My dear friend, I vaguely recall the moment we both knelt down inside Notre Dame in Paris. With trembling shoulders, you prostrated yourself under the dome for a long, long time. I was touched but also experienced a little bit of reluctance. Now five years later, I realize the significance of that moment was so different for you and me. We seemed to be as far apart as heaven and earth. I felt I was not qualified to discuss with you anything spiritual. More and more I realize that there is an unbridgeable gulf between this natural world and the transcending realm. What we did not realize was, most of the time I did not understand what you were trying to tell me and you refused to wallow with me, an ordinary man, struggling, helpless, and lost in hopelessness and despair.

That moment five years ago, when I was still suffering from shock and confusion following our escape, the only supplication I could make was for God's protection for my wife and children. I know it was a prayer of selfish desire amidst the sudden fate of living in exile, and not out of devotion to God, because I had squandered my devotion in my youthful years. I wonder if that moment of carelessness brought about my innocence concerning the cruel future of living in exile, and that my wife, (despite much hardship) would bring my son to the States to struggle with me and eventually be involved in a car accident and became paralyzed? I did not have the answer. All I know was that moment has turned into an indelible regret, torturing me constantly. Yet it hurts me even more as I walked with her back from hell this past year, witnessing a totally destroyed person trying to restore her memory, physical and mental abilities. I have truly witnessed the destruction of a human being.

That morning, with her still in a coma in the emergency room, I wandered out of the hospital and stood at the edge of a quiet highway, my mind churning with only one thought -- end it all! Later I came across a passage from Dostoevski's literature,". . . hope has slipped away eternally and yet life stubbornly remained. There is still a long journey ahead; you cannot die, though you have no wish to live." This passage best describes my feelings in these past ten months. It was a kind of desperation I never experienced before and it refused to be comforted, replaced or released. Everything that I had gained in my life had simply vanished, and there was not a straw left that I could grasp hold of to stay afloat. Maybe I have touched the uncertainty of life in the bottom of my soul -- I have never been aware of it before. To what extent a man can control his own fate had become such a joke to me. I had been so sure of myself, thinking that we were the group of people who would "fix" the many ills of our country, society and civilization. Yet facing one's own family tragedy, I was totally destroyed and helpless. Suddenly I saw the abyss of existence, a bottomless pit opening up under my own feet. .

Standing on the cliff dividing the known and unknown, the natural world left me with only survival instinct and the frenzied thought of saving her. Yet related to this was my great desire for miracles that come from beyond, a place so foreign and mysterious to me that I had never desired to touch it before. Following the accident, all kinds of help came from various groups, from Christians, Buddhists and people practicing "chi-kung". I decided not to turn down any help that came from the unknown world. I prayed, meditated and did transcendental meditation. I did everything I was told, hoping I would not be a barrier in helping her. I knew what I was doing grew, not out of my own conviction of faith but out of my desperation for any miracle. Finally though, no miracle happened and I was unable to penetrate the great wall between the known and the unknown world.

The winter of 1993 on the East Coast of the United States was one of the coldest in decades. Every morning I dug my car out from under sheets of frozen ice and rushed to the hospital to see my wife who was still not quite conscious. I heard her murmur about nightmares she had. Despite her mourning and groaning, I still had to steel myself to force her to do all kinds of rehabilitation exercises. Soon evening came and when I had to leave, invariably I would hear her say, "How am I going to make it through this night?" Driving through the snow and sleet on the highway, I would listen on tape to songs that she used to sing for our son as lullabies. I played the same tape for her over and over again when she was in coma. Tears ran down my cheeks so that I could hardly see my way. Arriving home and after fixing dinner for my son, as soon as I touched our cold and lonely bed I was overwhelmed with sorrow. I could not help but kneel before a wooden cross with Jesus Christ crucified. I pleaded with God to take away her nightmares and some how lead me to spend the nights with her again. After such prayers, miraculously every day I could sleep through the night. After a period of time I realized I was comforting myself. In fact the great yearning for a miracle came from my restless heart that was in the pit. In praying to God, it secured its footing. .

I am convinced that in the depths of one's heart there is a spiritual being that we have never met before. I came across it in my tragedy. This inner spiritual being is not under the control of my will, thinking or rational faculty. It operates under its own mysterious rules. I cannot suppress its sadness, nor can I understand its self-control. One year after the accident, I wrote in my diary, "I sense that I am calming down. There was only a moment I was overcome by sadness when I talked to the doctor yesterday. I do not feel like crying all the time any more. Only while driving and I listening to the tapes, I feel the hurt of licking my wounds." It is a weird story that for forty some years "it" was in me and I never knew it. I wonder how much stranger and more mysterious the "it" is that is in her. If we cannot even get to know our own inner spiritual being, how can we talk about knowing others'? Maybe it is the cause that led many thinkers on their rational and irrational pursuits and the resultant fallacies. I wonder if the "it" is the same as "the spirituals" referred by the religious people? .

I am still not clear about all these things. My senses tell me there exists something like a spirit in my psyche. Whether joy or sadness, right or wrong, it will be quite ineffective to try to control it with our will power or worldly experience. Only when one is in contact with the spiritual realm and draws upon its power can the human spirit transcend the limitations of the body and worldly experience and be transformed. But the question is, where is the spiritual realm? For those who still do not possess religious faith, the only means to find out seems to be their inner spirit. For some the search is easy; they can be enlightened quickly. But for some people like me the whole process is different. As soon as I began the search, my reasoning and experience were revived and they pointed me in the opposite direction. My dilemma is that I do not even know the "it" that is within me. Maybe one goal of the human experience is to communicate with one's own inner spiritual being and follow it to the spiritual realm, transcending the limitations of this body of flesh. .

My friend Dze Yee once told me that the only way to transcend is to die, which means to be "born again". My wife has experienced the cruelty of approaching death. In a split second, she lost all her physical abilities and with only a breath remaining, dangles between life and death. Except for her son, the world is all strange to her, me included. In her confusion, she said, she saw God once upon the sea talking to her in a loud voice. For me, I sense the helplessness and fleeting nature of life. I realize the vanity of the past and the uselessness of this body. I have attempted to reach out to the spiritual realm, but sad to say, I have yet to receive the touch from God or Buddha. This past tragedy has brought us to the brink of destruction, but still our spirits are wandering around the edge of the cliff without answers. We have tasted life's total destruction, yet we have not been "born again". Therefore we have only had a journey to hell.

After the accident a learned scholar visited me. He did not say much, but quoted what Leo Tolstoy said, "When suffering, one has to ask if he is worthy of the trial." I did not quite comprehend it at the time, but as I ponder on it, it becomes more meaningful.

*****

Mr. Su,Xiao Kang came from Beijing, China. He is the co-author of "River Elegy" and is now a visiting scholar at Princeton University.