“The bitter days, we lived them sweet.”
「苦日子，甜着过。」
Weiming Zhang was born in Guiyang in 1957, the middle of five children. The Cultural Revolution took her schooling. She married Huagang Chen in 1983, crossed to America alone in 1988, and waited more than a year to bring over the small son she had left with her parents. In 1993, at thirty five, with a six month old at home, she was told she had leukemia.
张伟明，一九五七年生于贵阳，家里五个孩子，她排行居中。文革带走了她的学业。一九八三年她与陈华钢结婚，一九八八年只身赴美，一年多以后才把留在父母身边的大儿子接来。一九九三年，三十五岁，小儿子刚满六个月，医生告诉她，她得了白血病。
She is also the person who wrote her family down. Her mother's family, her husband's four hundred year lineage, the story of her own illness: she compiled all of them, edited and made them herself, and never wrote her own. That is what the book below finally is.
她也是那个把家写下来的人。母亲这边的家史，丈夫家四百年的族谱，她自己生病的经过，都是她一本一本编出来的，编辑制作都是她自己，独独没有写过她自己的。下面这本书，就是补上的那一本。
My life is, as the old saying has it, thirty years east of the river and thirty years west: the first thirty in China, the next thirty in America. The first thirty were unsettled, not my own to steer, so I will not dwell on them. 我的一生真可谓是三十年河东（中国），三十年河西（美国）。前三十年的日子是动荡不安，身不由己的日子，所以就不去说它了…… — Weiming Zhang / 张伟明
Guiyang. A cadre family, four sisters and a brother. A childhood interrupted, a year turned out to pasture, then work, marriage, a first son.
贵阳。一个普通干部家庭，四朵金花加一个弟弟。少年时代被打断，放羊吃草混了整整一年，然后是工作、成家、第一个儿子。
One suitcase to Austin. A second son born in Dallas. Then the illness, the transplant, and twenty five years she says no one ever promised her.
一只箱子到奥斯汀。第二个儿子生在达拉斯。然后是那场病，那次移植，和她说的“没有人应许过我的二十五年”。
A memoir in her own voice, written from the albums she kept for five years. Two rivers, one illness, three trees, and a great many flowers. Illustrated throughout with her own photographs.
她自己的回忆录，取材于她用五年时间做出来的那些美篇。两条河，一场病，三棵树，还有很多很多的花。书里的照片，绝大部分是她自己拍的。
Available in Chinese and in English.
中英文两个版本。
Opens as a book you can turn page by page, no download needed. This is a working draft, not the final text.
点开就是一本可以一页一页翻的书，不用下载。目前是草稿，还不是定稿。
She was thirty five. Her younger son was six months old, her older son was eight. Her first thought was not for herself: the children needed to sleep, and she had to see to them. She lived with the illness for eight years. In October 2000 the doctors said the remission would not last six months. In January 2001 she recorded a message for each of her sons, because she was afraid they would not remember their mother, and then she was given a stranger's cells. On the eighth day the new marrow began to grow.
那年她三十五岁，小儿子六个月，大儿子八岁。她的第一个念头不是自己，是孩子们要睡觉了，她得顾着他们。这病她带了八年。二〇〇〇年十月，医生说缓解不会超过六个月。二〇〇一年一月，她给两个儿子分别录了音，怕他们记不住母亲的样子，然后接受了一位陌生人的骨髓。第八天，新的骨髓开始生长。
What is life? Life is bearing. Bearing the accident, bearing the disaster, bearing the upheaval, bearing all of everything. 生命是什么？生命就是承受。承受意外，承受灾难，承受变故，承受一切的一切……
She and her husband bought three trees and had them planted side by side, each for one of the people who kept her alive. They stand in the same garden where he volunteers among the plants.
她和丈夫买下三棵树，并排种在园子里，每一棵献给一位让她活下来的人。那座园子，也正是他做植物义工的地方。
The physician who performed the transplant.
为她做移植的医生。
“With extraordinary skill and a compassionate heart, he gave life and hope to countless families.”
The stranger who donated the cells.
那位捐出骨髓干细胞的陌生人。
“A gift of life that made possible 25 years of new life for Weiming.”
The friend who held her in prayer.
在祷告中托住她的朋友。
“Rooted in God's love, sustained by prayer, growing in grace.”
These three trees bear witness that rebirth is not a miracle, but a reality accomplished together by love and courage. 这三棵树，见证了重生并非奇迹，而是爱与勇气共同完成的现实。 — 《根植于恩典》 / “Rooted in Grace”, 2026
I love flowers. I love their spotless purity, their fearless selflessness. I love their fragrance and their grace. I love the drift and the scatter of them. 我爱花，爱它的纯洁无暇，无私无畏。我爱花，爱它的芬芳秀色亭亭玉立。我爱花，爱它的悠悠扬扬及飘飘撒撒。
She grew them, photographed them, and composed them into albums by hand. Everything below is her own photograph.
她自己种，自己拍，自己拼图排版。下面这些，都是她自己拍的。
Gallery is seeded with five images. Add more to _upload/gallery/.
目前只放了五张，其余照片加到 _upload/gallery/ 即可。
Over five years she assembled a series of illustrated albums, forgetting to eat and sleep over them, as she puts it. Two of them are family histories she compiled for other people, one of them while she was ill.
五年里，她做出了一系列图文并茂的美篇，用她自己的话说，常常废寝忘食，呕心沥血。其中两本是替别人编的家史，有一本还是抱病编成的。
She and Huagang Chen have been married since 1983. They have two sons and two grandchildren. Her husband keeps his own site, and his book and hers are a pair: he spent hundreds of hours reading a stranger's handwriting so it would not be lost, and she spent a lifetime keeping her family's record. The botanic garden in his book and the one in hers is the same garden.
她与陈华钢一九八三年结婚，有两个儿子，两个孙辈。丈夫有他自己的网站；他那本书和她这一本，是一对：他花了几百个钟点去读一位素不相识的老先生的笔迹，为的是不让它散失；她用一辈子把自己家的记录留了下来。两本书里的那座植物园，是同一座。