Fu-Mei Huang

Ten plus years ago when I came across our family’s government residential record, I noticed the name “Fu-Mei” inserted between Aunt Jia-Huia and Aunt Li-Sun. My dad only told me that she died as a toddler due to illness without much elaboration. I did not press on as it seems to bother him.

This is a brief “oral” record from Uncle Cliff about our 2nd Aunt, Fu-Mei Huang.

“Recently in an email sent to you all from Claudio regarding the death of my second sister, Fu-Mei Huang. Claudio's account of her death due to "illness like flu" is not accurate. She died from malnutrition, not from some kind of disease. Even today, Steve and I still cannot forget the scene of the tragedy. You have to understand that, at that time, our family lived in an extreme poverty. With four kids and a new born, Agon and Ama just could not feed all ofus. With another baby (Li-Shun) was coming, Ama just could not breastfeed Fu-Mei. Without milk, all Agon and Ama could do was to feed her rice water (water from cooking rice). Malnutrition was the cause of the deterioration of her health (starve to death?). In thelast few days of her life, she was laid on a piece of wooden board(bed) in the living room. After she died, she was put in a home-made tinny wooden box (about 2x3 feet) and was carried away by two friends. Steve and I followed her to the end of the alley. Nobody knew where she was buried. According to these two friends who buried her, it was in a nearby hill. There was no tombstone, only a piece of rock. That is the end of her short two-years of miserable life. Every time we think of her, we feel sorry for her and feel how lucky we are. After Li-shun were born, Agon swore it would notrepeat again. He tried all he could to scrape every penny to buy expensive (at that time) real milk (the can milk) to feed the newborn. Li-shun and Claudio were the luckiest ones in the family who had real milk, instead of rice water, as babies. Anyway, this is atragedy chapter of the Huang Family.

God bless Fu-Mei and our family.”

Uncle Claudio dreamed of the older sister that he never met:

"About 8 years ago, I had a dream. In there was a little girl looked like 4 years old (pre-school age). I asked her, "Hi, you are very cute, what is your name?" She said to me in the dream, "I am your elder sister." I told this dream to A-mom, her eyes were filled with tears. I think a mother never forgets her precious child regardless how many years it went by. "

Aunt Fu-Mei, although your stop in this world was short and difficult, you are not forgotten…