Vol.2 Chap.41 The journal coming alive
A small pang of hunger assaulted her. She really had eaten nothing since she got home yesterday. So, she walked home. Though it was dark, she knew the way well. Sometimes, she thought she knew the place better than the people there.
Unconsciously, her steps again carried her to the front steps of the clinic. She paused.
Another thought came to mind. Maybe she should just continue working at the clinic. Her career was taking off. In time, she would find another companion to replace Haw-Ting to carry on their work, perhaps someone from the hospital, like Doctor Wu or one of his associates. The idea seemed to be a logical one and had some merit. But the more she dwelled on the idea, the emptier she got.
No! No one could ever replace Haw-Ting! No one!
She recalled the strange empty sensation while she was at the clinic yesterday morning. She could not shake the emotion of being foreign, detached, estranged, and uninvolved. For the past five years, she never for one minute touched such a void about the clinic.
Now everything had changed. Not only was Haw-Ting gone, it seemed even the clinic was taken away from her as well. Somehow, she knew she could never set foot back in that clinic again, much less work there day in and day out and not be haunted by his image and presence every which way she turned. No, this was not a viable choice for her anymore.
Abruptly, she turned around and headed home.
As she turned away from the clinic, her concern for her patients rose within her. What about all her patients, and Haw-Ting’s patients, too? They have depended on her and on Haw-Ting for so long. It would be irresponsible to leave them behind. Perhaps Doctor Wu would give her a position at the hospital, so she had a way to continue caring for her patients. This seemed to be a reasonable and workable option. She might move closer to the hospital and carry on her research using the hospital facilities. She seemed to be satisfied with this option.
Promise me you will finish my work…
Her father’s words rang loud within her again.
Promise me you will finish my work…
She struggled with the voice.
I am finishing your work, father. I am a doctor now. I moved back to Xilon. I have a clinic. I am doing what you were doing before
But the nagging of her father’s words persisted. She did not know what more to do. But somehow it seemed her father was talking about something more, something nobler, something higher, and something more important.
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She reasoned to herself that if she worked at the hospital, she would find time to finish her father’s work, whatever that was. Besides, a lot more resources at the hospital that might be useful to her to finish her father’s work.
Yes. This is what I will do. She thought to herself.
She would see Doctor Wu and ask for a position in the hospital tomorrow morning. She was relieved that she now had a sense of purpose.
Her appetite seemed to return. So, she stopped by one of the street vendors and had a big bowl of noodles with chicken meat. She downed the contents in no time. The more she thought about her decision, the more she realized that this was the right thing to do.
When she got home, she wasted no time to search for her father’s diary. After moving several boxes out from storage, she finally found the journal. She simply had no time to look at it before. But now, she had all the time in the world. She poured herself a steaming hot cup of herb tea and sat down to read the manuscript.
The diary was old and full of technical terms. At one time in high school, she tried to read it, but got totally discouraged because she had insufficient knowledge to understand what was written. Now, only after she had gone through medical school and had several years of medical practice, some of the contents became comprehensible. This time, she resolved to take the time to grasp what her father were trying to convey.
She started from the first page of the manuscript and read page by page slowly to get the full picture. Somehow, it was as if a veil had been lifted from her mind and she now read with understanding. Countless cups of tea later, she had not moved from her chair, not until she had read the entire manuscript from cover to cover. By the time she had read to the last page and put down the manuscript, it was almost morning.
Just to be sure she did not miss anything, she made a fresh pot of tea and reread the manuscript from first page to the last again.
In summary, while working as a doctor and herbalist, her father by chance overheard bits and pieces of a legend regarding a village at the top of a nearby mountain. The legend claimed that there was no sickness and no violence in the village. No one knew why. The legend intrigued her father so much that he devoted his whole life to finding everything about this village.
Her father collected all the stories, articles, eyewitness reports about this legendary village and documented the source of his findings in the diary. Unfortunately, he did not have time to assimilate together the information into a coherent picture and to determine the exact location of the village.
For doctors, a village with no sickness was utopia. But for May-Ling, a village with no violence was simply irresistible.
This finding was too good to be true, especially when she discovered that temporary relief from violence might be obtained through the proper therapeutic acupuncture procedure from her own practice. She simply had to find out if this legendary village existed or not. If so, she wanted to learn all about the diet and the practice of these villagers. She wanted to learn from these villagers and bring back the cure for her patients. That thought had uplifted her spirits tremendously.
In fact, the more she dwelled on the idea of locating the legendary village, the more she was elated. She forgot all about sleeping. She poured herself another cup of tea and dived back to the diary, especially those references where the location of the village was mentioned.
As the neighborhood cock crowed and the day broke, the fog in her mind also dissipated. What her father wrote in his journal had attracted her. Unconsciously and gradually, she developed such an urge to complete what her father started. She simply must locate this legendary village. As she stared up at the breaking sky, she resolved to take some time off to find this village.
She now had the assurance that this was what her dad was asking her to complete and this was what she had been called to do.
A sense of purpose for her life had returned.