Bethune asked his ex-wife for money before he died, and ** handed it over on his behalf
Late at night on November 11, 1939, Bethune was unfortunately infected and poisoned in Huangshikou Village, Tang County, Hebei Province, in order to rescue the wounded of the Eighth Route Army, and his life was about to come to an end.
On this deathbed, he wrote a touching last words to the commander of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region: Dear Commander Nie, I don't feel very good, maybe I will say goodbye to you forever.
Please write a letter to Tim Booker (then secretary of the Communist Party of Canada) at 10 Wellington Street, Toronto, Canada. At the same time, please tell the International Aid Committee and the Canadian Democratic Peace League that I am very happy to be here, and my only hope is to be able to contribute.
I can ask the International Aid Committee to allocate a living allowance for my divorced wife, or pay it in installments. I have a great responsibility to her and cannot abandon her because of a lack of money.
Please tell her that I am very sorry, but I used to be very pleasant.
Bethune: The Mystery of the Ex-Wife and the Suicide Note Norman Bethune was born in March 1890 into a poor family in Ravenhurst, Ontario, Canada.
When he was a teenager, Bethune's family was poor and the environment was difficult, but he studied hard, was sensible and capable, and would help his family do what he could every day after school. With his own efforts, Bethune graduated from the University of Toronto at the age of 24, received a doctorate in medicine at the age of 26, and was awarded a prize from the Royal Society of Medicine of Edinburgh at the age of 32.
However, his life was not all smooth sailing. After Bethune's death, it was discovered that he had left a suicide note to his ex-wife, in which he asked her to give him a sum of money.
This has aroused people's curiosity, what is the story between Bethune and his ex-wife?
The love story of Bethune and Frances, full of passion and affection. Their chance encounter in Edinburgh, England, opened the most important chapter of their lives. Bethune's talent and enthusiasm fascinated Frances, and they spent an unforgettable 20 days together.
After returning to China, they continued to exchange letters and deepened their relationship. On August 13, 1923, they were married in London, despite the opposition of their families.
After getting married, Bethune planned to practice medicine, but Frances encouraged him to go to Europe to study and improve his medical skills. She used her savings to help him complete his education, and together they moved to Detroit in late 1924 to open a clinic.
Bethune's superb medical skills and noble medical ethics attracted many patients, and their small lives were comfortable and warm, full of love.
In the fall of 1927, in Detroit, Bethune unfortunately fell ill with tuberculosis, which was a huge blow to them, young people who were immersed in happiness.
Bethune tried to hide his illness, but his wife Frances soon discovered the truth, and instead of disliking Bethune, she took care of him more carefully, which made Bethune feel guilty and uneasy.
However, Bethune was well aware of his illness and he did not want to involve Frances, so he asked her for a divorce. However, Frances was adamantly against it, crying and saying, "Norman, I don't want to leave you, especially now."
No matter what happens between us, my only wish right now is to be with you! Despite many attempts to convince her, Bethune never changed her mind.
A few weeks later, Bethune had to return to his hometown to accept **, but he still wanted to keep in touch with Frances. Eventually, Bethune decided that he would only accept the divorce if Frances agreed to it.
Despite the severity of Bethune's illness, he decided to sacrifice himself, not wanting to waste Frances' life.
Frances was stunned, then she covered her face with her hands and cried angrily. She understood her husband's character of doing what he said, so she had to let him go back alone.
After returning to his hometown, Bethune filed a divorce petition with the court, and a month later, he was transferred to the Trudeau Sanatorium in the United States, where conditions were better. Soon after, the divorce decree was handed down, and Frances saw it, burst into tears, and then returned to her hometown of Edinburgh in desolation.
After that, Bethune began to fight the disease alone, he invented the "artificial pneumothorax" with his brilliant medical skills, risked the first experiment on his own body, and it was a great success, and a year later, he was miraculously cured and discharged from the hospital.
His "artificial pneumothorax**" made a great contribution to medicine, and he was graciously invited to teach at Le McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Before leaving, Bethune could no longer hold back his thoughts about his ex-wife, and he sent a telegram to Frances: "Recovered from illness, leaving Trudeau today, still feeling for you, are you willing to marry me again?"
When Bethune arrived in Montreal, Canada, he wrote another letter to Frances, in which he said: I often wish I could wait for you on a street corner one morning and startle you when you come to take the tram.
All I said was, "Hey, let's go for a walk!" And Frances, after the divorce, has never been in love with anyone else, and she quickly wrote back to Bethune: It's strange, I want to forget you, but you always linger in my heart.
In the autumn of 1929, Frances came to Montreal, and after the two met, Bethune took her directly to the church, and he hugged Frances tightly, and Frances also hugged Bethune tightly, as if he was careless, for fear that he would leave him again.
They remarried. After remarrying, Bethune cherished his current life very much, and he vowed to work harder and achieve something in his medical career in order to live up to Frances's expectations of himself.
Frances, on the other hand, hopes that her husband will stop being busy with work all day as before, and that he will be able to spend more time with him. After a long time, the marriage of the two appeared discordant notes again.
One morning at work, Frances asked Bethune to come back with some meat and vegetables, and she was going to come back in the evening to cook a few good dishes. But when she returned from work in the evening, she found her husband sitting on the floor, intently studying a skeleton.
Frances held back the unhappiness in her heart and asked Bethune: "Did you buy meat and vegetables?" Bethune replied without thinking, "In the refrigerator." Frances opened the refrigerator and found that there was only a piece of intestines in it, she frowned and picked up the intestines and said, "Just buy this broken intestine?" ”
Bethune jumped up and said, "Don't move! That's the bowels of people! ”
Frances heard Bethune say, "How can the intestines of a dead man be put together with food?" Her heart was filled with shock and anger, and she couldn't understand why he cared so little about such a thing.
However, Bethune explained: "It's just because you look at the problem from a different angle, aren't the cows, sheep, and pork you eat all the organs left over after the death of animals?" ”
Something like this happened, and Frances felt that she had only a small part of the responsibility in the family, and she realized that she might be an obstacle to Bethune's big business.
After much deliberation, Frances decided to file for divorce from Bethune. This decision was a huge blow to Bethune, who tried his best to convince Frances to change his mind, but nothing changed, and in the end he could only accept Frances's decision and say to her: "If we can only find happiness if we are separated, then I am willing to respect your choice." ”
Although they were divorced, Bethune still regarded Frances as the closest person and visited her frequently.
After joining the Communist Party of Canada, Bethune decided to go to China in 1937 for medical assistance. He approached Frances and expressed his wishes, hoping to go with someone who would want to join.
Eventually, Bethune was sent by the Communist Party of Canada and the United States to lead a medical team from Canada and the United States to China. During the journey, he wrote a long letter to Frances, pouring out his thoughts and wishing her happiness affectionately at the end of the letter.
After Bethune arrived in Yan'an, he immediately asked to go to the front to treat the wounded. Although someone wanted to introduce him to a female companion to take care of his life, he politely declined, because he had always cherished his feelings for Frances, and it was difficult for other women to enter his heart.
Bethune was committed to helping the Chinese people, and his spirit is worthy of our learning and admiration.
In early October 1939, the Japanese army imposed an economic blockade on the anti-Japanese base areas, which caused a serious shortage of medical equipment and medicines for the Eighth Route Army.
Bethune decided to return to his homeland to raise funds, purchase medicines and equipment, and at the same time expose to the world the atrocities of the Japanese army and the Sino-Japanese war of the Chinese people. However, as they were preparing to leave, the Japanese army suddenly launched a large-scale "winter sweep".
Bethune decided to stay at the front, he said to ***: "I can't leave the troops during the fighting. When this battle is over, I'll set off again. Bethune set up an operating room in the small temple of Sunjiazhuang, near the line of fire, to rescue the wounded.
During the operation on the wounded, the middle finger of his left hand was pierced with a scalpel, and the area became inflamed and swollen. On 1 November, a wounded man with erysipelas in the neck and cellulitis was lifted off the line of fire and required immediate surgery.
It was a surgically virulent infectious disease, but Bethune refused to be dissuaded from having another operation and resolutely completed the operation. Unfortunately, his injured finger was infected with deadly erysipelas during the operation.
Over the next few days, Bethune continued to operate on the wounded, even though the finger injury began to deteriorate. He cut open his inflamed middle finger and released the pus, but it still didn't relieve the swelling and pain.
Despite this, he still comforted everyone: "Don't worry, I can continue to work." However, Bethune's condition gradually deteriorated, and by the afternoon of October 10, he had a high fever and was unconscious.
In order to ensure his safety, ** immediately sent a doctor with medicines and equipment, and asked the troops to transfer him out at all costs. However, upon the arrival of the doctors, Bethune firmly rejected the proposal to remove his left arm.
He told the doctor, "I already believe in you. As long as it can save my life, I am willing to sacrifice two arms, but now it is not just a problem with arms, my blood is poisonous, it is sepsis, and now there is no cure......"At 5:5:20 a.m. on November 12, 1939, Bethune left us forever with a longing for Frances.
Despite the short life of his life, his spirit of selfless dedication will forever be etched in our hearts.