By May of 1972, my mother’s stomach pain was much more severe. She’d often be in so much pain that she couldn’t get out of bed. She’d just lie there, her whole body covered in sweat. At the time, Ah-bing was away completing his military service and I had been sent down to the countryside. Although it wasn’t too far away – just a neighbouring county, about a hundred-kilometre round trip – I couldn’t go home often. Just once a month, and only for one night at a time. As a result, I really didn’t know she was so ill. My father was worse: he didn’t have a clue. I don’t want to say that he didn’t know Mum was ill, it’s just that he probably wouldn’t even have realized if he was ill himself, to say nothing of the fact that she deliberately concealed it from him. Just think: she spent her whole life being concerned about us, but when she needed our concern, none of us were there for her. But Mum just continued to look after us, to make sure the three of us were fine, always busy … How could she find time to look after herself? There was no room in her heart for herself; we had already occupied it completely. This was a woman who had grown up with an old Red Army soldier for a father, who had been taught to love the Party and the intelligence service more than her own parents. My mother loved us as a parent ought to love her children, real human love, but she was unable to love herself. Mum, how tired and exhausted you must’ve been in such a dysfunctional family! You were seriously ill, and yet you concealed it from us – you lied to us. You seemed guilt-ridden, as though you had done something wrong. Mum, I realize now that you and Father were cut from the same cloth: you both had no place for yourselves, you were buried within your faith and idealism – but all it did was drain your blood, drop by drop, until nothing was left. And yet, both of you were satisfied with your lot in life, both of you were happy.

But you couldn’t know – nobody can – that in our hearts is buried an endless amount of remorse and guilt!