Going BEYOND the call of HIS duty, helping his patient out here, from the Newspapers, translated…
Tongciao, Miaoli is a small seaside town, in the sixties, the local residents are usually impoverished, there was only a western medicine clinic, owned and operated by Dr. Jiang. As I was still quite young, still unaware of things that are happening around me, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, she became bedridden, and, the bedsores made her hurt really bad, she’d cried endlessly during the daytime, and into the nights, and, as I’m about to turn sixty, I can still see and hear her in pain like it was yesterday.
My mother would often be in so much pain in the middle of the nights, and my nine-year-old young body, would be pulled out of bed, no matter how much I’d wanted to sleep, and I’d gone out, and asked Dr. Jiang to come to give her a shot for the pains, so she could sleep easily. In the middle of the nights, where the streets are empty, I’d walked on, with the dimly lit lamps, and every now and then, a dog would bark, and, the trees that made the rustles from the wind, it’d made me walk in fear!
In the middle of the nights, after I’d rung Dr. Jiang’s doorbell, it was usually him who came to the door, he’d not shown how displeased he was, instead, he’d often treated me with candy bars, called me a good son. After he’d prepared his medicine box, he’d rode on his bicycle and took me home. My mother had been examined for several times, and started owing the clinic a lot of money, he’d never not seen my mother because she hadn’t paid up the bills yet, he was very patient in sterilizing my mother’s wounds, getting rid of the pus, wrapping her up, giving her shots, and, comforted my mother, alleviating her condition.
But at the very end, my mother still couldn’t win, she’d died at the age of thirty-eight. But, the kindness to which Dr. Jiang treated my mother, I’d started to keep in my mind since I was nine, to date, I’m about to turn sixty, I’d not forgotten my whole life. The impression that Dr. Jiang left for me was his mercifulness, his kindness in treating his patients, although his clinic is no longer in the seaside village anymore, but his kindness and his ethics, I’d not forgotten a bit. I’d wanted to tell him, if reincarnation exists, I’d become his steed, to pay him back for how kindly he’d treated my mother.
And so, this, is the kindness of a doctor, for his patients, and, no matter how late it was, this man made himself available to help those who are ill, and that, is what being a doctor is about, because not only had he treated his patients’ illnesses, he’d comforted their hearts, set their minds at ease too.
and no, still NOT my photograph…
Life, the Obstacle Course 