Death hit, very close to the heart, as well as the home too, from the Front Page Sections, translated…
Waiting to learn if the ones you’d loved had made it or not is the hardest part, the married couple, Shu-Yi Chen and her husband had, already endured through having their hopes vanishing before their eyes twice in these past five days’ time.
“Mom, save me!”, on the very day of the earthquake on the sixth, she and her husband watched, as their young son was, emerged in water, waiting for rescue, but she and her husband couldn’t offer him any assistance, and, the search and rescue squad pulled the couple away, for safety reasons; late that night, as the rescuers finally got their ten-year-old young son out, his body had already turned cold, the couple was heartbroken beyond imagination.
Back then, she’d cried, “My child had died, I don’t want to live either!”, she’d hoped and prayed, for a miracle, that the rescuers are able to find their eldest son alive. Early yesterday morning, there was the sounding off from the detector of the fourteenth floor of the F building, it may be her son, Yen-Hsiang Lien who was still trapped, she’d rushed to the scene, with her hands trembling, hoped that it was true, but, the reality fell short of her expectations once more.
“I saw that the water was almost taking him under, I just couldn’t manage to, drag him out”, Shu-Yi Chen recalled, as their building collapsed from the earthquakes, she and her husband went to check on their two sons, the fifteen year-old eldest son’s bedroom door was completely blocked, and the younger son was underneath the rubbles, with only his face showing.
She and her injured husband used what strengths they had left, but they just couldn’t manage, to get their young son out, the son called out to her with his dying breaths, “Mom, save me!”, and, because the pipes were broken, her son’s face was soaked wet with water, and she could only keep on, wiping his face off.
As the rescue squad finally came, she’d begged them to save her child first, but because the larger machineries hadn’t arrived yet, the couple were asked to leave first, as the rescuers dragged her out, she’d hollered out continuously, “You must save my son first!”.
That very night, the news of her younger son’s death was confirmed, and, she’d kept all her hopes on her eldest; Shu-Yi Chen said, that day, she’d kept hollering out her eldest son, Hsiang-Yen Lien’s name, “There were screaming from all around and I couldn’t tell which voice was his!”
Yesterday at 4:50 in the morning, the rescuers used the biofeedback detector, and it’d showed that there was someone still alive in building F, the mayor of Tainan, Ching-De Lai also showed and made the statement, “There was, a male who was banging”, after Shu-Yi Chen heard, without thinking twice, she’d immediately rushed to the site, with her hands clenched, trembling, she’d prayed for a miracle.
With the company of the volunteers, Shu-Yi Chen was at the closest place where the family members were allowed to be, with her heart filled with hope, waited for the moment she will be able to, embrace her son in her arms again.
But, with the passing of each and every hour, Shu-Yi’s hope-filled heart turned colder, and, the hopes of having her son back in her arms alive became, diminished, and later on, it’d been proven that it was, a misreading that there were still survivors; the volunteers transmitted the message to Shu-Yi Chen, and, she’d turned around, and left, as the volunteers watched her leave, they’d felt awful for her too.
And so, this, is the aftermath of a natural disaster, and, this family had suffered insurmountable losses, the two sons are both dead, and, you won’t be able to imagine the extent to the pains that the parents experienced, losing their young, unless you’d lost one of your own children too.
Life, the Obstacle Course 