Story By: John Feng, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report
This mum’s social media post has set tongues wagging after she revealed her late husband had written 19 birthday cards for their young daughter before dying of cancer.
Ms Chu, from Taiwan’s south-western port city of Tainan, shared the tear-jerking story on Facebook, where it has been liked over 11,000 times, on 7th October.
Images shared by Ms Chu show the 19 envelopes signed by her late husband during his final weeks battling terminal liver cancer in 2006.
From his crooked writing, it is clear that he struggled to pen the birthday cards which his daughter was to begin receiving from her second birthday.
Ms Chu revealed in her post: “My daughter was born in January 2005, and her father died of liver cancer in May 2006 when she was just one year and four months.
“Despite struggling against the illness during his final month, he wrote down one by one these future blessings for his daughter.
“From 2007 for her second birthday, until 2025 when she turns 20.
“But she was still too young, so I kept them for her. I wanted to give them to her when she was older.
“She’s now in secondary school and has been living in the school dormitory while I work in mainland China.”
Ms Chu, who now works in China’s capital Beijing, then began addressing her daughter, now aged 14, saying: “I’m leaving again tomorrow, so I’m leaving these letters to you.
“I’ve never opened them and never wanted to, because your late father left these letters for you, to send you messages that transcend time and space.”
Ms Chu revealed that her husband was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer when their child was just three months old.
His only hope was a liver transplant, and they even travelled to mainland China hoping to get one, but he ultimately succumbed to the illness just over a year later.
Hundreds of Facebook users in Taiwan have left encouraging words under Ms Chu’s post, but she has yet to respond as she is in mainland China where access to the popular social media network is technically banned.
The ViralTab page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.
