中文版 在英文版之後

Grandma’s Unfinished Business

My beloved Grandma died after a months-long battle with lung cancer. I was only 17, and it was the first time someone close to me had died.

My heart was broken. I was also angry at God.

There are so many evil people in this world. Why did God allow my Grandma to die while some terrible people continued to live long and healthy lives?

I wanted an answer from God. In fact, I thought it was a fair question, and I demanded an answer.

Fortunately, about two months before Grandma died, our family visited her in Taiwan during spring break.

Shortly before our arrival, she had begun losing consciousness frequently. But one night, she regained enough consciousness for my mother to talk with her about coming to Christ. My mother prayed with her and baptized her in the bathtub. My grandfather, who was a Buddhist at the time, watched but did not object.

Afterward, Grandma again spent much of her time unconscious.

But while we were in Taiwan, something changed. She began regaining consciousness more frequently and for longer periods.

Because she had a stoma, she couldn’t speak. When she was awake, I would sit beside her and hold her hand, trying hard not to cry.

Sometimes she would look toward the ceiling and reach her hands into the air as though she were trying to touch something. When we tried to lower her hands, she would look at us with a puzzled expression.

What was she seeing?

We didn’t know. She couldn’t tell us.

At the same time, my grandfather had been diagnosed with possible prostate cancer. His doctor recommended surgery, but Grandpa initially refused.

“The woman I love is dying,” he said. “I do not wish to live on.”

But during our visit, Grandma seemed more alert than she had been before. One of my aunts used that to persuade Grandpa.

She told him, “What if Grandma gets better and you die? Wouldn’t that be tragic?”

That convinced him.

Grandpa agreed to undergo the surgery. I was there to help prepare him for it.

The surgery was successful.

He would live for another 17 years.

But Grandma did not recover.

Two months later, she died.

And once again I asked God:

Why?

Many people ask God that question when someone they love dies. Most never receive the kind of explanation they are hoping for.

For reasons I still cannot fully explain, I believe God gave me an answer.

One night, I had a dream.

In the dream, my siblings and I were playing inside my grandparents’ little drugstore in Taipei. We had spent a great deal of time there as children, so it was almost like a second home to us.

But something was different.

At the cashier’s desk where Grandpa normally sat was Grandma.

She didn’t say anything. She simply sat there and looked at us.

I was confused.

So I asked the clerk:

“Grandma is gone. Why is she still here?”

The clerk answered:

“She came back because she had some unfinished business to take care of.”

That was it.

I woke up without understanding what the dream meant. I didn’t even ask an adult to interpret it for me.

But over the following months, I began to see those words differently.

During those final months of Grandma’s life, two important things had happened.

First, Grandma had regained enough consciousness to respond when my mother shared Christ with her.

Second, while we were visiting, Grandma became alert often enough that Grandpa was persuaded to undergo the surgery he had previously refused.

And that surgery gave Grandpa another 17 years of life.

Those 17 years mattered.

Years earlier, I believed God had given me a promise that Grandpa would someday be saved. But when Grandma was dying, Grandpa was still a Buddhist.

If he had refused the surgery and died soon afterward, I wondered what would have happened.

Instead, he lived.

Seventeen years passed.

Then, just a few weeks before Grandpa himself died, he came to Christ.

During those additional years, he also lived long enough to play with his first great-granddaughter and to hear about the birth of his first great-grandson.

Only then did the phrase from my dream make sense to me:

“Unfinished business.”

I had asked God why He allowed Grandma to die.

But the answer I believe He gave me was not really an explanation of why she died.

It changed the question.

I had been looking at Grandma’s death as though God had failed to save her.

Instead, I came to see those final months as time God had graciously given.

I wanted to know why God didn’t give Grandma more time.

Perhaps I should have been grateful that He had already given her the time she needed to help convince my grandfather to undergo the surgery. That gave him another 17 years of life, long enough to meet his first great-granddaughter and, most importantly, come to Christ.

I cannot claim to understand why God determines that one person lives and another dies. Most of us will never receive an explanation for the timing of someone we love.

But Grandma’s story taught me something I have never forgotten:

God’s silence does not mean He has no reason.

Sometimes we may understand His purpose later.

Sometimes we may not understand it during this lifetime at all.

And sometimes the answer God gives is not the answer to the question we were asking.

For me, Grandma’s death stopped being evidence that God had failed to protect or heal her.

Death is not God’s defeat.

For those who belong to Him, it is a transition from this part of our journey to the next.

I still miss my Grandma.

But I no longer look at those final months only as the months in which she was dying.

I also see them as months in which God was still working.

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中文版:

外婆未完成的事

我深愛的外婆在與肺癌搏鬥了幾個月之後去世了。當時我只有17歲，這是我第一次經歷一位親近的家人離世。

我的心都碎了。我也對神感到憤怒。

這個世界上有那麼多邪惡的人。為什麼神讓我的外婆死去，而有些很壞的人卻仍然健康長壽？

我想要神給我一個答案。事實上，我認為這是一個很合理的問題，所以我要求神給我答案。

幸好，在外婆去世大約兩個月前的春假期間，我們全家到台灣探望她。

就在我們抵達之前不久，她已經開始經常失去意識。但是有一天晚上，她恢復了足夠的意識，讓我母親可以跟她談接受基督的事。母親帶著她禱告，之後在浴缸裡為她施洗。當時仍然信佛教的爺爺在旁邊看著，但沒有反對。

之後，外婆大部分時間又陷入昏迷。

但是當我們在台灣探望她的那段時間，情況有了一些改變。她清醒的次數開始增加，而且每次清醒的時間也變長了。

因為她裝有氣切管，所以無法說話。當她清醒的時候，我會坐在她旁邊，握著她的手，努力忍住眼淚。

有時候，她會望著天花板，把手伸向空中，好像想要觸摸什麼。當我們試著把她的手放下來時，她會用一種困惑的表情看著我們。

她究竟看見了什麼？

我們不知道。她也無法告訴我們。

就在同一段時間，我的爺爺被診斷可能患有攝護腺癌。醫生建議他接受手術，但是爺爺一開始拒絕了。

他說：

「我所愛的女人就要死了，我也不想再活下去了。」

但是在我們探望的那段時間，外婆比之前清醒得更多。我的一位姑姑就利用這一點來勸爺爺。

她對他說：

「如果外婆好起來了，而你卻死了，那不是很可惜嗎？」

這句話說服了他。

爺爺同意接受手術。我當時也在那裡幫忙他做手術前的準備。

手術很成功。

他又多活了17年。

但是外婆並沒有康復。

兩個月後，她去世了。

我再一次問神：

為什麼？

很多人在自己所愛的人去世之後，都會問神這個問題。但是大多數人都不會得到自己所期待的那種解釋。

但是因著一些直到今天我仍然無法完全解釋的原因，我相信神給了我一個答案。

有一天晚上，我做了一個夢。

在夢裡，我和兄弟姊妹正在台北爺爺外婆的小藥房裡玩。我們小時候經常待在那裡，所以那裡就像我們的第二個家。

但是有一件事情不一樣。

平常爺爺坐的收銀台後面，坐著的竟然是外婆。

她沒有說話，只是坐在那裡看著我們。

我很困惑。

所以我問店員：

「外婆已經走了，為什麼她還在這裡？」

店員回答：

「她回來，是因為她還有一些沒有完成的事情要處理。」

就這樣。

我醒來之後，完全不明白這個夢是什麼意思。我甚至沒有去問任何大人該如何解釋這個夢。

但是在接下來的幾個月裡，我開始用不同的角度來理解夢裡的那句話。

在外婆生命最後的那幾個月裡，發生了兩件很重要的事情。

第一，外婆恢復了足夠的意識，可以在我母親向她分享基督的時候作出回應。

第二，在我們探望她的那段時間，外婆清醒的次數和時間都增加了。這使爺爺最後願意接受他原本拒絕的手術。

而那次手術，讓爺爺又多活了17年。

那17年非常重要。

很多年前，我相信神曾經給我一個應許，就是爺爺有一天會得救。但是當外婆快要去世的時候，爺爺仍然是一位佛教徒。

如果他拒絕手術，然後在外婆去世後不久也離開人世，我不知道結果會是怎樣。

但是，他活了下來。

17年過去了。

然後，就在爺爺自己去世的幾個星期以前，他接受了基督。

在多出來的那17年裡，他也活到能夠親自抱抱、陪伴他的第一位曾孫女，也聽到了第一位曾孫出生的消息。

到了那個時候，我才真正明白夢裡的那句話：

「還有一些沒有完成的事情。」

我原本問神，為什麼祂讓外婆死去。

但是我相信神給我的答案，其實並不是在解釋她為什麼死。

祂改變了我的問題。

我原本把外婆的死看成是神沒有拯救她。

後來，我開始把她生命最後的那幾個月，看成是神額外恩賜給她的時間。

我原本想知道，為什麼神沒有給外婆更多的時間。

也許我更應該感恩的是，神已經給了她所需要的時間，幫助說服我的爺爺接受手術。那次手術讓他又多活了17年，讓他有機會見到第一位曾孫女，更重要的是，讓他有足夠的時間最後接受了基督。

我不能說自己明白為什麼神決定讓一個人繼續活著，而讓另一個人的生命結束。我們大多數人可能永遠不會知道，為什麼我們所愛的人會在某一個特定的時候離開。

但是外婆的故事教會了我一件我永遠不會忘記的事：

神的沉默，並不代表祂沒有祂的理由。

有時候，我們後來會明白祂的目的。

有時候，我們這一生都不會明白。

有時候，神給我們的答案，甚至不是我們原本所問的那個問題的答案。

對我來說，我不再把外婆的死看成神沒有保護她或醫治她。

死亡不是神的失敗。

對那些屬於祂的人來說，死亡只是從這段旅程進入下一段旅程的轉換。

我仍然想念我的外婆。

但是現在回頭看，我不再只把那幾個月看成外婆逐漸走向死亡的日子。

我也看見，那些日子其實是：

神仍然在動工的日子。