stop my husband’s blood transfusions,
and he dies because of it —”
I paused.
Then I looked at him and said:
“Then you are the murderer.”
If my husband dies because of your decision,
then you are the murderer.
The room suddenly fell silent.
That was the first time
I did not care at all that he was the department director.
I did not care what authority I was facing.
Because I knew:
I was speaking for someone who could no longer speak for himself.
I demanded:
If this is the hospital’s decision, give me a formal document.
I thought he would produce an official hospital letter.
But no.
He casually tore out a blank piece of paper.
No hospital name.
No logo.
No formal format.
Then he picked up a pen
and scribbled:
Stop blood transfusions in three days.
I looked at that piece of paper.
It suddenly felt absurd.
A person’s life,
decided like this.
Just then,
I mentioned:
Our church is fasting.
We have already begun a three-day fasting prayer.
He answered coldly:
“Since you have food to eat but choose not to,
then we have blood to give and can choose not to either.”
In that moment,
I could hardly believe my ears.
I told him:
Our fasting is not for ourselves.
We are praying for this world.
And I believe:
only God has the right to decide a person’s life.
Perhaps because of these words.
Perhaps because he did not want to bear that decision after all.
In the end,
he gave three days.
Three days.
Seventy-two hours.
And those seventy-two hours
became the longest battle of my life.
As I walked out of the room,
I swore to myself:
As long as I am alive,
I will not let anyone stop your treatment.
I will use every ounce of my strength
to keep you alive.
Those days,
I ran without stopping.
I called friends.
I went to the church.
I contacted the media.
I sought out anyone who could help us.
And God
seemed to truly send many angels.
The director assigned a doctor
to spend an entire morning with me.
He wanted to know:
did we have the ability to fight the hospital?
After several hours,
the doctor was silent for a long time.
Before he left, he looked at me and said:
“I believe you will achieve what you wish.”
But none of us knew.
Sometimes,
the wish in a person’s heart
and the path God has prepared
are not always the same road.
A friend contacted ten Chinese newspapers.
My daughter sent the press release
to twelve American media outlets.
Soon after,
the World Journal published our story.
The headline read:
” Hospital Plays Judge, Terminates Cancer Patient’s Blood Transfusion.”
“Family’s Protest Creates Unease, Questioning Hospital’s Right to Play God.”
From that day on,
the hospital received more and more calls.
And the most incredible thing was:
for two days in a row,
white doves rested on the windowsill outside your room.
Do you still remember?
Around those days,
you suddenly asked me:
“Don’t you see the Lord Jesus?”
I was stunned.
You said:
He is standing by your bedside.
Then,
very calmly, you told me:
after you get better,
you want to go back to church
and help teach the children.
At that time,
our church had just started a homeschool program
and needed teachers.
You began to talk with me about the children.
About the curriculum.
About what you wanted to do
once your body recovered.
I just listened quietly.
And now, looking back,
I understand:
In those days,
you seemed to have already seen a future
that I could not yet see.
I remember you once told me:
you could not bear the pain of being sick.
I was so cruel.
I wouldn’t let you go.
But I couldn’t help it.
How could I live in a world without you?
I loved you too much.
I wanted you to live.
At noon on the third day,
the director finally sent an official letter.
He agreed:
the blood transfusions would continue.
In that moment,
I was so exhausted I could barely stand.
But in my heart,
hope was rekindled.
Step by step,
I walked back to your room.
I thought:
I have finally kept you here.
But just a few hours later,
you quietly left.
No struggle.
No sound.
Just quietly,
you were gone.
For many, many years afterward,
I never understood:
If I could not keep you in the end anyway,
why did God make me fight this battle?
Why didn’t He just let me
sit quietly by your side
and accompany you to the very end?
I didn’t understand. I truly didn’t.
God,
why did you give me three days of hope,
only to take him away?
Where is Your wisdom?
Until many years later.
That year,
I finally gathered the courage
to write that letter to you.
But right after I finished,
my world suddenly turned upside down.
I had always believed:
I wanted you to live.
Until that moment,
I suddenly understood: No.
The one who truly fought,
was actually you.
It was you
who wanted me to live.
Through that difficult battle with the hospital,
you brought out the fighting spirit I had lost.
The will to live.
And the courage to stand up again.
You wanted me to live.
You wanted me to go on living. Not give up.
You wanted me to love again.
You wanted to see me smile again.
Smile, again and again.
In that instant,
I almost collapsed.
Because this realization
completely overturned all those years of grief.
I was even afraid
to attend the dance competition I had already signed up for.
I told my friend:
I cannot dance.
Because dancing requires focus.
And my heart
was going through some kind of huge upheaval.
I was afraid I wouldn’t hold up.
But my friend said to me:
“If Ming truly wants you to live,
he will surely help you.”
“When you run out of strength,
just look up.”
“He will surely help you finish this dance.”
“Because, he wants you to live.”
The day of the competition, I went.
Whenever I was about to run out of strength,
I would look slightly upward.
And in that instant,
I seemed to see:
you were smiling at me.
Very quietly.
Very gently.
In that moment,
I finally truly understood:
you love me.
And what you truly wanted to leave behind
was never just those three words.
It was —
the strength for me to go on living.
That day,
I won the first dance competition championship of my life.
But what truly changed me
was not the trophy.
It was:
For the first time, I truly felt —
love does not end with death.
It stays.
Becomes strength.
Becomes light.
Becomes something
that can hold you up
even when you are about to fall.
Later in life,
I went through a fire.
Court.
Loss.
Fraud.
Collapse.
There were many times
I thought I could not go on any further.
But now,
I finally know:
why I am still standing here.
Because many years ago,
one person
had already left love inside me.
And that love
not only kept me alive.
It also slowly became:
the strength that makes me willing to hold others up.
Because I know:
when a person is about to break down,
sometimes,
what can truly save them
is not logic.
It is love.
Ming,
thank you.
Thank you
for loving me so much.
What you truly left behind in the end
was not death.
It was —
the strength for me to pass love on.
I will surely win the championship of life.
Because your love
already prepared me for this road.
I wanted you to live.
And you,
you made me live.
And now,
I finally understand.
Love
never left.
It just kept moving forward.
From you,
to me.
And from me,
to others.
