1. Mrs Jones.
I was living at an apartment at intersection of Maple Street and Fook Wah Street, during the bombings of Hong Kong’s shipyards, in WWII. It was 3rd floor (British called it 2nd floor), has a 12' by 20' front room, a 12'by 12' middle room, a corridor, a bathroom, a kitchen, altogether may be 400 sq. ft., plus a gigantic roofless balcony 90 degrees, 10' wide and may be 40' long.
I don't care to climb up to the 4' high side wall of the balcony, to look down on the street, because there is a 45 degree "roof" sloping off that wall for some 6' or so, so if my parents lift me up I still could only see the sidewalk on other other side of the street, but not the street surface itself.
But one day, as a 3 yr. old kid, I invented a new game. I took my shoes, and my parents' shoes under the beds, and went to the balcony, through them over the side wall. Poof! they vanish without a trace, no sound, . . .
Some minutes later, Mr Jones of 2nd floor came up the stairs and knocked at our door. My mother opened it, and he said, "This pair of shoes fell on my head as I was crossing the street. Is it yours?" Ah, it was one of my shoes.
My mother uttered a loud Ai-Yaaah!, and I suppose she dashed downstairs to pick up my homework from the street. (There were little traffic on the streets in those days, because people were starving.) Then she came at me, asked me why I did it. I had no good answer. She was angry enough to punish me stand in front of the cabinet. I began to cry, because I don't want to see her angry face, and I rubbed my back left and right against the rim of the door of the cabinet, I still now remember. I still did not understand why she was angry because I threw the shoes on to the street.
Some months later, I had to go to my first funeral procession in my memory. It was for Mrs Jones. She had always been sick in bed in all my memory. Now they put her into some nice brown coffin, on some "funeral van", I don't think my mother and I walked with the funeral procession. We Christians don't do such processions on streets.
Then that night, my mother said, "Guess what was her last words? She suddenly was smiling, and said, I saw Jesus . . . "
What a peaceful feeling at her last minute on earth.
It was the first proof that this life is not all. Life goes on beyond death.
This is the first time I was so convinced that it is wise to live a life that you will not regret when you step across that Door into your next life.
How? Wait for my next article.
