Daddy's Long Journey

Ten years after the horror that unfolded in China's Tiananmen Square, one woman is still coping with the pain of losing her husband in the deadly attacks. CBS News Producer Andy Clarke filed this first-person report exclusively for CBS.com.

"I donÂ't want to talk to the camera," she says. "But please listen to my story."

		CHINA : 10 Years  A  F  T  E  R    T  I  A  N  A  N  M  E  N > An Interactive Guide to Modern China and the Massacre in Tiananmen Square.

SheÂ's not shy of the camera, but worried that the authorities might see the interview on television. SheÂ's been harassed before.
"I donÂ't want you to use my name," she says and then repeats, "but please listen to my story."

Her make-up is most probably a little heavy, but it hides ten-years of worry and sorrow. For it is ten-years since her husband was murdered.

Ten-years of her son asking: "Mummy, whereÂ's daddy?" Her reply, even to this day, is: "Your father is on a very long journey."

It was a journey that began in the early hours of June 4th, 1989 when a neighbor pounded on her front door shouting: "TheyÂ've opened fire!"

He was referring to the PeopleÂ's Liberation Army of China, who was clearing Tiananmen Square with deadly force.

She and her husband had supported the students in the square. "WeÂ'd even taken them food," she says.

They didnÂ't demonstrate, they werenÂ't actively involved. But like many Chinese at the time, they supported the idea of a more democratic, and corruption free, government.

But on that fateful morning in June, after the neighbor had knocked the door, her husband knew that his place was with the dying students in the square.

He dressed quickly and mounted his bike for the square. "Those fascists" were the last words she ever heard her husband say.

The tears begin to flow as she rmembers a decade ago as if it were yesterday. She wipes them away drawing from the strength that has kept her sane these past ten years.

Since June 4th, 1989 she has tried to gather as much information as possible about the circumstances of her husbandÂ's death. The Chinese authorities frown upon any kind of investigation into what they call the "Tiananmen incident."

To this day nobody is certain how many people were killed.

SheÂ's now certain of how her husband was murdered: "It was a single exploding bullet that killed him. A doctor who tried to treat him told me," she says. She also knows that he died while trying to help an injured student.

She says that her heart has hardened over the past ten years and that she "can only bury her pain in her heart and get on with life."

"I havenÂ't decided when I will tell my son what really happened to his father," she says. "But at some time heÂ'll have to listen my story."