My name is Han Fayao and I'm 64 years old, living in the courtyard at 14 Chaoyang Road, Zhangdian District of Zibo City, Shandong Province. I'm a retired teacher from the training center of Zibo Economic and Technological Development Company. My wife is Dong Yufang and she's one year younger than me. She worked at Qilu Petroleum & Chemical Acrylon Factory before retirement in 2001. Retired seniors should have lived the happiest lives and that is why people use "red sun light" to symbolize the old age. But this was not the case for us and the retirement was the beginning of nightmare for us. In the end, my wife passed away and had no chance to enjoy the care-free life.
My wife was impatient and had always been busy around. She had worked hard for more than half a lifeline and felt upset and uncomfortable after she retired and had nothing to do all day long. She thought she was ill and started to take many medicines such as painkillers, Amoxicillin, and tetracycline.
In 2002, a neighborhood surnamed Fang in our neighborhood came to my wife in secret and told her that "Falun Gong was the best in the world", that "you wouldn't need either medicine or needle if you kept on practicing it", and that "you would achieve consummation if you worked hard on it and your practicing would benefit the entire family." She urged my wife to follow them in practicing for a period of time to see what would happen. Unable to resist the temptation, my wife decided to give it a try. At that time, our son was a college student studying in Beijing and I had to go to work, making our apartment an ideal place for my wife and Fang to practice Falun Gong. Since then, she had been busy once again and seemed to enjoy the life together with Fang. After a period of time, some of the pains the discomforts she used to suffer began to relieve and my wife believed she had recovered completely thanks to Falun Gong. She used to doubt about the effect of Falun Gong but then became a true believer. With the belief, Falun Gong started to take up all her life after retirement.
Being obsessed with Falun Gong, my wife became increasingly indifferent to the family. She used to keep our apartment clean and tidy and all our neighbors envied us because of that. But then it was in a mess and dust was everywhere. During early days after she retired, my wife would cook my favorite dishes every Sunday but that was no longer the case after she practiced Falun Gong. To make things worse, she would skip regular meals sometimes. At first, I didn't pay much attention to it, for although I knew that the government banned Falun Gong, yet she posed no harm to others by practicing it at home. I wanted her to be happy. But then she had gone too far. When she had headache, fever, or got cold, she refused to go to hospital no matter what I said, rejecting both medicine and needle. I had talked to her for many times and we even had a fight about this, but nothing worked. Looking at her suffering the pains, I felt so sorry for her. It was lucky that nothing serious occurred and she went through it every time, which made her more obsessed with Falun Gong.
I remember quite clearly it was a Friday in May 2005. I went back home from work and saw my wife moan painfully with hands on stomach and extremely pale complexion. I was scared and asked her what happened. She answered in weak voice: "It's Master helping me to remove karma for I had done many bad things during my previous life." I was so angry at her words that I left her alone. But at midnight that day, she cried out loud because of the pains and I was anxious: "You'd better go to hospital." But she said: "No, no, this is a test by Master". She also said no to my suggestion of taking painkillers first. Early next morning, she was exhausted and the pain didn't go away. I saw the sweat keeping rolling down from her forehead. So I called her elder brother and 120; an ambulance came and took her to hospital. The doctor checked her and said it was acute appendicitis. The doctors made surgery and the chief doctor said it was extremely dangerous, for it might develop into perforated appendix in a short period of time and the consequence might be severe. Ten days later, she recovered and went back home. I thought she would learn a lesson from it this time, but I was wrong, she blamed me for preventing her from "removing karma" and told me not to stop her from "achieving consummation". At her words, I was so sad and it seemed to me that she would follow the path till death. I was scared and knew she would have problems sooner or later.
Time passed by and her enthusiasm for Falun Gong increased instead of declining. All she had in mind were "removing karma", "going up to a higher level", "and "achieving consummation". I worried about her and was afraid; because of this, one day seemed as long as one year.
In November 2007, what I was afraid most happened. At that time, I also retired and stayed at home with her. For a couple of days, I found she stay in bathroom for a long period of time every morning. At first, I thought she might use the time and space to practice Falun Gong and that was all. But one morning, she had stayed inside bathroom for a long time and didn't show up a long time after I had prepared the breakfast. I had a bad feeling and opened the door to check her out. What I saw shocked me; she was extremely pale and weak and motionlessly sat on the toilet bowl. I helped her to stand up and, after she did so, I saw blood in her stool. After she lied down on bed to have a rest, I asked her about the blood and she said it had happened for several months. She said it was because she had done too many bad things during her previous life and she had to remove karma by practice more. But it didn't occur to her that, instead of getting well, things went bad day by day. At listening to her words, I shouted out loud at her: "You're so muddle-headed." Then I got a taxi and went to hospital with her. This time, she didn't say no.
After two-day checks, the doctors diagnosed her illness as the late stage of bowel cancer, and the cancer cells had transferred and spread out. The doctors also said that earlier diagnosis and treatment might save her life but it was too late and no one could do so. What they could do was to try to extend her life span. She got three to four months left without treatment and no more than two years even with medical care. My wife knew about these things and I couldn't hold the truth from her, so I told her the truth. It was probably because she got even more karma in spite of her hard efforts in recent years, she started to doubt Falun Gong. After all, she wanted to stay alive and was afraid of death as anyone else; at listening to my words, she said nothing and tears rolled down on her cheeks. She finally agreed to stay in hospital for treatment.
This time, my wife was very cooperative at hospital; but because of the delay of diagnosis and treatment, there was little that doctors could do. Her conditions were good sometime and bad in most days. On the morning of March 8, 2009, she looked at herself in the mirror and saw a withered face. She knew there were not many days left and asked her younger sister to put down a letter for our son. Then her health deteriorated quickly and she got worse and worse day by day. When she was dying, my wife held my hand and said in weak voice: "I'm so sorry that I didn't listen to you back then. Look at me now; I ruined our son, you, and myself. I don't want to leave you alone; I don't want to leave our son. He's still single and in prison. After I'm gone, please get him out of the trap set by Falun Gong and help him to be a normal person…" She didn't finish, but the two of us already had tears all over the face.
My wife finally woke up from the nightmare; but it was already too late.
On March 25, 2009, she closed her eyes forever and parted with me and her beloved son.
Attachment: the last letter my wife left to our son