Niu Ming, a special prisoner I met during my correctional career, was sentenced to six years in prison for bribery in 2013 and then paroled for donating a kidney to save his daughter.
After Niu Ming’s kidney donation for his daughter was successful, his ex-wife and daughter Niu Xiaohui also came to the prison together to express their gratitude. When I received them, Niu Xiaohui’s health had almost recovered and she told me her complicated feelings for her father in the original way.
After communicating with several people involved, I decided to record this special “atonement” story.
1
In the prison interview room, Niu Ming’s hand was frozen in his grip on the phone, and tears kept slipping down the cheeks of this middle-aged man in his 40s. After that meeting, Niu Ming seemed to be a different person, distracted by everything he did, and often hid under the covers at night with tears. One day after dinner, I called him into the conversation room.
“What’s wrong, what’s going on at home?” I opened the door.
Niu Ming first bowed his head, suddenly his nose twitched and he shed tears again: “Officer, what should I do ……” A relative brought the unfortunate news – his only daughter was suffering from Uremia, currently has kidney necrosis symptoms, is now on dialysis to maintain life. This sudden news almost broke him.
At that time, Niu Ming has served three years in prison, whenever there are relatives to visit the prison, he will always be through the thick glass window, stretching his neck to find his daughter’s figure, but he knows that this is almost a luxury. His daughter has always been reluctant to see him – not because he is a criminal, but because she can not tolerate his betrayal of his family.
Earlier, a relative visiting him told him that his daughter had gotten into college as she had hoped, and he was happy for her from the bottom of his heart. But the relatives just couldn’t bear to tell him the truth – that his daughter was found to have uremia during the university entrance physical examination. It was only after searching for a kidney source for more than a year without a clue that the relatives revealed the truth to Niu Ming. Niu Ming was devastated.
He cried and told me that the last time he saw his daughter was in 2011.
On that day, the first snowfall of winter was falling from the sky. Niu Ming, holding an umbrella, a fashionable, elegant young woman holding him, the two of them laughing and talking towards the gate of a high-end community. And more than 10 hours at the door to guard the Niu Xiaohui, has long been shivering. The sudden appearance of this scene in front of her eyes, so just entered high school daughter instantly understood the reason why her father often does not return home, she rushed over in anger, grabbed the woman’s hair, pulling it away from her father’s side, due to excessive force, the woman fell on the snow. Then, Niu Xiaohui dragged her father to leave.
The young woman sat on the ground and suddenly shouted with a sobbing voice: “Niu Ming, if you dare to leave me today, you will never see me again, I will make you eat your words!” Niu Ming was in a difficult position, turned around to reach out to help again.
Niu Xiaohui saw his father could not let go of the woman, crying and turned and ran, and not long after the figure disappeared in the flurry of snowflakes. After that, father and daughter have never seen each other again.
As a highly educated prisoner in our sub-prison, Niu Ming has attracted my special attention since he was admitted to the prison. After a detailed visit to his criminal experience and personal family situation, I also got a general understanding of his rapidly changing life circumstances.
In the 1990s, the 20-year-old Niu Ming entered the military, and 10 years later was a full company-level cadre. Since he had been engaged in financial work, he was assigned to work in a local bank in a city in northern Anhui Province after he was transferred. With a business foundation, coupled with the rigorous work style honed by the army, the performance of a few years down the line is evident to all. Within a few years, he was promoted to be the branch head.
As a branch leader, holding the power to issue loans, it is natural to come to “burn incense and worship Buddha”. At that time, the mainland’s real estate by the influence of the coastal open areas, also began to gradually heat up, the return on investment is very high. Some developers in order to get the land, have eight immortals over the sea, play all the means for bank loans. The boss of a company headquartered in Shenzhen, in order to raise funds to take the new city land, tossed to the dock of Niu Ming.
The boss also came from the army, and expressed one after another how he and Niu Ming “met at first sight”, and just met and sent a bankbook of 50,000 yuan, asking Niu Ming to smile – this was not a small amount at that time, equivalent to the sum of Niu Ming’s one-year salary bonus – Niu Ming hastily declined.
After a few days, the boss asked the driver to send materials in the name of Niu Ming office, took the opportunity to fill the 50,000 yuan of kraft paper bags stuffed under the writing desk. Niu Ming found, immediately let the office director and the branch driver together, the kraft paper bag returned unopened.
The boss saw that Niu Ming refused to “go under”, worried that Niu Ming verbally promised the loan, it would be bad, so he changed his tactics and invited Niu Ming to go down to the headquarters instead – field inspection of the basic situation of the loan enterprise, is the regular procedure of credit investigation, Niu Ming was invited to go with the relevant personnel of the credit business department, responsible for the reception of the company’s public relations manager Hua Xin.
After graduating from university, Hua Xin has worked in the company for five years, and has also studied business etiquette in Hong Kong, and is best at acutely capturing the psychological trajectory of the customer’s speech and demeanor, not only in the reception process to make the customer feel like a spring, but also unobtrusively guide the customer to reach an agreement in accordance with the company’s intentions.
Professionalism allows Hua Xin in a very short period of time to eliminate the divide with Niu Ming, the two soon “talk to each other”. At a certain point in time, Hua Xin offhandedly told Niu Ming, 50,000 yuan in their company profits, just a little “hairy”, as a hint that he can feel safe to put the money into his pocket.
The trip to Shenzhen, the biggest gain for Niu Ming is not the prosperity of the South, nor the little “drizzle”, but Huaxin. The boss of the company also shortly after the appointment of Hua Xin for Niu Ming’s city branch vice president, in charge of financing matters.
Huaxin resume new, already “good friends” of Niu Ming naturally to send a gift. With the help of Niu Ming’s relentless guidance, the company successfully got a loan from Niu Ming’s branch. The relationship between Niu Ming and Hua Xin also warmed up quickly, and later simply rented a room outside to live together.
“When Hua Xin arrived here to work, I understood that my life and this woman has been inseparable.” When the prison education talk, Niu Ming lamented, “I actually hesitated, if I was just an ordinary working class, Hua Xin is categorically will not give up the prosperity of the big city to come here. But once a person falls into a sinful relationship, it is like being in a quagmire, it is difficult to extricate oneself. It’s me, I’ve ruined my family alive ……”
2
Before his daughter went to high school, Niu Ming’s family was exemplary.
The wife, Sun Xiaomei, returned to the area with her husband who had changed jobs and was placed in an enterprise as an accountant. Despite her busy schedule, the two of them always made time for their daughter, who grew up learning piano and guzheng. Whenever there was an event, the couple would always take turns to take time off work to accompany their daughter; in their free time, they would also respect their daughter’s independent arrangements. Under the care of her parents, Niu Xiaohui successfully enrolled in a major high school.
However, not long after, Niu Xiaohui found that her father, who was originally very home-loving, came home less and less often, and even when he came back occasionally, he arrived home later and later. What made her heart sink was that her mother was often in a trance, lost, moody, and often cried alone in the middle of the night.
One time, Niu Xiaohui was punished by her mother for not finishing her homework and went out to play for a while when she got home – something that had never happened before in Niu Xiaohui’s memory – and her mother shouted at her daughter: “It’s easy for me to bring you up. Is it easy to raise you? Now you do not study well, but also and your father came together to gas me ……” words have not finished, the mother cried into tears.
Niu Xiaohui rushed forward to hug her mother, comforting her while repeatedly asking what had happened at home. The mother half swallowed and half spit out to tell her daughter that there is a vixen out there who has charmed her father, and her father does not want the family anymore.
Niu Xiaohui was determined to bring her father back.
One Friday, Niu Xiaohui called her father and said that now the task of studying is very heavy, some homework she can not do, so that her father does not just focus on work, forgetting all about his daughter, or take time to come back to tutor their homework. She falsely told Niu Ming on the phone that her mother was going on a business trip this weekend and that her father must come back to stay with her.
Early in the morning of the weekend, Niu Ming hurried home, entered the door and explained to his daughter that the recent unit things are particularly large, said they took out several high school study materials, sat down with Niu Xiaohui look together. But less than half an hour, Niu Ming’s phone began to one after another, the message is also constantly, Niu Ming took the phone hesitant half a day, said to his daughter: “homework you still think about it, today’s unit really something, I have to go.” After saying that, he drove away.
Niu Xiaohui quietly followed out and called a cab to follow behind her father’s car. After following a few streets, Niu Xiaohui found that Dad did not go to the unit at all, but drove straight into an upscale neighborhood. Niu Xiaohui wanted the driver to follow him in, but was stopped by the community gatekeeper. She had to get out of the car and wait for her dad to reappear at the entrance of a kiosk near the community gate.
It was cold that day, and the sky was soon filled with snowflakes. 10 hours had passed, and the sky was getting dark. The owner of the kiosk had come out several times and asked, “What are you waiting for, little girl?” Niu Xiaohui kept vaguely saying, “Nothing, it’s coming.
Just when Niu Xiaohui was about to give up, she suddenly saw a strange woman holding her father’s arm and walking towards the neighborhood gate. For a moment, aggression, anger, resentment together, she angrily pounced on ……
That night after returning home, Niu Xiaohui had a fever. Sun Xiaomei was worried and wanted to take her to the hospital, but Niu Xiaohui refused on the grounds that she did not want to delay her homework and just ate a few cold pills. The next day, Niu Xiaohui sat dizzily in the classroom until her fever reached nearly 40 degrees, her limbs were sore and weak, and she finally fainted in the classroom …… When she opened her eyes, she was already in the hospital ward.
As a result of not getting timely treatment, Niu Xiaohui contracted pneumonia. Niu Xiaohui in the hospital bed asked her mother, “Did Dad come?” Sun Xiaomei turned her face away and did not say anything.
Niu Xiaohui took her mother’s hand and cried, “Mom, I’m sorry ……” before talking about taking it upon herself to follow her father.
Sun Xiaomei could not bear to blame her daughter, said comfortingly: “You fainted at school, the school sent you to the hospital, I received notice and rushed over. Called your father, he just turned off his phone, until now do not know that you are hospitalized, otherwise will certainly come to see you.”
Niu Xiaohui was hospitalized these days, Niu Ming never made a phone call to her or Sun Xiaomei. “Does he still have himself as a daughter in his heart?” Pain, loss, and resentment are tangled together, and her father has become more and more unfamiliar in Niu Xiaohui’s heart.
The redemption of a father serving a prison sentence
When mother and daughter returned home again, the sofa and coffee table were covered with dust – Niu Ming had not been home these days either. Soon, Sun Xiaomei received a courier from the postman: a divorce agreement.
3
Since his daughter bumped into him, Niu Ming was extremely conflicted, both worried about what would happen to his daughter and afraid that Hua Xin would leave him, after weighing his options, he decided to stabilize Hua Xin first.
After Hua Xin was pushed to the ground by Niu Xiaohui, she simply did not do anything and let Niu Ming choose between himself and his wife. Hua Xin forced Niu Ming to get a divorce on the grounds that she had aborted twice for him, and forbade Niu Ming to contact his family anymore, or answer their calls, and even took away his cell phone directly.
In April 2012, Niu Ming and Sun Xiaomei went through an agreed divorce. Niu Ming got out of the house and Niu Xiaohui voluntarily followed her mother.
Niu Ming, freed from the bonds of marriage, fell deep into the strange circle of Hua Xin’s so-called “high-end life” in a flash. In order to meet Hua Xin’s endless desire, but also to prove their own bravado, Niu Ming finally desperate: a boss Gao in order to solve the acquisition of a company.
A boss, Gao, to solve the problem of acquiring a 4S store loan, gave Niu Ming 500,000 Hong Kong dollars, and said: “This is paid from my sole proprietorship of the Hong Kong company, how to go through the accounts I say. Your support for me is great, the company’s efficiency is also good, there is money for everyone to earn.” Niu Ming hardly hesitated to accept the bribe from Gao, and then tried to mediate to help him get the loan in violation of the law.
Only, high in the project acquisition process frequent mistakes, loan repayment problems, resulting in the east. Niu Ming was also sentenced to six years in prison for taking bribes from non-state employees.
After Niu Ming’s arrest, Hua Xin soon reapplied for a transfer back to the company’s Shenzhen headquarters.
“In response to your rehabilitation performance at the beginning of your admission, we specifically visited to learn about your situation.” At the time of the prison education talk, looking at Niu Ming still worried about Hua Xin’s recent situation, I told him what I had learned. He froze with his mouth wide open, unwilling to believe for a moment.
“The good thing is that your daughter is not beaten down by family changes, she is strong.” I said comfortingly.
After the divorce, Niu Xiaohui never picked up Niu Ming’s phone again. To give her mother and herself a fighting chance, she studied hard and eventually enrolled in China Pharmaceutical University in 2014.
Just before Niu Xiaohui enrolled in college, Sun Xiaomei was laid off and was introduced to a job, often going on business trips. When the university started, Niu Xiaohui went to the school alone to report, just off the train, she felt extremely tired, nausea and weakness, almost fainted, limbs with a slight swelling. Niu Xiaohui thought it was due to sitting on the train for a long time without moving.
After a few days, in accordance with the customary admissions physical examination of new students, a doctor told Niu Xiaohui: “Your physical condition is abnormal, temporarily can not be normal admissions, need to do further examination.” Niu Xiaohui froze, and her counselor took her to the director of the school hospital, who explained that Niu Xiaohui’s body phosphoric acid, sulfuric acid and other substances in serious excess, signs of acidosis is very obvious, suspected of suffering from uremia, the hospital is reflecting the situation to the school leadership.
Niu Xiaohui was terrified and did not dare to call her mother to tell her that the school had sent her to the provincial hospital for further medical tests, and three days later, the results came out. The director of the school hospital took a pile of labs and slowly explained to her the meaning of the indicators, and finally told her very politely that she could not avoid the fact that she was diagnosed with uremia. The counselor then helped her dial her mother’s phone number.
Upon receiving the news that her daughter was seriously ill, Sun Xiaomei put down the business she was negotiating and hurried to the school. At that time, Niu Xiaohui was already lying in the provincial hospital and was doing hemodialysis. At the end of the first dialysis, Niu Xiaohui had a splitting headache and vomited more than once. Sun Xiaomei, who was standing by, was distraught and asked the doctor, who explained that it was because Niu Xiaohui was in poor health and had a dialysis imbalance syndrome, and that she might get better after a while.
The doctor looked at Sun Xiaomei and added that Niu Xiaohui has gradually developed symptoms of kidney necrosis and the metabolic function of the kidneys has been lost, so she needs to rely on dialysis to sustain her life. After this dialysis is done, it will be done every 2-3 days in the future. The best solution now is to transplant a suitable kidney and do a kidney replacement surgery, which can prolong life to the maximum. However, kidney replacement requires a matching kidney source and a certain amount of financial support.
Before the doctor finished explaining, Sun Xiaomei felt that the sky was falling and cried out in pain.
Seeing Sun Xiaomei’s intense reaction, the doctor reassured her that the survival period of uremic patients in many dialysis centers in China is more than 10 to 20 years, and there are cases of survival for more than 30 years abroad.
After learning that immediate relatives are the best choice of kidney source, Sun Xiaomei went for a blood test at the first time and told her daughter, “If the match is successful, mom will transplant a kidney to you.”
A week later, the test results were disheartening: Sun Xiaomei and Niu Xiaohui were a low match, and if she transplanted a kidney to her daughter, not only would she not be able to save her daughter’s life, but she might also have a life-threatening condition.
The doctor told Sun Xiaomei that the only hope now is to wait for a kidney source or find one, waiting for a kidney source is like waiting for a rabbit, the hope is very slim and the patient may not be able to support herself before she can wait. Then asked Sun Xiaomei politely, “Where is the child’s father?”
Sun Xiaomei’s tears slid across her cheeks, “In prison.”
4
When Niu Ming learned that his daughter had not gone to college at all, but was in the hospital waiting for a kidney to save her life, he was overcome with remorse.
In the prison interview room, Niu Ming sat across from me, unable to control his emotions: “Officer, I’m the one who caused them to suffer, both mother and daughter. If I take good care of them, how can my daughter be young and have this disease …… Officer, you must help me! I can donate a kidney for my daughter, I can save her life!”
“Niu Ming, don’t be too anxious, we will help you understand the details of the situation as soon as possible.” I comforted Niu Ming.
The heavy burden of thought made Niu Ming not at all interested in reformation. He knew that because of his own fault, the mother and daughter would not take the initiative to contact him. In his own words, even if he had to die, as long as he could get back his daughter’s health, he would be willing to do so. Afterwards, he repeatedly approached the prison police, pleading to help him contact his ex-wife Sun Xiaomei.
The prison also held several meetings specifically for the special difficulties faced by Niu Ming’s family, and decided to treat him as a special helper and give him the necessary help.
In order to further clarify the condition of Niu Ming’s daughter, the prison police contacted Sun Xiaomei and told her about Niu Ming’s wish to donate a kidney for his daughter. Knowing this news, Sun Xiaomei hesitated, telling the police that she did not want to have anything to do with Niu Ming when she thought of the hardships she and her daughter had suffered over the past few years.
The police were reluctant to give up their efforts, after all, if this kidney donation is successful, not only to save Niu Xiaohui, Niu Ming is also a kind of salvation – it is conceivable that if Niu Ming failed to donate a kidney to save his daughter, he will not only be unable to come out from the great pain, it is impossible to talk about rehabilitation.
In order to convince Sun Xiaomei, the prison police, together with friends and relatives, persuaded that his daughter is innocent, and now he is donating a kidney for her is also atonement, if because of the rejection of this extremely rare opportunity, so that his daughter’s disease does not get better treatment, is not the wrong on top of the wrong?
Sun Xiaomei finally agreed.
The prison immediately arranged for prison guards to accompany Niu Ming to the hospital for blood testing and matching, the final results came out, Niu Xiaohui and Niu Ming have 6-7 points of compatibility, the transplant success rate is very high, can proceed to do transplant preparation.
At the same time, Sun Xiaomei, who was informed of the news, was worried that her daughter, who resented her father, would refuse, so she temporarily hid the truth and only told her daughter that she had found a matching kidney source, which a kind-hearted person was willing to donate for free. Due to human organ transplant privacy regulations, the hospital could not tell the source of the donor. She told her daughter to get well first.
After the successful kidney match between Niu Ming and his daughter, the prison immediately reported the special situation to the Prison Administration of the provincial prison administration, hoping to get support, however, this crucial step encountered difficulties that were difficult to cross. Because according to the relevant documents of the Ministry of Justice, “prisoners are not suitable for organ transplantation”, the provincial prison administration then rejected the request of the prison in accordance with the terms of the document.
“Unless Niu Ming is not serving a prison sentence, he can undergo kidney transplant surgery.” The authorities finally offered a solution.
How can we help Niu Ming legally and compliantly realize his wish to donate a kidney to save his daughter? The prison once again convened a meeting of prison management, sentence enforcement, policy research, legal education and other departments to study specific methods.
The meeting that day lasted more than 3 hours, after the discussion, let Niu Ming out of prison to donate a kidney for his daughter, there are only 3 ways to reduce the sentence, parole or medical parole according to the law. If you wait for the sentence to be commuted, according to the conditions of Niu Ming at that time, it is impossible to reduce all, which means that after the sentence is reduced, you have to wait for the completion of the sentence to be released, at least one and a half years, the patient’s physical condition does not allow; medical parole although you can quickly get freedom, but this is for suffering from difficult diseases, incapacitated, unable to take care of themselves in prison, Niu Ming no disease, no pain, how possible The only way to get medical parole? Finally, there is only one way left – parole.
(Parole: a system of conditional early release of criminals sentenced to fixed-term or life imprisonment, after a certain period of execution, for compliance with prison rules, education and rehabilitation, serious illness or genuine repentance, not to endanger society.)
At that time, Niu Ming’s sentence had just passed the halfway mark, and although his usual rehabilitation performance was positive, at that time, the parole policy for prison inmates had not yet been liberalized, so the probability of Niu Ming being able to handle it successfully was small. Considering the special situation of Niu Ming, the meeting finally decided to hold on to a ray of hope and help Niu Ming declare parole to the court according to the procedure.
More than 1 month later, after verification and evidence by the Provincial Prison Bureau, as a special case for Niu Ming to start the parole declaration process, and get the prosecutor’s office, the court review support, and finally the court heard and ruled to agree to Niu Ming’s parole application in accordance with the law.
In mid-summer, after getting the parole ruling, Niu Ming immediately went to Shanghai Ruijin Hospital for a physical examination. After the examination results came out, the doctor told him with slight regret that Niu Ming carried a virus in his blood and had to be cured before he could donate a kidney, otherwise it would affect the kidney transplantation effect.
Time is life, and at this moment, Niu Ming really felt the weight of this statement. In order to buy time, Niu Ming repeatedly pleaded with the doctor to increase the dosage of medicine. The doctor also understood that time was running out and gradually increased the dosage of medication within his body’s tolerance, while suggesting some supplementary physical therapy measures and physical exercises. Due to the prolonged overuse of drugs, Niu Ming once vomited, swelling and other symptoms, but “for my daughter, the pain is worth it”, Niu Ming repeatedly said to the doctor.
After nearly 1 year of treatment, the virus in Niu Ming’s body was completely removed. However, a healthy kidney source was available, and the operation cost of more than 200,000 yuan became a roadblock. After learning about their difficulties, the prison police launched a crowdfunding campaign online, and with the love from all walks of life, the operation fee was found.
The surgery was finally scheduled for March 2018.
A week before the surgery, Niu Xiaohui came to Shanghai Ruijin Hospital accompanied by her mother. At 9 a.m. on the day of the surgery, the nurse injected anesthetic into Niu Xiaohui and she quickly fell asleep. In order to take a close and careful look at his daughter, Niu Ming carried the anesthetic until the nurse pushed her daughter next to him, and only then did she sleep peacefully ……
When Niu Xiaohui woke up, it was the day after the surgery. Sun Xiaomei told her daughter that the surgery had gone well and that there had been no rejection. There was no need to hide it anymore, she told her daughter, “The man who kindly donated a kidney to you is your father.” Niu Xiaohui was stunned for a moment, and tears fell down.
Because of the fear that when father and daughter met, they might have an accident because of the excitement, the hospital arranged them in different wards to resume treatment after the operation, and Sun Xiaomei looked after her ex-husband and daughter back and forth on both sides of the ward.
After 2 months, Niu Xiaohui was able to get up and do some basic activities. Niu Ming, on the other hand, was slow to recover due to his age and was still lying in a hospital bed convalescing. When Niu Xiaohui saw her, father and daughter had been separated for more than 6 years. Niu Ming reached out and stroked his daughter’s head, opened and closed his lips and said, “Daughter, are you willing to forgive your father?”
In the early summer, both father and daughter were discharged from the hospital. After many years, Niu Ming finally came home.
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