Recitation: To My Wife

I love you to death! And love gives me the courage to face death. 

Ever since I met you, I have often wished that all the lovers in the world would find their fulfillment. 

But the reality is that the land is permeated in blood, and vicious thugs roam the street. 

How many families can claim true happiness? 

Just like Tang Poet Bai Juyi cries for the misfortune of a concubine, I could not be like the ancient sages who held themselves aloof from the ordeals of the common people. 

It is said: "benevolence is to take care of the old as you would your own parents, to take care of the young as you would your own children." 

As my heart is filled with love for you, that love makes me yearn for helping others to love whom they love. 

That is why I dare to die and to leave you behind. 

I believe that as you understand my heart, you would, even in your tears of sorrow, be glad to sacrifice my life and your well-being, for the long lasting happiness of all the people. 

Please do not be sad!

It is my true wish to live out our lives together, but based on the current state of affairs - natural disasters can kill us, thieves and robbers can kill us, the upheaval in the breaking up of China by foreign powers can kill us, corrupt and despotic officials who abuse people can kill us. 

Our generation lives in a country where death can strike people at any time, anywhere. 

When that happens to one of us, could you or I bear to just helplessly watch the other die? 

Even if we escape death, what is to prevent us from being forced to separate from each other until our longing eyes become blind and our yearning bones turn into fossils? 

The pain of separation is worse than death. 

And just like a broken mirror cannot be restored, families separated hardly end in a happy reunion. 

We are fortunate to be alive and healthy today. 

But the number of people who had wished to live yet perished, and couples who had wished to be together yet were separated, is countless. Can true lovers like us bear with this? 

This is why I have made the decision to lay down my life, even if it means losing you. I will have no regrets. 

The success of the revolution will be on the shoulders of my comrades. 

Yixin is five years old now, he will be a grown man soon. 

Please raise him well and make him like me. 

I suspect the life in your womb is a girl. If so, she surely will be like you, and I will be very glad. 

Or maybe it is a boy, then please educate him to follow my aspirations. 

So there will be two of me after my death. Great! Great! 

By Lin Juemin, an early Qing dynasty revolutionary.