The Last Photo of Her Life (Photo)

I feel very sad whenever I look at the last photo ever taken of Ms. Wu Lingxia. Though the tragic occurrence happened in 2001, more than two years ago, I will cherish her memory forever.

It was a sweltering July. We were incarcerated in the Jiamusi Forced Labour Camp in Heilongjiang Province. Every practitioner who refused to give up her belief in Falun Dafa was put in solitary confinement, isolated from other practitioners. One day while the labour camp installed monitoring equipment, Ms. Wu was temporarily put into the jail unit where I was. We spent the afternoon together, and that was how I got to know her. I learned that she was from Shuangyashan City, and had only recently been put into the labour camp. The collaborators [former Dafa practitioners who have turned against Dafa under pressure], under instructions from the prison guards, wasted no time feeding her lies in an attempt to turn her against Falun Dafa and Teacher, just like them. However, she calmly clarified the truth to them with a peaceful mind. At the time, I had a feeling that she would persist with her cultivation to the end. A long time later, I heard that she suffered from severe ascites [abnormal buildup of fluid in the abdomen] related to the torture she experienced, and the labour camp had to set her free.

The photo of Wu Lingxia with her son before she was sent to the labour camp

Photo after she was abducted to and tortured in the Jiamusi Labour Camp showing her with severe ascites from cirrhosis of the liver, and inflammatory swelling and septic ulceration in the lower legs.

In the spring of 2002, due to the persecution, fellow practitioner B and I were forced to leave our homes and become homeless. Once we passed by Ms. Wu's hometown, and after some trouble, we found her. When I saw her, I was shocked. Her once beautiful cheeks were sunken, her eyes protruded, her arms were bony, her abdomen looked as if it were ready to burst, and her legs were so swollen that the skin was shiny. She was panting constantly. She could no longer lie down. Her buttocks had developed pressure sores from prolonged sitting [a common torture method used against Falun Dafa practitioners]. She was being looked after by her 78-year-old father, because her 80-year-old mother was deaf and could not take care of her. Moreover, she had a son in primary school that needed to be cared for. Obviously, Ms. Wu had once been the principal worker in the family.

In their little rundown house, everything was in tatters. Even so, the local police were still harassing Ms. Wu and her family. Seeing the terrible state she was in, I wanted to leave them some money, but she turned it down. She told me that she had returned all the money fellow practitioners sent her.

One day in July, I went to visit the family again. Ms. Wu was happy but her condition had deteriorated. Pus formation had spread throughout her calves, and a copious exudate oozed from her legs below the knees; her abdomen had distended to the bottom of her sternum. A foul odour permeated the whole room. I asked her if we could take a photo of her to send to Clearwisdom.net, and she agreed. Thus she left behind the last, a sad and evocative, photo in her life.

In late July, I put together some goods in preparation to go and look after Ms. Wu. But then came the news that she had passed away on July 27.

One year later, as I look at the photo in the VCD that we use in clarifying the facts about Falun Dafa, the scenes from the past year appear one after another: the day I told fellow practitioners that I planned to go and take a photo of Ms. Wu, they agreed with the suggestion and were very enthusiastic. Practitioner A led the way, practitioner B wrote up the account of the torture that Ms. Wu experienced, and practitioner C took the photo. Before we set out, I looked at another practitioner named Ji Songshan by my side, and said to him: "Xiao Shan (his name when he was little), let's go visit Wu Lingxia. The vehicle can hold more passengers..."

In less than a year, distressing news came one after another. First, practitioners A and D were arrested by the police one after the other, then practitioner B was arrested in March 2003. On June 18, 2003, 27-year-old Ji Songshan was beaten to death by the police on the same day he was arrested.

I was told later that practitioners A and D refused to compromise with the evildoers and give up their Dafa practice, and were severely tortured. They were suffocated with plastic bags over their heads. Eventually both were given long sentences. Practitioner B was given a different kind of cruel torture: his legs were forced apart by a rod fixed with iron hoops at the ankles, and then his arms were shackled to one of the ankles. He was kept in this posture for 24 hours a day, and eventually became disabled and unable to take care of himself. He was only released when he was tortured to the brink of death.

One day in October, I finally managed to go back to the small town where we had all been together. I found out from an elderly practitioner in the market that all the practitioners I knew were either arrested and had been sentenced or disabled. He said, "You can no longer see them..." And their only "crime" was to give people the message: "Falun Dafa is wonderful!"

The power of faith is infinite. The cultivation of Dafa practitioners is different from all other cultivation practices in history. Even under such trying circumstances of horrific suppression, we continue to come forward to let people know the truth: "Falun Dafa is wonderful!"

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/1/28/65980.html