It all started
with a phone call…
”Hi,
remember the song that you arranged it many years ago?” Then she began to sing
a melody that sounded like a familiar folksong but I could not exactly recall.
“It would
be sung for the coming Mother’s Day service,” she continued, ”It's from a small book
of yours. The book is called Sing A New Song (新歌新唱.) Remember?”
Yes,
I remember that book. I have checked the publisher in Tainan two years ago but failed to locate it.
I don’t think that I still have a copy of it after years of studying, working,
moving and relocation in the States.
It was a
beautiful Sunday morning in May when we saw her the next time in the church.
After
the church service that day she surprised us with that ‘old’ tiny song book that she has mentioned
before. It was a small book (with my arrangement and editing along with a few
translations) that was published by the Taiwan Church Press(台灣教會公報社) in early 1975,
almost 40 years before.
She then
wrote a few lines inside the book cover and signed, and presented to me. I noticed right there and then that she took
of her glasses and wiped out a few tear drops of hers with her hand.
The book
was priced at 50 cents (NT$15) each then.
Needless to
say, that my wife and I were so touched by her sincere act. We took it as if we have just found a long
lost treasure. And we surely did.
We were
speechless and the feeling was priceless.
It was
priceless not just because the book was out of print; and not just because that
we did not have a copy then and now we do.
It was the
feeling that, by her simple act, she has brought us back the youth, the
memories of Taiwan
and the happiness that was so genuine and almost rare and long forgotten.
She is our
pastor’s wife.
And she is
our angel.
