Smiling at Life
She is a common peasant woman. The sorrow of losing her son made her nearly collapsed. The gray hair showed her grieved life, and the body became more curled after the death of her son. She was numbed except for the intermittently cry which told others her extreme suffering. Her eyes were dull and blank without any hope. I nearly failed to recognize her with such an appearance. She used to be optimistic and enthusiastic. She was a poor woman and encountered many unfortunate events which she unexpectedly went though them. In my mind, she used to smile to life whatever happened.When she was young she married her brother-in-law, a worker, after her sister had died. At that time, marring a worker was a good thing because there were fewer workers in the countryside; most of them were dependent on the earth. Maybe because of this her brother-in-law became her husband, thus began her life of frustrations.
She had five children: four daughters and one son. At the countryside, the hope of the family lied on the boys. Having a boy was treated as a duty of wife. Because of the continuous birth of her four daughters her parents-in-law insulted and humiliated her until the coming of her fifth child. After all she could stand tall and be equal to others.
At this time, an unfortunate thing happened. Her husband got a mental disorder. The backbone of the family collapsed and all the responsibility fell on her. She must support the family with the salary the factory provided for her husband. She became thin and weak but never complained about this. Every time I saw her I was impressed by her smile and active attitude to life.
Usually an unhappy thing doesn’t come alone. Her second daughter got a disease and was on the verge of death. She went to the famous doctors but they couldn’t diagnose the disease. Many people persuaded her to give up, but they failed. She kept looking for the folk remedy for her daughter. I always remembered the scenes that she put her dying daughter on her feeble and curled back to see a doctor. Maybe her spirit moved God her daughter miraculously recovered after several year’s treatment. She was so excited that all the misery disappeared immediately. The life had given her too much according to her words.
Happy days seemed past quickly. Her children grew old and three of her daughters had married. Her boy went to college. It seemed that she could live a relaxed life to compensate the suffering. However, the fact was not the same as we imagined. Her third daughter still brought trouble to her mother. She often quarreled with her husband and parents-in-law. After the quarrel, she just came back and complained to her mother. Her parents-in-law just imputed the daughter’s fault to the poor old woman. They ridiculed the poor woman. She tolerated all the bitterness silently because she wasn’t in favor of her daughter’s divorce.
When she still worried about her third daughter’s marriage, a fatal blow fell on her. Her son told her that sometimes he had a severe headache. She just thought maybe it’s trivial disease just like the cold so they didn’t pay much attention to it until once her son could bear the headache any more they went to the hospital. They were stunned by the result: he got brain tumor. She numbed and bitterly repented that why didn’t she concerned with her son’s words at first? She madly implored the doctor to save her son. He was only twenty years old and he was the hope of the family. She put all the money she could get to the hospital to save her son but the boy couldn’t come to her again. She was heartbroken. The hope in her mind for so many years collapsed so did she. She became obviously older. The smile used to exist in her face was substituted by the numbness.
What could the poor woman do? When her husband got disease, she wasn’t depressed; when her daughter was on the verge of the death, she didn’t give up; when she was ridiculed by her daughter’s parents-in-law, she didn’t complain; but this time, could she go through her son’s death? Whenever I thought of her, the impressed things in my mind were her energetic smile and the spirit underlying the smile.
She was a common peasant woman but the courage to face life optimistically was worth learning. Many of us complain the unfairness of fate when we meet frustrations in life. If she were us, how much complaints should she have? Life is fair to everyone and each of us will meet various frustrations. Since frustration in life is inevitable, why cannot we smile to it? I do hope to see the hopeful smile on the poor woman’s face also on everyone’s.
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