In March 2003, Song Meiling spent her 106th birthday in her Manhattan apartment in New York, USA, and this birthday was as usual, and the New York apartment was full of gifts and excitement.
Song Meiling, a centenarian with stars and moons, sat in a wheelchair and watched the blessings sent to her by the young descendants of the Jiang and Song families who were separated by several generations, and for a time gave birth to a sense of loneliness.
Seeing that some of the heroes of her own era, such as Zhang Xueliang, have long been swallowed up by the great waves of history, only she, as a kind of historical existence, witnesses the rise and fall of the world, representing the continuation of that era and the past.
Although he has long been able to control the storms and twists and turns that appear in his life on this long journey of life, he still can't escape the sadness of the white-haired man sending the black-haired person.
Song Meiling lived in New York in her later years
In 1994, Kong Lingwei, the "Second Miss Kong", who was in love with Song Meiling, died of illness in Taipei, and her death brought endless sadness to Song Meiling.
This was her most intimate person, just a short time ago when she heard that Kong Lingwei was hospitalized for rectal cancer, she returned to Taiwan to visit, and not long after returning to New York, she learned the news of Kong Lingwei's death, which made Song Meiling quite devastated, and she has never returned to Taiwan since.
At the end of 1996, Song Meiling's last grandson Jiang Xiaoyong died, which was the most pleasing to her descendants, and every year on various holidays Jiang Xiaoyong would take his family to New York to spend it with her, bringing her a lot of joy.
Undoubtedly, after Jiang Xiaoyong's death, her later life became more lonely, and what made her sad was that it was not long before Jiang Weiguo also died of illness.
Although there is no blood relationship between them, Jiang Weiguo is very filial to his stepmother, because he is worried about Song Meiling's body, he even let his wife accompany Song Meiling in the United States for a long time.
The death of the third generation of important figures of the Jiang family can be imagined as a blow to her, in addition, when her life was about to come to an end, her nephews Kong Lingkan and Kong Lingjie also passed away one after another.
The withering of the relatives, the changes in the Jiang family, looking at the people who walked in front of her one by one, Song Meiling's heart was full of mixed feelings, she knew that she was about to follow their footsteps and leave, and she had already made preparations, and even chose the cemetery, she was quietly waiting for the arrival of that day.
In her later years, Song Meiling
Regrettably, because she always refused to dictate oral histories and write memoirs, this can be said to be an irreparable shortcoming for the history of the country.
And in an exclusive interview, she once made it clear to the outside world that everything in the funeral was simple, and the remains were not transported back to the mainland after death, not buried next to their parents, nor transported back to Taiwan, but buried in New York, buried with the brothers, sisters and relatives of the Kong and Song families.
This is inevitably lamentable, but also can't help but remind people of the burial method of the young marshal Zhang Xueliang, before his death in 2001, the 101-year-old general Zhang Xueliang confessed to his children that after death, he would be buried next to the cemetery of his wife Zhao Yidi - the ancient cemetery of the temple located in the "China SeaScape" in Hawaii, the United States, forever buried elsewhere.
And Song Meiling also chose to be buried in a foreign country, which is a choice she has made when she first entered the 21st century.
As her physical condition became more and more unoptimistic, her interest in painting, receiving visitors, and visiting the park also diminished, and in March 2003, just after a serious illness on her birthday, Song Meiling, who had a premonition that her life was coming to an end, came to Fencliff Cemetery accompanied by Kong Lingyi.
Song Meiling's apartment in New York
Kong Lingyi is the sister of Kong Lingwei, the second miss of Kong Lingwei, and with the death of Kong Lingwei, Kong Lingyi became the closest niece to Song Meiling.
The Fincliff Cemetery they saw, a century-old cemetery located 40 kilometers north of New York City, covers an area of about 260,000 square meters, and is one of the most famous cemeteries in the eastern United States.
From politicians to artists, NBA stars, to academics, to famous biographers, this cemetery is the final resting place for many New York celebrities.
Like other cemeteries in the United States, Fincliffe is divided into indoor burials and outdoor burials, and the cemeteries of the Kong and Song families are located here.
A corner of Fincliffe Cemetery
When Kong Lingyi pushed Song Meiling, who was in a wheelchair, to the hall, from here, looking down at the layers of cemeteries, you can see the familiar third floor, where her eldest sister Song Xiaoling and her husband Kong Xiangxi are buried.
After the death of his niece Kong Lingwei in Taiwan, the body was transported back to New York and buried here.
There is also Song Meiling's brother Song Ziwen, who died in 1971 and was finally buried next to his relatives after several turns.
Seeing that the relatives of kong and Song families were buried in a foreign country, Song Meiling, who was in love, was very sad in her heart, and she gently asked Kong Lingyi:
"Ling Yi, is this my cemetery?"
Kong Lingyi replied to her: "Yes aunt, this is your cemetery, and it is also the cemetery of our Kong and Song families." ”
And choosing to die in a foreign country, is it really Song Meiling's wish? Kong Lingyi later recalled that at that time, Song Meiling sighed with tears:
"Before the old man died, he told me that it was best to be buried in the mainland, and after my second sister died, she was buried in the old tomb of the Song family in Shanghai, but I no longer had this opportunity."
"Ling Yi, I hate politics, if I wasn't too keen on politics when I was young, why would I be buried here, I would have had a motherland!"
Sighing that song Meiling, who was about to bury her bones forever, did she also have the idea of returning to the roots of fallen leaves at that time? Because of the Song Cemetery in Shanghai, the parents of the three Song sisters are buried there.
Song Qingling, who longed to meet his sister before his death, was also buried next to his parents.
The three sisters of the Song clan
Since flying to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, Soong Mei-ling has never returned to the mainland of the motherland in her life, and later, due to political factors on both sides of the strait, she has been unable to personally go to the cemetery to worship her parents, and can only entrust others to pay tribute to her parents' cemetery on her behalf when she is homesick and worships her ancestors.
Now, after choosing a cemetery, it is destined to be buried in a foreign country after death, and the roots of the fallen leaves will be a dream that can never be realized.
Perhaps there is a destiny in the darkness, the wheel of history has not carried her to meet the arrival of the next year, not long after seeing the cemetery, one night in October 2003, 106-year-old Song Meiling quietly died in her sleep.
Her death was unexpected and painless, and it quietly ended her long life spanning three centuries, taking away more than a century of beauty and legend.
Before her death, Song Meiling left a classic quote:
"God let me live, I don't dare to die easily, God let me die, I will never live."
Now, no longer "meticulous", as she wished, after her death, according to the cemetery selected before her death, she and the relatives of the Kong and Song families were buried in another place forever.
Song Meiling's cemetery belongs to the indoor burial chamber in Fincliff Cemetery, located on the right hand side of the stairs on the third floor, only three meters square, using the method of indoor wall burial.
The wall burials allowed for maximum use of space, and ceiling-high niches were built on both sides of the hall to bury the remains or ashes.
The surface of the niche is studded with polished marble slabs and engraved in chinese and English gold font: Chiang Kai-shek, the wife of President Chiang Kai-shek - Chiang Soong Mei-ling.
Song Meiling's tomb in New York
When all the dust settled, there were still many legends in the outside world, and people were curious that Soong Mei-ling and Chiang Kai-shek spent the most stable quarter-century of their lives together in Taiwan.
After Chiang Kai-shek's death in 1975, the infinitely sad Soong Mei-ling decided to go to Taiwan to recuperate on the grounds of physical and mental exhaustion, and on the eve of leaving, she published a 3,000-word "Letter to All Malaysians".
The article recounts her life experience with Chiang Kai-shek in the 48 spring and autumn periods, and her deep affection is overflowing with words.
But why did she choose to be buried in New York instead of returning to Taiwan to be buried with Chiang Kai-shek?
Some people believe that before his death, Chiang Kai-shek instructed his descendants to temporarily keep his coffin in the palace on the banks of Cixi Lake in Daxi, Taiwan, because it was built much like his hometown in Xikou, Zhejiang.
After the reunification of the motherland, he buried his coffin back to the mainland, and he chose three places for himself to bury: one was located in the so-called "Navel Eye of Maitreya Buddha" in Xikou Town, Fenghua, Zhejiang Province. One is near Xikou Ren Lake, and the other is Nanjing Purple Mountain.
Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek's cemetery was not found well, and it was not really buried, so Song Meiling naturally could not be buried with him, and with the passage of time, Song Meiling lived alone in the United States for 30 years and then slowly changed her thinking.
Eventually, she bought a cemetery in New York and chose to be buried with her siblings in the Song family.
On the other hand, the reason is also related to her health, Song Meiling has had a serious decline in vision and hearing since 1978, and doctors believe that Taiwan's climate is not suitable for her, while the weather in New York is more suitable.
What's more, Song Meiling was once regarded as "the last spiritual symbol of the Chiang family", and her stay in the United States is equivalent to ending the influence of the Chiang family in Taiwan's political arena, which is presumably the reason why she chose to be buried in a foreign country.
In fact, with the death of Chiang Kai-shek, Song Meiling is like a rootless orchid, wandering in Taipei and New York, for her life immersed in glory, wealth and supreme power, in fact, it does not matter where she is buried.
Especially for a person like her who grew up in the United States and has a complete American education, New York may be more suitable for her, and it is a better place to be buried here.